OAKLAND — It had been years since I’d been to the house where I grew up.

But here I was, on the very concrete where we played football and the 45 bus stop was touchdown. Across the street from the loquat tree we ate from ’til our stomachs hurt. Up the block from where a neighborhood teen was so high, rumors have it, he shot and killed his friend in a fit of paranoia.

It is always surreal coming back to my neighborhood in deep east Oakland and transporting to yesteryear. There usually isn’t enough time in a busy schedule to remember the caring neighbors, to relive the triumphs and traumas that shaped our lives, to sort through the buried emotions.

And here I was, spitting distance from the porch where I sat and daydreamed. Around the corner from the stage I recited the “I Have a Dream” speech at an assembly. Four houses down from the girl who gave me a kiss on the cheek in exchange for my pack of Mystery Mix Now & Laters.

And all because Warriors forward Harrison Barnes cared enough to ask.

“As a media person,” Barnes said, “you guys dive into everything. Our game. Our lives. Whatever. You guys get nonstop rein and freedom to do it. But the reverse is never true, right? We’re never going to hear you guys’ story.

“And I don’t want the bio, something where you just put in all that weak stuff,” Barnes said. He continued explaining his inquisition of my origins. “Why does it have to be the media guy gets in trouble, or something tragic happens in their family, for you to get to know some of these media guys’ personal story? Like Craig Sager, everyone knows his story. But before he got sick, how many people knew him? I just feel like it doesn’t always have to be to that extent before you get to know somebody.”

No, Barnes doesn’t fit the self-absorbed athlete stereotype. Being raised by a diligent single mom has shaped his perspective. Having a younger sister keeps him concerned about the world around him. Being a product and staunch supporter of the Boys & Girls Club keeps him appreciative.

The Warriors roster is stocked with players comfortable taking off their superstar capes and just being people. Yes, Barnes is a millionaire pro athlete with brand strategists and endorsement deals and image consciousness. But though he works in a world of self-absorbed types, he still cultivates his Regular Joe spirit.

That’s a big part of why Barnes has fallen for Oakland. It is, in many ways, unlike his home in the Midwest, yet it carries an essence that speaks to the small town in him.

The Ames, Iowa, native has an affinity for the grass roots, gravitates toward the down-to-earth. Barnes appreciates the beautiful struggle of overcoming. He is intrigued by backstories and context.

So we took a ride.

“Oakland’s home for me,” Barnes said. “When I found out that Damian (Lillard) was from here, we became good friends throughout the draft process. … He did an event last summer in Brookfield; I went there to support him. I’ve been in this community for four years now. I want to continue to be here, so you got to go out to support.”

Barnes knew I went to Oakland Technical High School before taking my talents to Clark Atlanta University for college. He wanted to see the genesis. So we trekked International Boulevard, from Lake Merritt to 105th Avenue. We rode past the mortuary where we had a funeral for my father in 2001. Past the East Oakland Youth Development Center, where I spent so many summer days.

Before long, Barnes was in my neighborhood — Sobrante Park.

A neighborhood built during World War II for white military families, Sobrante Park eventually grew into a thriving African-American neighborhood after white flight. It was in the mid-1950s my grandfather, Joddie Thompson, bought a house in the area, fruits of a career as a longshoreman.

The neighborhood brimmed with singing and dancing talent, from doo-wop to funk to R&B. My father and his brothers formed a group called The Soul-tations, and they swore they were Oakland’s Jackson 5. Some of the athletic talent that fed Castlemont High’s sports heyday in the 1970s came from this community.

But the 1980s and 1990s saw the crack epidemic hit Oakland hard. Sobrante Park became an epicenter for drugs and violence. It was one of the city’s most dangerous places during my childhood.

I took Barnes to the spot where we played hoop on a rollout court, a block from a high-traffic dope corner. I was giving some friends the business on the court when shots rang out. In a drug deal gone bad, some corner boys were shooting at customers speeding off — right in our direction. The piercing sound of bullets zipping by your ear is life changing.

I also took Barnes to Tyrone Carney Park, named after a 20-year-old kid from the neighborhood who died in combat in the Vietnam War. It’s shut down: A gate keeps drug dealers from posting up, rust coats the play structures and untamed weeds fill in the court’s free throw line. It was at this park a dealer with a scary reputation threatened to kill me if he ever saw me there again. I just wanted to hoop. He knew a college-bound kid like myself didn’t belong up there.

We parked in Barnes’ Infinity sedan and I told him how 15 of us lived in my grandfather’s three-bedroom home. Someone else bought the house when I was in college. It looked much nicer now, which didn’t jive with the hard-luck story I was sharing with Barnes. I had to take No. 40 around the corner to an old friend’s house.

Barnes stood in the kitchen as Jirema Gillette — a San Leandro barbershop owner who has been cutting my hair since I was 12 — regaled him with horrifying ‘hood tales. Gillette, the unofficial mayor of Sobrante Park, showed off his bullet wounds and invited the Warriors’ star to join his beloved Lakers next year.

Watching them talk, I couldn’t decide what was weirder — that Harrison Barnes was in some stranger’s kitchen chilling, or that they were talking about me.

For years, I’ve put a microphone in Barnes’ face. Now he was investigating me. I’ve been the one prying into his life, sifting for insight into the man behind the jersey. Suddenly, Barnes was all in my business. But it wasn’t solely about prying or putting a reporter on the hot seat for the fun of it. What started as a curiosity became a message.

Barnes applied value to my story. He recognized the humanity of an underserved youngster circumventing adversity with a baseline spin and forging out a respectable career. He challenged me to get over my self-deprecation and share my story more. But who wants to hear from a sportswriter?

“A lot of people always think ‘if I had the platform of an NBA player, I would do this,'” he said. “When I look back at the people who were most influential in my life, it wasn’t Kobe Bryant, it wasn’t Michael Jordan, it wasn’t Muhammad Ali. It was regular people who do, like, regular jobs in Ames, Iowa, who had impact. My hero was the secretary in the department of music — my mom.”

His challenge was to be proactive about telling others how I made it out. To him, the “regular” successes are even more vital than the NBA carrot he inherently dangles before youth. To him, the onus isn’t exclusively on pro athletes and celebrities and public figures.

Without even knowing it, Barnes was upholding a foundational undercurrent in this city I grew up, that he now calls home. Wealth doesn’t determine worth and position doesn’t equate importance. Everybody is valuable and everybody is responsible.

Read Marcus Thompson II’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/thompson. Contact him at mthomps2@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ThompsonScribe.