85 Not just knee deep

I just wanted to mention that I saw the chicken lady on a regular basis. She and her man were always headed out somewhere. Her main topic of discussion was always where to get free stuff. I wasn't piling myself up with anything, but if they knew good deals on food I listened. The both of them were always carrying a cardboard box.

LBJ did one gig over in Oakland but came back to Berkeley cause there was just as much to do in Berkeley without the hassle of travel. Everything over there was temporary. So why not? He and another fella got some work at an old house in one of the Berkeley neighborhoods. He worked there a couple of days and said "Why don't you c'mon up? I told the lady there about you and she's real excited to meet you." Huh? Ok.

Alright. I guess they were painting, but they wanted me to help remove the wallpaper and get it ready for painting.

Looked pretty much like this neighborhood but 1972.

This was their first house and they were trying to get it ready for a baby. I can't just call her "the wife" because she would have have wanted to be recognized by her name, but I can't remember it. Let's call her Alice. All the young girls love Alice. The dude wasn't as memorable, so let's call him Paul. They were the "young radicals" of Berkeley. I'm going to have to go into a bit of a description of some of the differences between then and now in a minute.

Chick in the foreground reminds me of Alice.

 

Dude with curly hair and glasses reminds me of Paul.

Nice old house with strange hallways and offset levels. It was basically original with layers of paint and a number of rooms with layers of wallpaper too. The paint had lead in it and the wallpaper had arsenic in it. Now I don't remember exactly but people just started realizing the lead thing. I don't remember the paint deal, what they used. It wasn't banned till 1978 but if they were making lead free in 1972, I'm sure they carried it in Berkeley.

It wasn't work for the weak. I had a big steam machine that I held up on the wall and then took a scraper to the layers. I didn't give a crap about the arsenic. We kept all the windows wide open so as much of the fumes or whatever went outside. I guess they were sleeping in the basement while all this other stuff was going on so that the baby didn't get any of it. We worked for a few hours and then stopped for a while in the middle of the day, but they paid us. Alice left for most of the day, even though she didn't work. But she came home midday to make lunch for all of us. Paul was gone all day. 

What really happened was that Alice spent a couple of hours during the middle of the day at home talking with me. None of the workers minded. We all got paid and the guys went off with joints. Now don't get all pissed off. Everyone is mad at feminists now but I'm going to have to spend a few sentences on that. Alice and I "spoke" mostly about these things. For a while most of my reading back in those days was non-fiction stuff. For a good while. Stuff about Viet Nam, government corruption and feminist issues. Germaine Greer said the most to me. I'm not going to make excuses. I didn't want to live like my mother, and she had more of a free life than a lot of the housewives across America. Oh, don't be rolling your eyes. If you are, you didn't live through it. It has changed so rapidly, the reality is only a faint memory.

Germaine Greer

I don't have the answers and the human race always goes too far with things. We can never be reasonable. All I know is that when I was growing up I wanted to be a pirate and a papergirl. I didn't want to be a boy pirate, I wanted to be a girl pirate. These women existed. I didn't want to be a paperboy, I wanted to be me, delivering papers. I loved riding my bike and I loved going on adventures. I didn't care about the money. "Mom. I want to deliver the paper." "You can't." "Why?" "You're a girl." "But why?" "It's a man's world." Boy did that make me sad. What was I supposed to do when I grew up? I didn't want to sit at home ironing and cooking. I wanted some kind of adventure. Maybe a beatnik? 

I watched a lot of movies with my Mom. Asked a lot of questions and she seemed to have regrets about things she felt she missed out on. Every so often sex came up. Not in so many words, but kind of. Do you realize that when all those TV shows with two beds and Lucy wanting to work at the club were on, sex was a woman's duty... not something to be enjoyed. The wife was the Madonna. Little girl in Catholic school crying that she didn't want to live like that. So Alice and I had a lot of those talks. And a lot of women did in those days. And they loved men. I love men. They just wanted to have as much fun. Is that wrong? As to how the world is now, I couldn't tell ya. There's just so much division and it doesn't have to be like that.

Ok. That's all I'm saying about that for now.

