Skip to main content

Bears Thought

I've been traveling around Northern California for the past few days, finally settling into a brief Berkeley visit.  Although it's only been half a dozen years since I've lived here, the changes are mighty.     This overcast,  misty day is quite reminiscent of Portland, but that's where the similarities end.  I see California's budget crisis in the number of businesses gone and going. An empty movie theater is difficult to tolerate.  All the possibility gone dark.  I  see the publicly insane staring at me from their street caves and perches.  I see some familiar faces, well worn by time, age, and their addiction to remaining in the same place for decades.  Even some of the streets have been re-configurated adding an unfamiliar tone and the anxiety that I really don't know where I'm going.
Still, I love the diversity and hate the traffic.
This morning I found a few minutes to wander the UC Berkeley campus and dropped in the bookstore. Looking a little shabby these days, the old student union.  Across the street and just down from the famous Telegraph  Ave. and Sproul Plaza historical intersection still resides a textbook store.  There used to be 3 or 4 of those used book places in the glory days.  Of course, that's all changed now.  I give the one remaining four or five years at the most.
The UC campus in Berkeley is very Asian.  That's just a statement of fact.  It just is.  Perhaps I should say it just seems that way.  I know that's an uncomfortable stereotype and I will definitely look into it.
Parking is always a challenge.  The South campus area is still filled with all manner of hangers on.  At one point, I chanced to see an old white Victorian house, a few blocks south of the campus on Dwight Way, near Fulton St.  It looked the same as it did when a 23 year old kid spent the night there back in 1970.  Don't really know who lived there then but I managed to find the place with a couple of folks I was traveling around with that summer. Back then word of mouth could get you a place to crash. When the tenants extended the use of the floor, we jumped at the offer.  A roof and a bathroom; no charge.  I wonder who will be sleeping there tonight?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...

Illusory

What does it take to enrage you?  That moment when your words fly on pure emotion because enough is enough.  Is it a driver that cuts you off at high speed?  What about being an eyewitness to blatant racism or on the receiving end of some obvious injustice? I know some people who never express rage.  I admire them but know full well I am not capable of such distance from that which would bring about such a strong response. Another senseless shooting and 7 people die at the hands of a mentally ill gun owner.  The father of the 20 year old college student lets it fly and somehow millions feel a new sense of relief.  He calls the politicians bastards who do nothing, he wears his pain in public.  The news media responds but we all know that nothing is going to change.  We are the gun country.  We are the place where anybody, anytime, can be cut down just for being there when somebody else snaps. Usually the perpetrators are delusional. ...

Mr. Greene v. Mr. Brown

I want to tell you about something. Something I've carried inside myself for a number of years now. Perhaps if I were a different kind of person I wouldn't need to talk about it. I'm not. My need to tell it is stronger than your need to hear it. Because, however, there are a number of teachers and former students of mine who may read these meanderings from time to time, I need to tell this story all the more. About 7 or 8 years ago I was asked if I would allow a university PhD. candidate to observe an English class. At first I decided against it because I was scheduled to have a student teacher placed with me the second half of the semester in question. After some urging, however, at the request of a respected colleague, I agreed. Soon I was committing to extra meetings, signing documents and explaining to the class in question who the young woman who thoughtfully pounded away on a laptop in the rear of the classroom three times a week was. I knew that the topic of ...