the draft 3

 Well Friday, Friday, can't trust that day.  Normally I have some cud from a previous poster to chew on to begin my weekend, but today I guess I will just make do on my own.

My time in Berkeley was probably the most extraordinary time of my life.  We called it Berserkely, because for us, as far out as we might have been in the towns we came from, this was a bit too much.  We were the outsiders, the hangers-on, from somewhere else drawn by the flame of the sixties.  We weren't students, we had these kind of subsistence jobs, because really any more substantial job, if we could get one, which we couldn't, not that we tried that hard, was selling out to The Man.  

Below us were the street people that the Berkeley Barb idolized because they saw them as the vanguard of The Revolution.  They were just like us except that they didn't have subsistence jobs, they just spare-changed along Telegraph Avenue.  We, with our hard-working subsistence jobs, looked askance at them, why are they panhandling us who are just getting by?  Why don't they go up north of campus where the solid citizens are?  Well it was too far from home, and besides, being solid citizens, they were not likely to give money to the folks who were tearing down civilization.

That's what the local newspaper said, I mean, shouted, in big bold headlines, sometimes in red ink because what the fuck, almost every day.  Back in the day the students and the hangers-on were the revolutionaries, and the faculty and the solid citizens were the establishment.  Since then the former students and hangers on have become the faculty and the solid citizens, and the students have become the establishment, attending a high-class college and just wanting to get through with a high-class degree and start earning the big bucks.  

Okay, on with the story. 

Even after Bob Hill left his shoes under Marlene's bed, and after she moved me out to move him in, the three of us remained friendly.  It was the 60s you know, and what the hell.

 I ran into this girl, Dottie, who I'd known a little in Champaign and she had an apartment not far from Marlene's.  When I say she had an apartment I mean she and her friends had an apartment.  Also Marlene didn't have an apartment, she had a bedroom in an apartment where three or four other people lived.  The house I'd moved out of to come to Berkeley had several other people living in it, as did the one I moved into when I returned to Champaign.  That was just the way we lived in those days.

 And you'd have not just your friends who were supposed to share the rent and mostly did, but you'd have other people, friends of friends, people you just happened to run into, who were kind of passing through.  They wouldn't get a bedroom or anything like that, but they'd maybe get a couch, maybe some blankets on the floor.  They didn't pay any rent, but they were supposed to come through with what they could.  The thing is you're paying this rent and it won't cost you any more no matter how many people are living there, so if you can get a little cash or dope or food out of them, why you're that much ahead.  As for the loss of privacy; we were all young and our ethos was party, party, party.

 So when Marlene heard about Dottie's apartment she was very interested, as was Bob Hill I expect, though he was discreet enough not to show it.  Myself I was resigned.  I knew which way the wind was blowing.

 I got a closet.  Not bad really, it was a big closet, plenty of room for a mattress, and for my stuff which wasn't much, and it had a light bulb hanging by a chain that I could turn on and off, so really what more could I want?

 Dottie, who was paying almost all of the rent, was a practical girl among us potheads.  She was the proverbial slip of a girl, but she was strong, she had iron in her, she had a job.  We were all a little afraid of her.  Except for Bob Bergschneider, who I'll just call Bob from now on.  A big genial guy, dark hair, dark drooping moustache.  He didn't have a job, didn't pay any rent, and yet he rated a bedroom to himself, and he didn't fear Dottie, what was with that?  It didn't take long to figure that out.  She was madly in love with him and he was a cad.

 The only other person who rated a bedroom was Diana.  I believe she paid some rent, and she was actually a student so she was away a lot.

 Then there was the riff-raff, me and a couple other guys.  There was Edward who was just a stone cold hippie.  The way you sold dope at the street level in those days was you walked up and down Telegraph Avenue and droned softly, but loud enough for those passing by to hear, "grass, hash, LSD, mushrooms."  You'd make enough to get through the day.  That's what Edward did.  He never started a conversation, and he had only two responses to what you might say.  "Far out," for something good, and "Bummer, bummer," for something bad.  I think that's all there is to say about him.

 Then there was Fred who was a pacifist.  We all kind of shared the general politics of Berkeley the same way the neighbors I grew up with on the southwest side of Chicago believed in the Democratic party.  If you asked them about Mayor Daley they loved him, but if you didn't ask them the subject never came up.  Likewise if asked our opinion on something we'd give the New Left response, and we'd mean it sincerely, but otherwise we didn't talk politics. 

 But Fred did.  He spoke like Thoreau, or more actually like someone in the 60s would think Thoreau spoke.  He was always firm but gentle, adamant but soft spoken.  And he had gotten out of the army. 

 Sometimes when writing about things that happened in the 60s I wonder if younger people can really understand it.  Is it all that different from later times?  There is always youthful rebellion etc, maybe the 60s was just all that a little more publicized, a little more blown up.  But there is one thing the 60s had that no later generation did, and I don't think it ever gets as much weight as it should, and that is the draft.  There were two kinds of young men in America then, those who were awaiting the draft, and those who had passed through it, either by joining the army or avoiding it.

 So as a guy who had not just avoided the draft but gotten out of the army, he was respected.  But it wasn't pacifism that had gotten him out of the army, it was a psych discharge.  He had talked about killing himself, killing others.  When the shrinks asked him what he expected that to accomplish he shrugged his shoulders.  He was rather proud of that last move, not too much of a reaction, not too little, just the right amount.  He was a well regarded guy, though sometimes the look in his eyes when he told that story made us wonder if maybe he wasn't a little, well, you know.