Now to the fun part. One afternoon after Alice left after lunch, LBJ grabbed me and said "Hey, let's go to the basement." It didn't take much to convince me.  The basement had already been painted and cleaned up. One big room and there was a real big waterbed on one end. Doing it in the bushes was ok with me, but let's try this waterbed!

Things were moving along but maybe we put too much action into it. Bounce here, bounce there. Whatever we did I'd always end up bounced into the little gap between the mattress and the railing. It wasn't working. I guess we were going to town not having to muffle noises either, you know... not being in the bushes and all. So we ended up on the floor for the finish.

Pretty sure it was green.

The floor had carpeting, I always call it a rug, but not shag. It had substance to it. Well, to get graphic I ended up with my back on it. And it was anything but gentle. We were traveling in unison all over the room. Ha ha. There were windows of course, but who cared? All of a sudden LBJ said that Paul was watching us through the window. I turned and looked. I said "Should we stop?" "No. He doesn't care. He's watching." So after a few more minutes went by he left. 

That rug was really rough. Somehow the way we were I got the most severe rug burns imaginable. My back had some pretty heavy red marks with blood peaking through. Whew. I got dressed but the halter top I wore didn't really cover what happened. Just went back to working. Didn't see Paul or Alice the rest of the day.

The next day the marks had scabs. Big scabs. And sore. Halter top again. Alice saw them and I'm pretty sure she knew what went on cause she was smiling when she looked at my back and said "Oh... you got some pretty bad rug burns there." She put some kind of stuff on the scabs for me and checked them everyday. Took quite a while to heal. Thank you, Alice. We had a great time.

84 Well that's crummy

I was back to the professional panhandling scene. LBJ was working a temporary job. A lot of the people who donated into my tin were regulars along the street. I talked a bit here and there. Took walks now and then 'cause who likes standing in one spot too long. I wasn't lazy at all but I was enjoying this experience. How do I explain that it was innocent? 

I waved at people I knew across the street. I talked to passersby's about peace and what not. Talked about Zac and how cool animals are. Maybe someone stopped to tell me about something going on in a park. I was super friendly. I thought that was the way that the world was going to change... through personal peace and love.

So one nice sunny day a fellow came up to me and said "Hello. Hey I have some sandwiches. Would you like one?" "Uh ok." "They're in my van right there." I must have stopped smiling for a second. "It's ok. It's right there." It hadn't gotten to the point in humanity that you avoided contact out in the general public. I still don't... I greet strangers on the street and say hello, but I notice so many now that have a blank stare and avoid looking back let alone communicating. But I did take pause with this fellow for some reason.

They were good sandwiches from the deli. I think we had 7-up. He was asking about the panhandling and told him what it was like. I haven't forgotten what he looked like. He seemed a little nervous. He had slightly thinning hair combed over a bit. Light brown, maybe close to dark blonde. Round glasses. Moustache. A few years later it dawned on me that he looked a little like Steven Weed. Nobody knew who Steven Weed was in 1972. He also looked a little like R. Crumb. Maybe like a cross between Steven Weed and R. Crumb. I didn't know what R. Crumb looked like either in 1972. Just read the comics.

About halfway through the sandwich I hear this "I was wondering if you would like to go to my  house? I've been watching you and I would like to take some photos of you." As you've probably heard it wasn't unusual for people to go over someone's house or hook up in the 70's when they first met. But there was something about the "I've been watching you" part that made me stop eating the sandwich. Even if he didn't say that, I wasn't going to go over his house. "It's ok. I just live up the hill there." "I'll pay you."  Uh. I don't even think I said thanks for the sandwich. I dropped it, got up and went to the front and opened the passenger door and jumped out.

The moral of the story is that if it was R. Crumb he should have told me and I would have went. If it was Steven Weed... good. I never liked that wuss. You should have fought harder for your woman instead of running out that door. But maybe it was just a photographer. Nah. I think I escaped a serial killer. At least that's what my gut told me. Needless to say Zac and I left for the day. Never saw that white van again. Not a very thrilling story but I never forgot it for some reason.

P.S. People didn't even really know about serial killers till a few years later.

