WHAT I MISS ABOUT BERKELEY

Memorial Stadium and Edwards Field; Telegraph Avenue, Durant Ave, Shattuck and Ashby, some of the best street names in the whole country. Grove Way, University Ave, Solano Ave, Dwight Way, Benvenue, where I lived for a year a block from the Patty Hearst kidnapping. Kleeburger Field where I played intramural soccer with the legendary ‘East-West’ team filled with Jamaicans and Americanos and big Don Ross guarding my ass when I was goalie. Kips, where I worked for three years and almost got fired for drinking beer one night before I was twenty one and someone told owner Joe Di Sano. He kicked my ass. Tower Records, Leupold’s Records; KLAX radio, that study in the failure of racial college politics but good training for my radio script writing, Sproul Plaza and the drum line on Sunday’s, the Edwards Field baseball complex in the spring when I cut class and almost flunked Econ 1-A with Professor Nadel; a couple of the girls at Kips, Nancy something who had terrific tits and tried to seduce me one night after a party at my house but she couldn’t quite swing it, me holding out for some damn reason; Sandy Browne, God bless her; Cody’s, the Coop market; REI, Ski Hut, North Face, some of the best outdoor shops in the country back in the early 70’s; The Big Game, Larry Blakes after a big Kennedy Games track meet when all the runners would show up and drink beer; Eddie Hart, Isaac Curtis, Wesley Walker, Joe Roth, Steve Bartkowski, Vince Ferragamo, Chuck Muncie, Dave Fishbaugh, Phil Chenier, Brady Allen, Dave Masters (these were the jocks that ruled Cal in the early 70’s); The Keystone, Freight and Salvage, the Berkeley Community Theater, the Jazz Festival at the UC Greek Theater and looking out over the stage and the columns when Miles Davis was in town, seeing the Golden Gate Bridge at night and the Bay Bridge and San Francisco and thinking it ain’t going to get much better then this and damn, it hasn’t, really; Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Carlos Santana; wondering, during the Viet Nam war era and the protests and the anger at the US botching a major foreign policy initiative that ended in a useless and deadly war, if the United States would ever regain enough honor to lead in any other worldwide conflict and you know, the jury is out on that and I don’t know if that qualifies as something I miss but it was sure a part of life then; my going away party when I moved to Jackson Hole Wyoming and the great friends and the wine and good food and the gifts; Cindy Greer and that’s all I’m going to say about you, my dear, you’re one that got away; my 1964 Karman Ghia convertible, and of course the lovely Nora Lindahl, who sat in that car many times and was she a sweetheart, or what?? Crappy little FM radio in that Ghia, but with the top down, who cared?