Saying Goodbye to the Arena

Places maintain the illusion of permanence better than most things in life. Seasons come and go. People’s faces inevitably show the years. But buildings and landscapes — particularly municipally owned concrete bunkers surrounded by acres of parking lots, freeways, junkyards and toxic slurry ditches — hold their form on a slightly longer scale. There is comfort in returning to a place, year after year, and finding it largely undisturbed. We can measure our change by those places, because they stay the same. Over the past 35 years, I’ve sat in the Oakland Alameda Coliseum Arena and seen the worst, then the best, the sport of basketball has to offer. I’ve watched those games sitting next to some of my favorite people in the world. That unchanging building, remarkable only in its drab utilitarianism, has been a jewel box that holds some of my most beautiful memories. But nothing is permanent, and now it’s time to say goodbye to the Arena. I’ll miss it dearly.

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