83 Make it a bloody mary

We decided to leave for Oakland pretty early in the morning. We were used to public transportation and had no problem asking what bus to take. I left Zac with the nice people at the desk of the dorm. I wasn't worried, would have been much worse to take him to Oakland with me. Back in those days a lot, I should say all, public buildings and offices wouldn't allow animals of any kind.

Oh, just so you know... I slept in the slightly stinky sleeping bag every night. For some reason the snails only crawled into that bag and Zac enjoyed them.

I don't know the address but it was downtown Oakland somewhere. The main workforce, unemployment place in the city. Just a quick trip and it was a different world. Right next to one another. Berkeley... hippies, free speech movement, partly the Beats; Oakland... inner city grittiness, Black Panther headquarters, jazz and soul. I'm no expert, I was just there. Later on I learned from someone that there's a rich part in the hills but I didn't see it.

I usually didn't have much of a feeling of being out of place. I logically knew I was a bit peculiar. I didn't like being around the uppity or those that thought they were better than others. I started going into the city at a fairly young age and it was an exploration, but I was always careful. The pirate inside of me fought any worries about switching up my surroundings.  Three guardian spirits helped me out and I recently had that God experience in Berkeley too.

I was just along for the ride. I'm sticking with the panhandling, plus Zac loved it. So in the old days you had to do a lot of waiting on line. Government agencies, the bank, the army. Many characters hit the unemployment office. I wish I could remember more about the clientele. If I underwent hypnosis there might be something left in there, but I'm thinking the activities later on in the day kind of clouded that out. You could be sure in 1972 Oakland that there were plenty of people wearing the colorful styles of the day. And things that weren't stylish but individual. I could also tell you that there were probably a few nodding out, but plenty of hard workers too. Just down and needing work. You could also be sure that it was mostly men in there looking for work. How times have changed in a lot of ways. If you looked at the Help Wanted in the newspaper, the categories were split between men and women. Manual labor jobs for the men. Secretary and waitress for the women. If you were high scale you probably weren't looking in the want ads, but there weren't that many spots for the gals. My Dad had hopes I would be a photographer for a newspaper. I had hopes for the Left Banke or at least a farm somewhere.

If by chance you were collecting unemployment you had to go in once a week to give them your sheet of places you applied. They'd look you in the eye and try to size you up. "No. I'm not lying. I went to these places." "Well, I'm going to check." "Ok. You do that." What a time!  You actually walked into a place and asked if they were hiring? Maybe they hired you on the spot or maybe you filled out an application.

This wasn't that though. LBJ just wanted some leads. They make up a file, give you a number and a case worker. They also filled out a little yellow booklet that you kept. It had the dates that you came into the office and the name and addresses of job leads they throw your way. Ok. He got a couple of leads. We were in there for hours. Let's get out of here.

Walkers we were. We weren't in a big hurry, we were looking around. It was a pretty heavy part of the city. A Black Panther office. I see there was an office at 14th and Perlata and that makes sense with where we ended up later. I remember walking down a street with a different scene. Men in afros and berets, dressed all in black. But there were lots of happy neighborhood people too. The Panthers were working with their neighbors on food distribution. Kids were going to school. It was their neighborhood and part of the thing was to do "for the people." Politics aside, this was on a local and personal level, and that's a good thing. I suppose the food and school wasn't being forced on anyone. And that's where it's at. You find your own freedom without hurting the innocent or forcing your way of living on everyone.

Everyone walked that street with respect for themselves and others. Little white girl with blonde hair had no problem there. No street talkin' at me or my beau. But we kept walking. I don't know how or where we ate but I bet it was good. 

So we ended up somewhere between 13th and 15th on Broadway. A beautiful old movie theater called the Lux rose up before my eyes. Both LBJ and I read the newspaper, people did that, and I looked at the movie ads every time. There it was! I loved monster movies and this one was the first of its kind. Blacula!

There was already a little line out front. No buying in advance. You stood out front and talked with whoever you were with and sometimes with everyone else in line. No picking out your little seat. You stood on line with everyone else and you were able to pick out your damn seat when you went in there. No moaning or groaning. No reservations. No wine. Just candy, popcorn and soda. 

