They say that if you remember 1967 you weren’t there.
Trust me, I was there. I met my husband Tom there, had six kids with him – five of them adopted including three post-polio kids, two of whom came out of the Vietnam War. Thirteen years of me studying Indian music and dance with Balasaraswati, and an MA in South Asian Studies from Cal, before he left me behind. But before he did, we started a music venue called 1750 Arch Street and produced concerts and made records with some of the best Bay Area musicians, and we marched against the war and gave money to anti-war causes, which earned us the honor of being put on President Nixon’s enemies list. I half-toned the list, and used it as my personal stationery, on which I wrote my application to Boalt Law School, which I graduated from 12 years later with a JD degree to join my BA in Anthropology from Michigan, and my MA in Indian Studies and MPH in Maternal Child Health from Berkeley.
The years at Cal were memorable for, among other things, fire-bombings, bomb scares, helicopters circling overhead, and tear gas on the way to class. Ah! There is nothing like the smell of tear gas in the morning. We went from driving a drive-away car to San Francisco, wearing flowers in our hair, to planting flowers in People’s Park, and the Park became a symbol of peace and flowers and no war and music, free food, and kindness.
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