Free Speech Movement

UC Berkeley on Strike… The 1964 Free Speech Movement

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

When police occupied the UC Berkeley Campus in early December of 1964 and arrested the protestors in Sproul Hall, the University went on strike. I joined a picket line on the edge of Telegraph Avenue next to Sproul Plaza.

My bed was indeed much softer that the marble floors of Sproul Hall.

After a quick breakfast I hurried back to campus to rejoin the sit-in. I was too late.

Armed men in uniforms formed a cordon around the Administration Building where students were being dragged down the stairs and loaded into police vans. Windows had been taped over so neither protestors or media could not see what was transpiring inside.

We had an occupied campus.

The great liberal governor of California had acted to “end the anarchy and maintain law and order in California.”

Whereas Jack Kennedy had used troops to protect civil rights in the South, Pat Brown was using them to stifle civil rights in the West. Of course Brown didn’t see it that way; he was taking a courageous stand against anarchy, the anarchy I described in my last blog.

I am sure Laurel and Hardy would have seen something to laugh about. Dragging kids down stairs on their butts while their heads bounced along behind could easily have been a scene in one of the old Keystone Cop films. The Oakland police weren’t nearly as funny as the Keystone Cops, however.

As for Clark Kerr, President of the University, he felt we were getting what we deserved and argued that the FSM leaders and their followers “are now finding in their effort to escape the gentle discipline of the University, they have thrown themselves into the arms of the less understanding discipline of the community at large.”

The campus came to a grinding halt and a great deal of fence-sitting ended. Whole departments shut down in strike. Sproul Hall plaza filled with several thousand students in protest of the police presence. When the police made a flying wedge to grab a speaker system students were using, we were electrified and protected the system with our bodies.

It was the closest I have ever come to being in a riot; thousands of thinking, caring students teetered on the edge of becoming an infuriated, unthinking mob. Violence and bloodshed, egged on by police action, would have been the result. Kerr, Brown, Knowland and company would have had the anarchy they were claiming, after the fact.

A few days later we were to come close again.

Kerr, in a series of around the clock meetings with a select committee of Department Chairs, had arrived at a compromise he felt would provide for the extended freedom being demanded on campus while also diffusing the outside pressure to crack open student heads.

Sit-in participants arrested in the Sproul Hall would be left to the tender mercies of the outside legal system and not disciplined by the University. Rights to free speech and organization on campus would be restored as long as civil disobedience was not advocated.

Kerr and Robert Scalapino, Chair of the Political Science Department, presented the compromise to a hastily called all-campus meeting of 15,000 students and faculty at the Greek Theater. There was to be no discussion and no other speakers.

When Mario Savio approached the podium following the presentation, he was grabbed by police, thrown down, and dragged off the stage. Apparently he had wanted to announce a meeting in Sproul Plaza to discuss Kerr’s proposal. Once again, Berkeley teetered on the edge of a riot. We moved from silent, shocked disbelief to shouting our objections.

Mario, released from the room where he was held captive, urged us to stay calm and leave the area. We did, but Kerr’s compromise had become compromised.

A full meeting of the Academic Senate was to be held the next day and all of us waited in anticipation to hear what stand Berkeley’s faculty would take.  We knew that most faculty members deplored the presence of police on campus and the violent way they had responded to the nonviolent demonstrators. Dragging Mario off the stage had not helped the Administration’s case.

Some departments such as math, philosophy, anthropology and English were clearly on the side of FSM while others including business and engineering were in opposition.

My own department of political science was clearly divided. Some professors believed that nonviolent civil disobedience threatened the stability of government. Others recognized how critical it was for helping the powerless gain power. To them, having large blocks of disenfranchised, alienated people in America seemed to be a greater threat to democracy than civil disobedience.

The Senate met on December 8 in Wheeler Hall, ironically in the same auditorium where Peter Odegard had lectured on the meaning of democracy to my Poly Sci 1 class during my first day at Berkeley. Some 5000 of us gathered outside to wait for the results and listen to the proceedings over a loud-speaker.

