Tuesday, June 16, 2020

In my early days at UC Berkeley in 1972, between dodging demonstrations over various things I saw as interruptions to my education, I began to see certain characters who formed the backdrop of my college experience; the extras in my college story.

The first impression of Berkeley was provided by the numerous people lining the sidewalks along Telegraph Avenue from early in the morning on. There were street vendors where you could buy tie-dyed shirts, jewelry, and many other ways to part ways with your money. Lucky for me, not so much for them, I had no money to spare for them or any of the panhandlers camped out at their territories along the street leading to the Sproul Plaza.

I recently found out that a woman I currently know was in Berkeley at the same time I was. She had asked me about the Cal cap I usually wear. She asked if I had gone to college at Cal. I told her, yes, and the years I was there. She then told me that she had been there too, but not as a student. She had been a teen runaway and very likely had been one of the panhandlers I navigated my way past every morning and afternoon as I headed to classes and back. Her life sounded very hard. She told me that many of the people she had known then had not made it. She had made it herself with the help of many people she met along the street, among them, the Berkeley Bubble Lady.

The Berkeley Bubble Lady was Julia Vinograd. She had written a book of poetry that I had seen displayed in the local bookstores. She was usually dressed in outfits with black capes and a quirky hat, and she constantly filled the air along Telegraph Avenue and on campus at Sproul Plaza with bubbles from her ever-present bottle of bubble stuff.  

Then there was Holy Hubert Lindsey, who also had a book out at the time. He was a campus preacher at Cal and other campuses. He was somewhat typical in his message but extremely creative in his delivery. He seemed to thrive on being heckled by his large audience. He would end his answer to a typical heckler with, “Bless your dirty heart.” And that line is the title of his book. Somewhere, I have an autographed copy.

There was also a guy I called the Orange Man because he gave away oranges. He carried them in a clear plastic bag, slung over his shoulder. Pausing to get one out, he would hold it in his hand with the bag again over his shoulder and use his other hand, holding the orange as a sort of orange-radar detector, pointing out people in the passing crowd of students, and if he detected someone who needed an orange, he would walk to them and offer them one. It seemed to be his calling. He never chose me.

And there was the Polka-Dot Guy. He wore white pants and a shirt, with, as you might guess, tiny polka-dots stuck on every square inch, so that you could hardly tell it started as a white outfit. He would put down a square cloth, blocking foot traffic, generally near Sather Gate, and sit in the middle of it. That was it. That was his contribution to society. It at least made an impression on me, however valuable it was or wasn’t.

Holy Hubert wasn’t the only person looking to save souls.

There were followers of Reverend Moon, also known as Moonies, in Berkeley at the time. I had heard about this beforehand. I knew they were possibly a “cult” when a representative first spoke to me on Sproul Plaza. The person who contacted me, of course, was a pretty woman about my age, with a foreign-sounding accent. Of course, I was targeted. She wanted me to join them. And, I thought I could convince her to leave them.

Over a couple of days, she repeatedly asked me to come to a free dinner. I talked to her about why I did not want a free dinner, but thank you anyway. I tried to tell her that I was quite fine spiritually. I had an answer that worked for me. And I asked if she wanted to hear it? She listened politely and then upped the game with her reason to be a “Moonie”, although she did not refer to herself in that way.

I finally agreed to a free dinner. I had heard that at the free dinner, you would be pressured to go on a weekend retreat. I had also heard that some who agreed to go on this weekend retreat were never heard from again. I knew I should be safe if I just went to dinner and had no further communication with them, or her.

Of course, my sponsor was at the free dinner. We sat together as we ate, as she continued to pressure me to join them. She told me she had given all of her possessions, including money, to the church, and they now provided everything she needed. I returned my pressure, asking her again why she had to give up everything for this “church”. This was not something that should be required for any spiritual belief. I did not convince her. She was not making a dent in my own beliefs either.

At the end of the dinner, I got up to leave. She told me to wait just a minute. I guess there was more indoctrination planned before they would let me leave. Yep, the free dinner came with a catch. I had seen her watching a particular man in the group, and she went to speak to him, and then returned to me. I insisted that it was time for me to go. People were expecting me back home. She excused herself again to speak to this same man. He then came over to talk to me directly. I guess he was the Unification Church “closer”. He went through much of the same propaganda I had already heard from her. I insisted that I did not need to be saved since my own beliefs were strong and I did not feel a need to change them. He mentioned the retreat that same weekend. I just walked away. They did not stop me.

One thing about all of this is that I really did have someone waiting for me. By that point, I had met Jeanne, my future ex-wife. She had tried to talk me out of going to this free dinner. But I was on a dorm plan that did not include weekend meals, unlike hers. I am trying to be funny here. But I know that if I had not contacted Jeanne by a set time, she would have notified the campus police of my whereabouts.

While writing this, I found some information about the Moon’s “Unification Church” from 1972 on the internet. If I had this information then, I would have just gone hungry that night. It describes the houses the church had been opening across the United States, including the Berkeley house, as “reeducation centers”. It describes a church member recounting Moon’s “hurricane-like fury at Satan and the division of the American family”. His fury at the division of the American family interests me. Part of what they were doing was just that. They were targeting college students who were away from home for the first time, and turning them against their families in these same reeducation centers I had visited.

I knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. Now I learned the same thing applies to dinners.