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	Photo: Jennifer Downey

Our Own Universe

You know that feeling that starts to sink in after you’ve lived in Alameda for a while? It’s kind of like you don’t want to leave the Island?
    John Costello knows that feeling, and it all goes back to his mother and growing up on Bay Farm Island.
“The only rule was you couldn’t leave the Island,” he says. And so he doesn’t. Or not very often.
“Honestly, if there was a Costco and a Home Depot here, I would never leave the Island,” says Costello, 54.
What is it that keeps us Alamedans on the Island? We perfect the insular way of life, shopping at neighborhood markets and eschewing malls for Mervyns. We might consider leaving the Island, but suddenly we realize, “I can get that here.”
    Doctors, dentists, chiropractors, even psychics are here. There are schools, grocery stores, a Trader Joe’s, even wineries. Heck, we are our own little universe. It doesn’t matter to us that one of the greatest cities in the world, San Francisco, is a mere 14 miles away by car, even closer by ferry.
    Kellie Denney, a mother of two and fourth-generation Alamedan, leaves the Island now and then to do some major shopping. When she does, she arms herself with maps, to ensure she finds her way back. Her husband, Bob Denney, is relentless when it comes to teasing her.
    “Kellie’s leaving Alameda,” he jokes. “She better get her passport.”

Geographically Speaking

Talk to a psychologist—on the Island, naturally—and you’ll understand that we’re all in this boat together. There are boundaries—water, bridges, tunnels, freeways—that physically keep us on this little spit of land we call home.
    “We’re not just a bunch of bridge and tunnel phobics,” says Linda Avery, a psychologist, who relocated here 15 years ago from New England and may never go back.
    “Particularly since I’ve had kids and I work here, I get it,” says Avery, who confesses to avoiding leaving the Island. “It does turn into a little bit of a psychological phenomenon.”
    Because Alameda is geographically separate, it makes us all think twice about going anywhere, apparently. Plus, we like it here—better than anywhere else, really.
    “There are certain things that become barriers, and Alameda is like a safe container,” offers Avery.
“It’s a safe little place,” she says. “And it’s the predictability. I know it’s seven minutes until I get home. You count on that predictability, which makes it safe.”
    Look at the faces of people driving through the Webster Tube into Alameda, Avery suggests. Often, you see a desire to return to the Island; drivers hit the gas and are flying by the time they come out of the tube.
“Without sounding too shrinkish, most of us are looking for some sense of belonging or community,” she says. “Alameda is like a safety net, a safe leaving and coming back.”

Because We Can

Costello left once, 34 years ago. For a month. But working on tugboats in Florida wasn’t for him, and he returned to Alameda. Today, he owns McGee’s Bar & Grill, named for his mother, Margaret.
    Turns out, in this small world that we call Alameda, the Denneys met at McGee’s, which Bob Denney lived above while going to the University of California, Berkeley. Bob Denney, who hails from Southern California, doesn’t get the whole island thing. He works in Sunnyvale.
    On the other hand, Kellie Denney, 40, was born at Alameda Hospital and grew up on Bay Farm Island and later on High Street in her grandparents’ former house. The Denneys live on the East End of Alameda, near the sailboats at the Bay Farm Bridge.
“If I don’t have to leave, I don’t want to leave,” she says, enjoying tea one morning in the garden at Julie’s Coffee & Tea.
Why?
“I stay because I can,” she says simply. “There’s no reason to leave.”