To the students who had fought so hard and risked so much, and to those of us who had joined their cause, the results were close to euphoric. On a vote of 824-115 the faculty voted that all disciplinary actions prior to December 8 should be dropped, that students should have the right to organize on campus for off-campus political activity, and that the University should not regulate the content of speech or advocacy.

Two weeks later, the Regents confirmed our hard-won freedom. We had won the battle but not necessarily the war.

Next Blog: Looking back at the long-term results of the Free Speech Movement

Occupy Sproul Hall… The 1964 Free Speech Movement at Berkeley

/ Curt Mekemson / 2 Comments

 

The release of the hostage Police Car did not bring peace to the UC Berkeley Campus. Each time a solution seemed imminent, the Administration would renege or the FSM would increase its demands.

In addition to the right to organize on campus, the disciplining leaders of the Free Speech Movement became a central issue.

Demonstrations took place almost daily and were blasted in the press. I learned a great deal about media sensationalism and biased reporting.

One day I would sit in on a democratic and spirited discussion of the pros and cons of a specific action and the next day I would read in the Oakland Tribune or San Francisco Examiner that I had participated in a major insurrection of left leaning radicals who were challenging the very basis of law and order. (It was documented later that the FBI was paying a reporter to write the Examiner stories.)

Older adults in suits taking photos looked suspiciously like plain-clothes policemen or FBI agents. It was easy to become paranoid.

If we signed a petition, demonstrated, made a speech or just stood by listening, would our pictures and names end up in some mysterious Washington file that proclaimed our disloyalty to the nation? These weren’t idle thoughts. A few years earlier people’s careers had been ended and live ruined because someone had implied they were soft on communism.

J. Edgar Hoover was known for tracking Civil Rights’ leaders and maintaining extensive files on every aspect of their lives. While we weren’t up against the KGB, caution was advisable. Hoover considered Berkeley a hotbed of Communism.

We looked warily at those who didn’t look like us. One day a small dog was making his way around the edge of the daily demonstration, sniffing people.

“See that Chihuahua,” a friend whispered in my ear. I nodded yes. “It’s a police dog in disguise. Any moment it is going to unzip its front and a German Shepherd will pop out.”

The wolf in sheep’s clothing was among us. It was a light moment to counter a serious time. And we were very serious. I sometimes wondered when the celebrated fun of being a college student would kick in.

One day I was faced with a test more serious than any I had ever faced in the classroom. On December 2, 1964, FSM leaders called for a massive sit in at Sproul Hall, Berkeley’s administration building. Once again communication had broken down and the Administration was back peddling, caught between students and faculty on one side and increasing pressure from the outside on the other.

I thought about the implications of the sit-it and decided to join. I needed to act. For three months I had listened to pros and cons and watched the press blatantly misrepresent what was happening on campus. I was angry, knowing that the public had little option but to believe that a small group of radicals was preaching anarchy.

It was not wrong to utilize an edge of campus for discussing the issues of the day, or for organizations to raise funds for supporting various causes, or even to recruit students for participating in efforts to change the community.

It didn’t disrupt my education. I was free to stop and listen, to join in, or pass on. What it did do was irritate powerful, established members of the community. And for that reason, our freedoms had been curtailed.

Maybe if enough students joined together, the Administration would listen and the press would dig deeper. I told my fiancé I was going inside and then joined the thousand or so students who had made similar decisions.

It was early in the afternoon and we were in high spirits. I believed it would be hard for the Administration to claim 1000 students were a small group of rabble-rousers bent on destroying the system. And I was right. It claimed we were a large group of rabble-rousers bent on destroying the system.

Inside I was treated to a unique experience. The sit-in was well organized. Mario Savio and other FSM leaders gave us directions on what to do if the police arrived. There were clear instructions that we were not to block doorways. The normal business of the University was not to be impeded and we were not to be destructive in any way.

Floors were organized for different purposes. The basement was set aside as the Free University where graduate students were teaching a variety of classes. These included normal topics such as physics and biology and more exotic subjects such as the nature of God. One floor was set aside as a study hall and was kept quiet. Another featured entertainment – including old Laurel and Hardy films, which seemed particularly appropriate.

