'Going Home': Ron Claiborne Returns to Oakland, Calif.

Sept. 29, 2010 — -- I was born in San Francisco but lived there only two days, which is when my mother and father brought me home to Oakland. Oakland, the city across the bay forever in the shadow of San Francisco, would be my hometown for the next seven years, when my family moved to Los Angeles.

Since I was a young child during the time I lived in Oakland, my memories are pretty hazy and episodic. But to this day I have a very vivid sense of growing up in a world that now seems idyllic. The street we lived on, Calmar Avenue, sits atop the ridge of a hill just north of Lake Merritt. The homes are large but not opulent. The street was quiet and tree-lined. It sounds like a cliche, but people really did know their neighbors and left their front doors unlocked.

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My best friend was a kid named Ocie Henderson, who lived across the street from us with his mother and two older brothers. His father died when Ocie was just 3. In the 1950s, this was an integrated street, which I only later would come to realize was unusual.

Down the hill from where we lived were Lake Shore and Grand Avenues, the commercial district of our neighborhood consisting of small shops and a smattering of restaurants. Where Lake Shore and Grand converged was the palatial Grand Lake Theater, and next door to it a hamburger stand. My brother Keith, a year older than me, and I saw our first movies at the Grand Lake.

Going back to Oakland always feels like going home. Last week, I went home on assignment for "World News" to report on how Oakland had changed since I'd lived there and, in particular, how it had fared during the latest economic recession.