We got there early enough that we got pretty good seats. Maybe about six rows back on the left side. I do remember my positioning because I became more aware of things than usual. Sitting there. Yum. I think we got a small popcorn. I didn't eat a bunch of junk food. The theater started filling up. 

Ok. This was an experience. Richard Pryor would confirm this. Huh. LBJ noticed that we were the only white people in the entire theater. That's weird. So what. This is Oakland.

I wish I had a way to make this into a movie scene. The audience really got into it. I heard lots of talking to the movie. Prince Mamuwalde was a hero. Things really started picking up when Blacula claimed his first victims after being wronged so badly by Dracula.

Now people were randomly standing up and yelling in support of Blacula. Then the rest of the audience would shout in support. About two rows behind me someone got up and yelled "Kill those white honkies!" It was all over the theater. "Yeah motherfucker. They need to die." I was getting a little freaked. I started to sink into my seat. 

"Should we leave?" I whispered to LBJ all cowardly. "No. That's worse. Just don't make a scene." The longer I was there the more I was getting into watching, just so long as I could sit there. You know? Wow. They were all having a hell of a time. Lovin' it. This was an eye opener for me. Maybe I wasn't as cool as I thought. Even the way I'm writing now is repressed and uptight. That's always a good lesson.

The movie was over and we just trucked on out of there. No big deal. All's good. I'm sorry that was my only experience in 70's Oakland. Wish I had made it over to some of the music venues.

82 Sunny days

I need to get a couple more typical days out of the way before I start on some of the more memorable. Every morning we made our way to the International House for breakfast. It was so cheap and we got a lot of food to start the day. Sunny Jim recommended it. Sunny Jim did some kind of work at the Hillel Street work Project... or was it the Berkeley Free Church? Both of them had deals where you could be sent out on jobs. The Free Church also had a crash pad deal. We had a thing going with our hidden spot on campus and the hostel, so we didn't pay attention.

We didn't do any of the free food things either. I guess we were kind of loners and didn't like standing on line for that kind of crap. Plus there was always trouble one way or another. Someone freaking out or criminal types wreaking havoc with good stuff going on. So it was big breakfast in the morning, peanut butter and jelly during the day and maybe a burger or whatever we came across at night. Sometimes I bought stuff at the store and shared with the workers at the hostel.

International House

I didn't hit either of those job places cause I was sticking with the Free Clinic. I mentioned before that it was mostly manly labor stuff. I did go to one job at a house remodel, but I'll talk about that later. I do remember going in one day to the office to see if I could find LBJ for some reason. I'm thinking it was the Free Church. I'll never forget a family I ran into there. I thought "Wow. California." Two parents totally blonde. Three little kids totally blonde. All tan, all barefoot. They were needing help with one thing or another. I don't think I ever saw such a blonde family in New York.

LBJ was working with some other guy on a new remodel. Back then they didn't completely change the character of the old houses. They cleaned them up, fixed electrical and plumbing, and painted. Lots of painting. The other guy had a vehicle and was going to give LBJ a ride back to the center of town. Just as they were getting in the vehicle a couple of Berkeley cops jumped out of their cars, rifles pointed. Threw them against the car, spread their legs. Pushed them to the ground and handcuffed them. Rifles pointed. I guess the car was stolen, or wasn't, never got the outcome. If it was at least the guy was trying to work. Right? But there were definitely other forces at work in Berkeley. Hippies got the knee to the groin every so often for a while. Ok if there's a reason, people weren't crying, but just for having hair it's not cool.

Seems like a lot of people knew Sunny Jim though. He was one of those degreed hippies but he lived pretty hard. He also dealt a lot of pot. We'd end up over his place. It was just a mattress on the floor and posters on the wall. You'd pile in there and find a spot on the bed to sit. Listen to some music. Quicksilver Messenger Service was a favorite. The stereo going back and forth, back and forth in the ears. Someone was always sifting the seeds and stems from the pot in a shoebox lid. Cool. Pot was half the price in California. I think we paid $10 an ounce. And it was good, but nice. Not the crazy strong hybrids they have now. Just a much softer edge to the high.

