Tales From Our Cities

Tip of the fedora to our fellow Urban Roamer Armistead Maupin and the characters he gave us from our former designated playground as we extend tradition and haunt the East Bay’s greasier alleyways and watering holes in search of stories.

We’ve been busy dodging careering getaway cars, aerial mortars and flaming garbage trucks lately – all in an effort to live until retirement and perhaps sniff out one or two things we didn’t know about yesterday.

It turns out the shell game behind the downtown Walnut Creek bar scene is on the move again with the Boot Scootin’ Boogyers at Bourbon Highway, 1677 N. Main, dismantling the mechanical bull in preparation of their move a few blocks away to the old Crogan’s Sports Bar & Grill location at 1387 Locust. Workers have been preparing the new location in past weeks and high rents appear to be the reason for the move.

And, yes, we know Bourbon doesn’t have a bull.

Also on the move and boogying hard lately was a gentleman behind the wheel of a pirated minivan who turned Orinda’s normally sedate Theatre Square into a demolition derby on June 25, doing his level best to avoid Orinda PD officers closing in on him and smashing up some stuff behind the Fourth Bore restaurant in the process.

Our hero crashed and bolted from what was left of the van and fled on foot until he was eventually caught and arrested in front of Serika Sushi, downtown diners lighting up our Flash Alert system and asking their waitperson if they’d be expected to pay an extra charge for all the on-site entertainment.

Back in Walnut Creek, residents following the prosecution of a recidivist drunk driver who plowed through the Walnut Creek Farmers Market earlier this month – critically injuring a mother-daughter team of vendors before he was stopped by police a short distance away – ask us daily for updates on the women’s conditions and if there is any way to help.

That response has gladdened our hardened and jaded hearts and we have passed along information that much of the county stands ready to help the family should they request it – which they have not. In an age where most everyone will not hesitate to request assistance this family has refrained from doing so, despite the critical nature of the women’s injuries.

The 20-year-old daughter was working with her mother that day to help with a new phase of the family business. The alleged drunk driver who ran them down had reportedly been driving on a suspended license prior to the crash.

A bail request for Jose Chavez, 34, of Pittsburg, arrested after fleeing the crash that morning, was denied. His preliminary hearing was put over to Aug. 2.