The Mayberry Factor

Kim and Tim McKeon both leave Alameda to go to work, but that’s it. She works as a firefighter at San Francisco International Airport, and he drives a truck. Oh, they may also drive to the mountains occasionally, but it’s usually only for a couple days, not an extended vacation.
    “I wanted to move to a farm when I had kids,” said Kim McKeon, 38, who was living in San Francisco when they married. They have two daughters. “This is close enough to a metro area, but this is Mayberry. I don’t have to venture any further.”
    Tim McKeon often walks to the Chestnut-Encinal Market in his Central Alameda neighborhood to buy groceries for dinner, and he might check out Brown Brothers for his shoes. “My wardrobe comes straight from Mervyns,” he points out.
    Avery buys her clothes at Mervyns, too. “I think if I didn’t live here, I wouldn’t be a Mervyns shopper, but now I say, ‘It’ll work.’ ”

Abandoning Ship

Sometime during high school, the feeling about staying in Alameda changes. Lots of Alameda teens can’t wait to get off the Island.
    “I just kind of want to branch out,” says Annalise Reichert, 15, who has lived here all her life and chose to go to high school at Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland.
    “I wanted to go up to O’Dowd to get something different,” she says. “And I love it.”
    Her father, Dennis Reichert, 46, moved here when he was 1 and hasn’t left since—except to go to college at the University of California, Riverside. He grew up five blocks from the Burbank Street house he lives in today.
    “It was never a consideration to go anywhere else for high school, let alone leave the Island when I was a kid,” says Reichert, who played baseball, basketball and football at Encinal High School.
    These days, Avery, whose work is with children, teens and family, hears it all the time. “Most of the teenagers can’t wait to get off the Island. Everybody’s going nowhere here, they say.”
    The predictability that keeps us centered here is precisely what drives them away, Avery says.
And, if you’ve been wondering, most twentysomethings and some people in their early 30s think Alameda is simply a place where you can’t get a decent haircut. They all go to San Francisco for theirs, and they definitely aren’t shopping for their wardrobes here.

Hometown Homerism

But after a while, a lot of them cross a bridge, take a boat or come through the tube and come back to settle down.
    “Alameda lends itself to creating a family feel,” says Avery. “For most of us, that’s what we want.”
Of course, there are two things you can’t do in Alameda: be born or buried. Alameda Hospital, where Kellie Denney and John Costello were both born, no longer has a maternity unit. And there are no cemeteries on the Island, which sits just a few feet above sea level. Still, loyal Alamedans spend the years between birth and death firmly rooted in the sandy soil.
    And that’s because Alameda is like a family, Avery points out. We want to stay here because it’s safe, predictable and convenient. When we become teenagers, we rebel and strike off on our own. Eventually, some of us come back home, though. And the Island family is happy to have us back.
     “The more people you keep in Alameda, the better it is for us,” says Costello. “We can withstand a lot of people, as long as they’re not rushing off the Island every day.” 

12 Good Reasons to Stay Put

1. Time it takes to drive to Mervyns from a neighborhood in the West End: six minutes.
From the Gold Coast: three minutes. From the East End: two minutes.

2. The wait in line at Jim’s Coffee Shop or Ole’s Waffle Shop for breakfast on
a Saturday: 15-20 minutes. On a Sunday: 20-25 minutes.

3. The wait in line at Starbucks and Peet’s for coffee on Monday morning: 17 minutes.
At the Beanery: less than one minute.

4. The number of nail bins at Pagano’s: 52 (plus hundreds of bins of nuts, bolts, screws
and washers).

5. The time it takes for the ladies who work at Encinal Hardware to find the perfect fuses for your furnace and a tiny can of sewing machine oil: four minutes.

6. The types of barrels used to make wine at Rosenblum Cellars: More than 20, including French oak, American oak and even barrels from Australia, Hungary and Russia.

7. Places to get your hair cut in Alameda: at least 30, including 20 on Park Street and nine on Webster Street.

8. When the Park Street drawbridge opens, the amount of time you’ll sit in traffic: about eight to 10 minutes (longer if there’s more than one boat going through).

9. Speed limit in Alameda: 25 mph.

10. What a nickel will get you: Six minutes in a parking meter on Webster Street.

11. Musicals performed by Alameda Civic Light Opera in its 10-year history: 31. The only shows repeated in that decade are A Chorus Line and Jesus Christ Superstar.

12. Claim to fame for Chuck Corica Golf Course: Serves more rounds of golf than any other golf complex in the East Bay. A bargain: All kids who are residents of Alameda play for $1.