 It appears in "Gertrude Stein, Everybody's Autobiography" (Random House 1937, p 289) and is often applied to the city of her childhood, Oakland, California.Defenders and critics of Oakland have debated what she really meant when she said this in 1933, after coming to San Francisco on a book tour.She took a ferry to Oakland to visit the farm she grew up on, and the house she lived in near what is now 13th Avenue and E. 25th Street in Oakland.