Scene & Heard

The corner of 51st Street and Telegraph Avenue might normally conjure images of fried chicken and buttery rolls with sides of coleslaw and cookies from Bakesale Betty, but this time of year, it’s all about the Christmas tree at this intersection. The smells of cedar and pine hit tree-shoppers as they are greeted with a wall of green at the Simonis Quality Christmas tree lot entrance and begin their search through the labyrinth of trees for the perfect evergreen.

Are you looking for the perfect Christmas present? Something unique? If the answer is yes, then Reed Brothers Security, at 46th and Telegraph, is the place where you would find this gift. The store, which specializes in locks and other security devices, has those last few items that you can check off your Christmas list. I’m not personally in a dire need of a stun gun, but to each her own.

This sign, a warning to distracted parents, is posted on the wall in the Good News Cafe on 17th St near Lake Merritt. Would you like a pastry with that?

A flock of pigeons stands watch on a chilly morning in Bushrod.

It was a quiet afternoon last week around 2 p.m. on San Pablo Avenue. No one was on the play ground. Very few pedestrians on the sidewalk, but this rusty wire fence and the old playground sign caught my eye.

You see the darnedest things in Northwestern Oakland during an evening constitutional. That’s how we happened upon this heap of raiment on Sunday night on Genoa Street near 56th. This curious clump of clothes reads like the droppings of some afternoon wanderer who, seeing that it was opposite day, elected to obey the inverse of the old adage, “No shoes, no shirt, no service.”