Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Fantasy World - Or Not

I came from The Land of the Walking Dead. It consisted of The Island That Wasn't, The Island That Isn't, and The Unknown Island.

That sounds like something from a fantasy novel, doesn't it? But it's actually true.

I used to live in Alameda, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Back in the 1800s they called it The Land of the Walking Dead because the water table was so high there could be no graves and all bodies had to be buried in nearby Oakland.

Originally the main island was a small peninsula extending into San Francisco Bay, but near the beginning of the twentieth century a channel for boats was dredged through making that part of the small city into an island. I call it The Island That Wasn't.

Bay Farm Island was originally an island but the area between it and Oakland was filled in so it's now actually a peninsula connected to Oakland. There's only a short bridge connecting it to the rest of Alameda. So now I call it The Island That Isn't.

Coast Guard Island is the third part of Alameda. Most of it is taken up by the United States Coast Guard Base and it can only be reached from the rest of Alameda either by water or by driving across a bridge to Oakland, then crossing another bridge a few blocks away. Most residents of Alameda have never been there, so I call it The Unknown Island.

Okay, I must admit my writerly imagination has been active here. If you were to use your imagination to describe your home town what might you say about it?

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