Berkeley (Freshman 1961)
Berkeley in 1960 was a quiet academic
place. The biggest uproar was the
fraternity party life. The Leftist
politics were low key. It was a perfect
eye of the hurricane for the 60’s
Revolution to erupt. Children raised
during the 50’s were spawned in the suburban bliss known as the conforming
years. Jobs were for life with a stable
retirement plan. The heroes of the 2nd
World War were not kidding around about the values of life. Their parents, witnesses of the Depression,
had buckled down to a serious effort at creating financial results, buying
houses, getting educated on GI benefits, there was a consensus of the mutual
welfare, an innocence of the spirit. The
prevailing atmosphere was so…serious.
The brink of nuclear war loomed.
This climate bred the dropout hippies of the 60’s. Getting a good education, a good job and
retirement appeared so Bourgeois and a status copout. Being born into a life of ineveitable
patterned certainty was kneejerk and not a sane response to the absurdities of
status politics. Dropping out happened.
The Back to the Earth Movement happened.
Draft eligible persons went to Canada and attempted to re-enter the
Agrarian Age. Of course most did not
have appropriate mental apparatus to function this way.
The
drugs of the 60’s helped create the Psychedelic Revolution, a picket line of
dispersed articulate educated persons abandoning the opportunistic status of
their life as a student or job structure to re-enter society as transformed
characters invented by introspection and the company they kept. There were thousands of mini social nets
composed of Astrologers, Commune freaks, Tarot Readers, Weed Growers, Gaia
Believers, actual collections of people serious about discovering the secret of
life and the Mind of God, following rumors with nothing better to do than camp
out, backpack, hitchhike, converse and be high on Life. Many souls were released from the Yoke of
Materialism and never returned to a normal life. History does not honor these folks who gave
up their traditional identities and re-entered life because there is no record
kept (No question line on the US Census that asks “did you become disillusioned
with the materialism in your life and drop out of the Social Contract you were
born into?”.
Berkeley
went from sedate to insane. It was then
called Berserkeley. The student
rebellion with Mario Savio came down.
Malcom X spoke on campus. Ronald
Reagan ordered teargas attacks on students from Helicopters. US Marshals tackled 18 year old co-eds. San Francisco State became a riot zone. The Simbianese Liberation Army formed on
delusionary chutspa, kidnapped Patty Hearst and dominated the News until
slaughtered by a swat team in Los Angeles.
Their “communications” were played over the radio with a Jazz Crusader
tune in the background and always ended with “Save the Children”. The general dispersal of LSD to a wide
population caused a rippling panic among authority persons. There were marches, clashes, arrests,
incarcerations, inter family schisms and national terror over the possibility
of Nuclear Annihilation. The Vietnam War
was generating a sharp division in the population making the distinction
between the government trusting conformists of the 50’s and the horrible fears
of the anti-war crowd. Government
positions seemed uninformed, expensive, and karma-wise, risky. During this period the “Counter Culture”
sprang forth, meaning freedom vs. the inevitable servitude to The Man, living
for people instead of things, being excited about the beauty of life rather
than protecting national prerogatives, being witness to the miracle of the
present. The Green Movement was born as
the collision between the endless expansion of the technology and machinery of
The Man (namely the Industrial Revolution) in the proscenium of Nature, ignoring
the continuity of it all being One, but as if Man and Nature could
compete. The psychedelic experiences of
various cultures had been discussed in anthropological texts, and in the theme
which Carlos Castaneda popularized in his Don Juan series. The Hippies were living this dream without a
supporting culture, so they invented one.
Like
electrons in a magnetic field, new Counter Culture initiates came to San
Francisco from many places East like New York, Boston, New England and either
stayed or returned East. When the flow
reached high volume, flumes of long-haired travelers were cast North in
California up Highway 1 and Highway 101 following Neal Cassidy to experience
“it”. Colonies formed in Laytonville,
Trinidad, Eureka, Arcata, Navarro, Albion, Whitethorn, Guerneville, Monte Rio,
Sebastopol and Occidental and everywhere else in Northern California. The previously sparsely populated areas were
open to people stimulated to think of the Earth as a finite blessing deserving
respect and even awe. The “New Age”
layer of humanity teaching Yoga, Meditation, Vegetarianism, Peace, Protestant
middle class culture waged an unconscious search for the truth about how to
live in spiritual and metabolic harmony with the Earth.
Books
like “The Whole Earth Catalog”, and “Other Homes and Garbage” addressed
implements, practices and resources for the Back to the Earth people who felt
like our culture makes an adversary out of Nature. The machinery, weapons and exclusionary
paranoia of National Identity seemed like a death wish in action. Reacting to momentum toward Babylon, nuclear
destruction and what seemed like a forming police state, a philosophy of
non-violence began to appear. The wave
of hippies spread in a strong vibration of hope and possibility dropping out of
the System and going to the Country much like a flower and met the real world. California would never be the same again.
Living
in Berkeley I began daydreaming about the cities in Sonoma and Humboldt
County. I would read the names on a map
and try to visualize the towns. We took
a trip to the Russian River in Sonoma County when our first baby was an
infant. The countryside was covered by
apple orchards, prunes, Redwoods and grassy rolling hillsides. In many places the trees grew over the
streets and lanes like arbors. The towns
were very lightly populated.
On
another occasion we drove our 54 Ford station wagon up to Eureka. Manila Beach is a large area across the bay
from Eureka. At the time there were
mounds of driftwood literally miles long and 40 to 50 feet high. Burls were common to the piles. Interesting pieces of ocean and wind formed
wood were piled in the thousands. It was
overwhelming, we filled our car with all sizes and kinds of miraculous pieces,
drove back to Berkeley, bought copper wire and artistic ornaments and made
mobiles in the attic of our loft.
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