We'd sit and talk about music or how messed up society is. You'd think we'd all be rolling all over the bed having sex, but life wasn't completely like that. There was actually a lot more conversation than sex, drugs or rock n' roll. People spoke about how they were going to live differently than what was expected. Some of them did. They disappeared one way or another from the mainstream. Took working class jobs to survive or maybe worked a trade. Nothing powerful. Just not all about money. So people that did it, got away, sometimes had good lives, sometimes hard lives. Some of the humans were just hanging as a trend. They're the ones that went for the money.

 

But Sunny Jim was pretty cool. He wanted to help people out and gave advice on how to stay out of trouble. If you could get by unharmed and find a place to go that was a good thing. He told LBJ about jobs at the Oakland work center, or whatever it was, that sounded pretty good. Some of the jobs paid over $4.00 an hour. Minimum wage was $1.65 in California, $1.60 nationwide. So good. It wasn't highfalutin, but we could live on it. We'd take a trip to Oakland to check it out. I was just going to go along for the ride.

81 Been drinking Jake

There was a little bit of a routine. Some days we went on excursions in the area, but if LBJ had stuff to do I went off to my Free Clinic gig. Man alive, Zac was a good cat. He wanted to hang with me. I had a little spot out front of the food co-op that became home. I must say everyone loved Zac and it seems as though I really started raking it in when they stopped to give him a pet. I didn't have to worry. I had a shady spot and he always had food and water.

Not my place but co-ops were revolutionary

Luckily I love being an observer of humanity because there was plenty of it to do. Walking. Talking. Smiling. I only remember one (well maybe more, but later) not happy encounter. I don't remember what I was doing... ok I think I was doing the truckin' walk. I used to do it with my friends. Sorry if the visual hurts your head. Anyway, that's what I think I was doing. I don't know what this older lady was doing walking the streets of Berkeley if she was disturbed by any of this. I like to describe her as looking like the nice old lady with Tweety bird, but with a very sour disposition, so I'll describe her as the mom in Psycho. She stopped in her tracks and gave me a tongue lashing. "You should be ashamed of yourself, young lady." Perhaps in a different setting, like a funeral or something, she would be right. But not on these streets. I don't think I was very respectful in return. Sorry old lady, I wasn't awful... maybe I said go to hell, but I still feel bad. Just not me. You have to try to relax and be happy when you have happy people in your vicinity. The beauty of taking a walk like that was that R. Crumb was walking those very streets at that very time.

I was polite. You really didn't have to ask, people would stop and put money in the tin that was clearly marked Berkeley Free Clinic. Sometimes there would be some weirdo that wanted to look at the license hanging from my neck. Ok. Thank you. One day a fella that looked like Omar Sharif stopped and looked at my license and asked how the panhandling deal worked. Then he asked if I would please help him at his store. "I'll pay you." Alright. I was up to it. People were more trusting. I suppose the lack of 24/7 news and shows about serial killers may have had something to do with that. I ran into so many cool people, I would say in general people got along pretty good.

Let's see. Up until then I had worked as a dishwasher and waitress at Charlotte's and I also had a summer job cleaning bathrooms for a rich kid day camp. We walked a block or two, not real far. He unlocked the door to a tobacco shop. This wasn't just plain American cigarettes, the place was filled with exotic blends from all over the world. I never worked in a store before but I was pretty smart about numbers. I could handle giving change. I did notice a little booze on his breath but he seemed alright. Ok. How can I help? He quickly showed me the cash register and said "I'll be back later." "But I don't know what anything costs?" He left.

Not the actual store. I can't remember the name.

I didn't freak out. Why would I? But maybe I did a little when people started coming in and saying they wanted blah blah blah. Huh? Blah Blah Blah? These people were a little different than the folks lounging around on the street. Some of them were in a hurry. My guess is that a lot of them worked at UC Berkeley which wasn't far. But I found the stuff and if I didn't see a price the customer told me a price. Pretty much everybody told me the price.That place was busy. Luckily I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with me.

