Shea joined me in a celebration of local success in saving lives from tobacco in Oakland. Advocates with our coalition led by LGBTQ Minus Tobacco were instrumental in a new ordinance for smoke-free bar patios there. Hopefully, San Francisco will soon follow so that more lives can be saved from Big Tobacco. Now patrons and staff at bars can safely traverse the open spaces without being subjected to toxic smoke as is the case in restaurants already.

I love the mosaic art in this community center on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland where we gathered.

Most people know that I’m a second-generation Californian and most of my rearing when we were not in NYC, Spain, and Italy was in the East Bay, so the same county as Oakland. Oakland has long been a leading large city in the effort to reduce death by tobacco, even though this is the area we were living in when my father died from his tobacco addiction. He only lived to be 50 years old, as did his mom who also died of tobacco-related illness.