By Ann Cooke

Just a mile or so out of Alameda, you’ll find it…..there on Doolittle Drive, just before you get to Swan Way. It’s been there for years and years, or at least for the 27 years that I’ve lived here, but its origins have always been a mystery.

My kids used to make a game of being the first to spot it on the edge of the water on the way to the Oakland Airport or coming home from Costco. Sometimes you can’t see it at all because the water line is high enough to obscure it. Most of the time though, it’s quite easy to spot. It’s currently bright pink again, with the customary black tear-drop spots and green rind. The Oakland/Alameda estuary boasts this delightful slice of concrete fruit along an otherwise desolate edge of water.

It could well be my imagination, although I seem to think that I once saw this perfect half-crescent shaped piece of concrete prior to someone delivering the watermelon baby. I thought, "Wouldn’t it look cool if someone painted it to look like a huge slice of watermelon?" Low and behold, weeks later someone did exactly that.

The watermelon has been there for years in varying stages of color. That’s a great part of this mystery, for somebody actually tends to it from time to time. A couple of years ago, the color was fading, which seemed appropriate for a real piece of fruit rotting and returning to the earth. I hadn’t quite accepted the watermelon’s demise and thought I might repaint it myself. One day, I even stopped on the apron of the road with my three kids to check it out. I discovered my foolhardiness (and someone else’s bravery) when, with traffic whizzing by alongside me, I tried to ease down the rocky slope to reach the faded fruit. Treacherous footing with the murky estuary water awaiting a wrong step sent me scurrying back to my car dragging my kids behind me. If the watermelon was to live again, somebody else would have to see to its rebirth.

Shortly thereafter, the mysterious waterfront artist returned to give the slice its life back! I remember being so happy that it was bright pink again and actually looked forward to catching a glimpse of it on my commute home from work. Imagine my surprise when just days after the "rebirth," a new entrepreneur painted ugly dark green moss all over one edge of it. I began to think that there must be dueling artists at work here. Yet, I still marvel at the feat of not only reaching the watermelon but carrying painting supplies to it as well. Jet skiers and crew teams seem to have good opportunities to reach the watermelon on high water days though I suspect that the real artist waits until the melon is entirely exposed (see photo). I must not have been alone in my dissatisfaction with the latest moss rendering as the watermelon returned to its fresh pink splendor less than a month later.

The watermelon is now signed with the dates of its repainting rather than an artist’s name. The mystery remains as to the identity of the painter(s). With the recent stormy weather, there have been days when only a green piece of rind peaks out of the water, but when the sun shines, the famous roadside fruit is there to delight and surprise all passing motorists.