Jeez. I'm doing good. Lots of sales. I didn't steal out of the cash register and there was a pretty good amount in there as the day went on. Thank God nobody paid with credit cards back then.

The dude left without telling me when he would be back. It was getting very late in the afternoon and I was starting to wonder what the hell I was going to do if he didn't come back? I didn't have a key to lock up and I wasn't going to stay there all night. I also felt responsible for his stuff. For some reason the guy trusted me.

I still had to bring my tin over to the Free Clinic office too. It's around 5:00 pm and he opens the door. He was completely three sheets to the wind. He could barely stand and he's eating a damn hamburger. There's food all over his moustache. I don't know how he held himself together to remember to come back. I guess that was his last thread of awareness. I try to tell him about the day but he was out of it. He opens his wallet and hands me like two or three dollars. Yeah, minimum wage was $1.65 back then so he could have at least brought me a hamburger.

That wasn't a very good lesson, was it? I behaved myself and took care of the store. It worked out with me and I have no bad thoughts, I had an unusual experience. Just hope that if you did that with others it didn't come back to bite you. Oh well. One day of experience in the day to day workaday world. "See ya, I have to go."

Addendum: I'm no goody two shoes. The thought of grabbing what was in the cash register occurred to me more than once. But I thought that I would be rewarded well, or at least reasonably, for helping him out. I believed that's what would happen. Must have been the nuns. On his part, maybe he didn't trust me as much as I thought. He did look at my license. Got my name. It would be easy to find me on the street or at the clinic. Even if I split town with cash in hand the cops were all too ready to hunt down a hippie panhandler.

80 Feed me

It wasn't just me... when LBJ used the mummy sleeping bag there were snails in it the next morning too. We shook it out, said yucch and walked up the hill to the International House. We got a huge breakfast for super cheap. I went back to give the bathroom at the dorm a quick clean. It got a good clean on Saturday. I'd get to laugh with the folks at the front desk. For some reason I'll never forget the funny asian girl, Wendy. Sometimes they'd even get me to play frisbee out front, which is something I don't normally do. My only explanation for why we had such a good time is that we found humor in that we had almost nothing in common.

When I went to panhandle I pretty much just ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. LBJ same thing. But we hit the cafés on occasion. Little did you know that Berkeley was a forerunner of the "radical food" movement too. Health food stores everywhere. Lots of healthy organic restaurants and radical minded coffee shops too. The food co-op I stood near at 3000 Telegraph Ave (I think) was part of the longest lasting group of co-ops in the country. It would be nice if we got back to that and took big corporations out of the equation. They had health food stores in New York too, just not on this scale. These places weren't mainstream like they are now. Oddballs ate organic.

I remember a gal stopped to talk to me about yogurt outside the co-op. Yeah, I like yogurt. "No, not Dannon. We make it like the Turkish." Stop by and try some. Well, even Dannon yogurt was better then, not a long list of solids and ingredients.

There was a place pretty close to People's Park called Caffè Mediterraneum that was a hep place for beatniks, intellectuals, artists and political radicals. Moe's Books was across the street. We didn't hang in this one very much. I was around people all day and didn't need to have "cool" all the time. It's closed now though and that's sad. There were a number of small coffee shops that had shelves of books that you could read while relaxing, just buy some coffee.

Somewhere on our route there was an old storefront that was converted into a theater. People were settling in to see a movie. We had a little money. Let's go! I loved old movies, watched them with my mom all the time. I especially loved monster movies. I was glued to WPIX New York on Saturday. Monster movies all afternoon. But I had never heard of this movie. Weird. I guess it didn't fit the normal rerun fare or the pure science fiction and horror on Saturdays. Little Shop of Horrors. (1960)

We sat on steel folding chairs. I was grooving on the differences in people. There were people from all over crowded into this empty store. A lot of the people had seen the movie before and came back for more fun. It's good to laugh and laughing together is even better. How could you not love that strangeness? Jack Nicholson's lunacy freaked me out. 