After administrators left, a desk in the dean’s office became a podium for speech making. I felt compelled to add my dimes worth. Each speaker took off his or her shoes so the top of the desk would not be damaged.

The real treat though was an impromptu concert by Joan Baez. I joined a small group sitting around her in the hallway and sang protest songs. The hit of the night was “We Shall Overcome.” It provided us with a sense of identification with struggles taking place in the South. I felt like I belonged and was part of something much larger than myself.

Mainly I walked around and listened, taking extensive notes on what I saw and felt. Later I would sit in the Café Med on Telegraph Avenue and write them up. They would become the basis of talks I would give back home over the Christmas break. I also turned them over to Father Baskin, an Episcopal minister who wanted to use them for a sermon at his church in Placerville.

Along about midnight the un-radical part of my nature took over. I started thinking about my comfortable bed back in the apartment. The marble floors of Sproul Hall did not suggest a good night’s sleep and it appeared the police weren’t coming, at least in the immediate future. Yawning, I left the building and headed home.

I would come back in the morning to chaos and an occupied campus.

Next Blog: Berkeley on Strike. (See below for the story about Jack Weinberg and the police car.)

Holding a Police Car Hostage: UC Berkeley’s 1965 Free Speech Movement

/ Curt Mekemson / 5 Comments

Jack Weinberg, creator of the statement "Never trust anyone over 30," was arrested for raising funds to support Civil Rights efforts on the UC Berkeley Campus in the fall of 1965. Students surrounded the police car and held it hostage.

In the fall of 1965, the UC Berkeley Administration declared that the Bancroft-Telegraph Free Speech area was closed and that there would be no more organization of off-campus Civil Rights demonstrations at Berkeley. Student organizers of the various community efforts reacted immediately.

These were not young adults whose biggest challenge had been to organize pre-football game rallies. Some, like Mario Savio, had walked the streets of the South registering black voters and risking their lives to do so.

In the summer of 1964 three of their colleagues had been shot dead and buried under an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Many had cut their political eye teeth four years earlier in the anti-HUAC demonstrations in San Francisco and had participated in numerous protests against racial discrimination throughout the Bay Area since. (HUAC was the House Un-American Activities Committee, a hold over from the McCarthy era.)

The student organizers understood the value of demonstrations, media coverage and confrontation and had become masters at community organization. They were focused in their vision to the degree they were willing to face police and be arrested for their beliefs.

The Administration wasn’t nearly as focused. Liberal in nature and genuinely caring for its students, it utilized a 50’s mentality to address a 60’s reality. Its bungling attempts to control off campus political activity combined with its inability to recognize the legitimacy and depth of student feelings would unite factions as diverse as Young Republicans for Goldwater with the Young People’s Socialist League.

It eventually led to the massive protests that painted Berkeley as the nation’s center of student activism and the New Left.

Over the next three months I would spend a great deal of time listening, observing and participating in what would become known world-wide as the Free Speech Movement (FSM). As a political science major, I was to learn much more in the streets than I did in the classroom.

What evolved was a classic no win, up-against-the-wall confrontation. The Administration would move from “all of your freedoms are removed,” to “you can have some freedom,” to “let’s see how you like cops bashing in your heads.” The Free Speech leaders would be radicalized to the point where no compromise except total victory was acceptable.

Student government and faculty solutions urging moderation and cooperation would be lost in the shuffle. Ultimately, Governor Pat Brown would send in the National Guard troops and Berkeley would take on the atmosphere of a police state.

I found myself being radicalized in the process as well although I never reached the point of moving beyond issue to ideology. It was no more in my nature to be left-wing than it had been to be right-wing. However, I would move across the dividing line into civil disobedience.

Within hours of the time that Dean Katherine Towle sent out her ultimatum to campus organizations, the brother and sister team of Art and Jackie Goldberg had pulled together activist organizations ranging in orientation from the radical to conservative and a nascent FSM was born.

