My name is Steven Kolden and I've lived on Greenridge Road since 1968 (42 years). I am very happy to call this community my home.

The Bottom of Greenridge

One of my earliest memories is waiting for the school bus at the bottom of the hill to take us to Independent Elementary. The busses did not come up the hill until I was in 5th grade. The bottom of the hill was a little different than it is today. The part where you would make a right turn onto Crow Canyon when coming down the hill was both the entry and exit for Greenridge. The triangle part had a lot of trees. One tree in particular was like a little hut. It had a small entry like a door. When you went inside you would see a room made of leaves. The room was about 8 feet tall and about 6 feet wide. The branches and leaves felt like the wall of a circular room. We had great fun playing in that tree. We used to try to get to the bus stop early just to have more time to play there.

We had no problems walking to the bus stop every day. It was the walk back up the hill after school that we dreaded. It was very common for neighbors to stop and give you a ride up the hill for which I will always be grateful.

The Cow Pasture

Some of you may not know where the Cow Pasture was. Lomond Way was a dead end. There was no Cavendish Drive. It was only cows. In fact, the dead end was different in that it had a small corral and ramp for loading cattle onto trucks.

If you were really brave you would go to Canyon High School (now Canyon Middle School) through the Cow Pasture. You would be brave because the cows were accompanied by a bull. This bull was not known for its good manners. This is where I learned the lesson that there is a distinct difference between bravery and foolishness. I don't know of anyone who got gored but there was always a fence to jump over if you walked near the houses.

I remember that whenever I wanted to be alone I would walk to the dead end. I would sit on the fence of the coral and watch the cows and enjoy the sunsets. It was a very peaceful spot.

The Ramps

The top of Greenridge was not up by the park but down lower. The last house was just past Mountain Lane where the Eichlers stop and the newer houses start. I guess they were planning on building houses there all along because someone had already leveled out the areas leaving what we called "Ramps" between where the houses would go. It may have been Joseph Eichler himself thinking of future expansion of the Eichler tract. The Ramps were there for many years and we enjoyed riding our bikes down them. Another brave/foolish thing to do was to ride your bike down one particularly steep ramp. Most of the bigger kids could do it. The one time I tried it I regretted it. My parents weren't happy with me either after we got back from the hospital. Oops.

The Wild Life

There's nothing like the fresh smell of skunk in the morning. Well that hasn't changed. But not for the lack of wanting. Our dog got sprayed once. Not a happy time in our household. We've always had possum, raccoons, deer and fox. But there have been some shifts in the wild life of the area. I never saw wild turkey until the past 8 to 10 years. We never had a squirrel in our back yard until about 5 years ago. The geese that were around Cull Canyon were all white. Now they are all Canadian Geese. We also seem to have increased the population of newts in the past few years.

One day I was working in our garage and heard a cry for "Help!" from our front yard. I came running out only to find a peacock. A family used to raise peacocks at the bottom of the hill and this one liked to travel a bit. Unfortunately it travelled into our atrium and I had to figure out how to get it out. After going in circles for a few minutes I decided to rush it a bit in hopes of scaring it out the front door. I didn't know they could fly. I had to go but that peacock sat on the peak of our roof like it now owned the house.

I remember one year all of Castro Valley and especially the hills were covered in spider webs. The spider webs were floating in the wind. People were getting covered in them as well. It was a very strange sight. Apparently there is some phenomena called "ballooning" where young spiders spin a web in the air and the wind makes them take flight. It's an effective method of relocation for them. It's a very rare event but it was fun to watch as a kid.

The Park

The park has gone through two changes. The first park had a pretty cool wooden fort with little play guns on it. There was nothing down where the basketball courts are now. The second park turned the fort into a small, wooden maze. It never was that much fun to me and I really missed the fort. It did have a cool wooden bridge that was fun to jump on even though we weren't supposed to.

Being a parent, I'm happy with today's park. It's much safer than the previous two and the addition of the basket ball courts, picnic tables, barbeque pits, gazebo on the ridge and the restrooms are all wonderful additions. The one thing that has remained constant at that park has been the view. It really is nice to see the Bay Area from that vantage point.

The People

When I was a kid, Greenridge Road was known as the most integrated community in Alameda County. That was something we were proud of at that time. I no longer know if we still hold that title but I don't think anyone is analyzing this anymore. I think what matters is that we have a nice neighborhood with nice people. I'm happy to have been a part of this community's history and am excited about its future.

- Steven Kolden - 6/25/10