But the best part of the day happened when we were filing out. A young couple out front asking "Do you want a kitten?" People kept walking by. I love cats and I had to take a look. An adorable gray kitten with an extra toe on each paw. My heart melted. I missed having a cat. Oh. How am I going to do this? How can I keep a cat with me all day long? But I had to hold this kitty. Adorable. They told me he was trained to sit on your shoulder and that he would stay there. I tried it. He did. I walked a little and he stayed sitting on top of my shoulder. Yes. I would take him. I love him.

Zac looked exactly like this

They gave us a bread bag with some dry cat food and off we went. When we got back to the dorms I went inside and my friends at the desk found a little bowl that I could use for water. I named him Zac, probably because of Zacherley.

I had the mummy sleeping bag that night and Zac crawled right in with me. A great discovery! Zac ate the snails that congregated in the smelly sleeping bag. I heard some weird chewing and there he was eating away. A wonderful friend!

79 In love with one of the guests

It was morning after the third night and we headed on out of the free hostel. While I was thinking about this part of the story, I found a photo of railroad tracks in Berkeley. I'm sure that the hostel was near tracks. I knew it was on the boundaries, thought there was a train.

We walked with the Chicken Lady and her man. I loved to hear stories and thoughts from all different kinds of people, especially those on the edges. They were making the rounds in Berkeley before us and knew a bit more about survival techniques. They were headed over to the dorms at the University of Berkeley. It was close to People's Park. That was the whole beginning.

Moe's Books and People's Park were on Telegraph Ave. It was all situated pretty close. Honest to God I'm not sure which building it was, but it seemed modern in 1972. I know it wasn't the International House, we would walk up the hill on occasion to go to the cafeteria there. Anyway, I read a number of the dorms have been demolished since that time.

The International House

Chicken Lady led the way. We had our backpacks and sleeping bags. Geez..when was the last time we used those sleeping bags? So our Texas friends checked into the hostel that they had going on in that building. People weren't looking on the internet to see who was running from the law back then. I wonder about it. Maybe the Hearsts funded some of these operations? They had a street named after them running right next to the grounds. Just a thought. It was all weird.

Oh. It costs money? The people at the desk looked like they were in college and they couldn't have been friendlier. We just met and we were having some laughs. I don't remember the amount or our mindset, but we opted out. We had an idea. Our thought was to save a little money and get an apartment instead. So we were going to find a place, hidden away, to sleep.There were hedges all throughout the vicinity and little patches of grass. Secret patches.

There was a square within a square past a square of hedges. We were pretty wise as to what was cool and found a spot. So we shoved our stuff inside a hidden bush and took off for our days work. LBJ walked up by the International House to the Hillel Streetwork Project for some manly labor and I went off to pick up my tin for the Berkeley Free Clinic. Got a full day in of watching the action on the street and collecting some funds. I was the friendliest, cleanest panhandler you could ever meet. I did pretty well but I usually went into a public restroom to turn the tin upside and skim a little bit off the top. It was pretty much expected. Compared to what some people were doing, I was pretty innocent.

Back to the bushes after food and more walking. We were in our home for the next while. We unfurled the sleeping bags. Oh no. That mummy bag that got wet in Ohio! That smell. Somehow I ended up in it. It was the smell of mold and mildew. Rotting blubber and old cheese left under the front doorstep. I was going to beg LBJ to switch with me, but he was knocked out. He was tearing a house apart all day. I made it through the night. We didn't have a watch or a clock but the light of day and the sound of the early morning birds woke us up. Laying there for a second and something caught my eye. What the hell? A friggin snail in the sleeping bag. I jumped the hell out of that thing. I might have yelled yucch. There wasn't just one friggin snail in there, there was at least six of those slimy things swimming around in there. Not huge or I would think I would have felt them. Sneaky bastards sliming around in there.

We were close to the hostel front desk and asked if I could use the restroom. Yeah. Can I take a shower? Got along really well with the front desk people. Yeah. LBJ and I got cleaned up. He went off and I delayed my panhandling for a while. They had a little laundry and I decided to shove the sleeping bag in the washing machine. Problem is that the smell was soaked in there so bad it never came out. We worked out a deal that I would clean the main bathroom and shower in exchange for using them, since we weren't paying. Jesus. I had belly laughs with those people.