Select this to read [the Whole Story].I started doing community work, with AFSC's CO program, SF State Free University, migrant workers, high school dropouts and gang members in SF. In early '67, I burned out. I went to live on a Quaker communal farm for a year.
Were you tired and discouraged by the resistance which you ran up against as you promoted issues that could have led to a better society?
I was discouraged by how few people wanted to work. I worked with a project that advocated juvenile justice. We worked to get courts to give representation to minors. We visited families at risk (the kids had been arrested) to assess the family situation. We attempted to establish communal-type group homes for teenagers at risk. I also worked part-time with the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. There I encountered so many people who were destroying themselves, who didn't see that there was work to be done, etc. With Reagan as governor, a lot of really good programs were being cut off and a lot of people's lives were seriously affected. Violence and advocating violence was becoming more prevalent in the movement.SF State went crazy and closed (I was in my last semester) and I quit. One of the kids I had been working with (I was close to him and his family) was killed in jail (trying to stop a fight). It seemed like the whole country could explode in violence and more and more people were going off to war. A lot of my friends were coming back from the war and they were all wounded. The final reason for me leaving the Bay Area for the farm was personal. A person asked me to keep a briefcase for him for a couple days. (My house was somewhat of a safe house as I worked closely with a couple lawyers and the police knew about it.) The owner of the briefcase was found killed and a couple men with guns showed up at my door for the briefcase. I left everything I owned and got on a Greyhound bus. This probably sounds pretty tame in light of the current situation in most cities. I, however, had never had my front door broken open with a very large shotgun. The person who gave me the briefcase was a truly loving, non-violent beautiful man.
You left college in '67 because "SF State went crazy." Can you tell me any more about it?
In '67, there were demonstrations on campus all the time, the Black Panthers held people hostage in the cafeteria, going to class was trivial. I was mainly working with the "free university", off campus. The school was closed during finals week. I still don't know if I graduated. I think that my professors may have passed me without the finals. One of the best actions taken that year (IMHO) was that the student council voted to cut, by 100%, the athletic budget, and to put the money into relevant community-service-for-credit programs. (Of course, the regents and the state quickly reversed the council...) Shortly after the end of the term I left San Francisco.
When you say "work," I assume you are referring to "work" [for the cause of promoting a better world]. Am I correct?
Yes, I mean getting up every day and doing the boring stuff. Cooking for the homeless, teaching highschool dropouts, cleaning up neighborhoods, keeping your scene together are all mostly just day-to-day work. There are too few people who think that carrying out the garbage is one of the "important jobs." My grandmother worked for the Red Cross with homeless kids at the Chicago stockyards in the 1920's. My son is working with homeless kids in downtown Denver. I was downtown with him last evening, The kids were the same kids that I knew in the Mission in 1966-7. Everyday, all day the kids played Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' on the record night and the entire back wall was covered with 'RESPECT' in graffiti. If my grandmother had been there, I know she would've known those kids too. There's no way these kids should still be on the street.[How does one reach enlightenment?
Chop wood, carry water.
What does one do after reaching enlightenment?
Chop more wood, carry more water.]For me, the 60's was not just a social affair....
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