Shortly thereafter the mimeographs were humming and students were buried in an avalanche of leaflets as they walked on to campus. I read mine is disbelief. The clash I had predicted at the student leader meeting a year earlier had arrived. There was no joy in being right.

In an era before social networks and cell phones, FSM organizers relied on mimeographed fliers and word of mouth to build instant support. The above flier is one I saved in my files on the Free Speech Movement.

As soon as it became apparent that the Administration had no intention of backing off from its new rules, the FSM leadership determined to challenge the University. Organizations were encouraged to set up card tables in the Sather Gate area to solicit support for off campus causes.

I had stopped by a table to pick up some literature when a pair of Deans approached and started writing down names of the folks manning the tables. Our immediate reaction was to form a line so we could have our names taken as well. The Deans refused to accommodate us. The Administration’s objective was to pick off and separate the leadership of the FSM from the general student body.

A few days later I came out of class to find a police car parked in Sproul Plaza surrounded by students. The police, with encouragement from the Administration, had arrested Jack Weinberg, a non-student organizer for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) who had been soliciting support for his organization.

Someone had found a bullhorn and people were making speeches from the top of the police car while Jack sat inside. I situated myself on the edge of the fountain next to the Student Union and idly scratched the head of a German Short Haired Pointer named Ludwig while I listened. (Ludwig visited campus daily and played in the fountain. Later, in Berkeley-like fashion, the fountain would be named for him.)

A scanned photo of Ludwig from Berkeley's student newspaper.

Eventually I stood up and joined those on the edge of the crowd thereby becoming a part of the blockade. It was my first ever participation in civil disobedience. It was a small step. There would be plenty of time for more critical thinking if the police showed up in force.

Being only semi-radical, I did duty between classes and took breaks for eating and sleep. Eventually, after a couple of days, the FSM negotiated a deal with the Administration. Jack was booked on campus and turned loose, as was the police car. A collection was taken up to pay for minor damages the police car had sustained in the line of duty while serving as a podium.

Next Blog: The Police and National Guard occupy Berkeley’s campus

 

On the Edge of Radicalism… Berkeley’s 1965 Free Speech Movement

/ Curt Mekemson / 1 Comment

A major confrontation erupted on the UC Berkeley Campus in 1965 known worldwide as the Free Speech Movement. At stake was the right of students to be actively involved in the Civil Rights movement and other political issues of the time.

While I was playing in Puerto Vallarta, my nephew, Wayne Cox, posted the video of a Campus Cop using pepper spray on students at UC Davis. The students were involved in a nonviolent protest supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It was a strong indictment of the policeman, a bully using his power of position to intimidate and physically strike out at the protestors.

Those who oppose the Occupy Movement rushed to classify the incident as a random act of a disturbed individual. It was bad PR and the video had gone viral. But the use of violence to counter protest movements has a long history in America, dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War and the Boston Massacre.

I was to experience incidents similar to Davis during student protests at UC Berkeley in the mid 60s. I’ve already written a two blogs about the roots of the protest (see below).

I returned to UC in the fall of 1965 excited about my senior year. Two of my former dorm mates, Cliff Marks and Jerry Silverfield, had agreed to share an apartment. Prices were high. Landlords had a captive student population to exploit. We ended up with a small kitchen, bathroom, living room, and one bedroom. Things were so tight in the bedroom that Cliff and I had a bunk bed. I would later wonder why this was superior to dorm life.

Jerry (on the right), Cliff and I in our small apartment.

We christened the apartment by consuming a small barrel of tequila Cliff had brought back from his summer of sharpening Spanish skills in Mexico.

While we were recovering from our well-deserved headaches the next morning, UC’s Administration moved decisively to eliminate off campus political activities from being initiated on campus.

There would be no more organization of Civil Rights demonstrations and no more money collected to support political candidates or causes. Controversial speakers would not be allowed on campus without tight administrative control.

The Bancroft-Telegraph entrance free speech area was out of business, closed down, caput. That incredible babble of voices advocating a multitude of causes would be heard no more.

The Administration’s actions were a testament to the success of the 1960s Civil Rights struggle taking place in the Bay Area. It wasn’t that the activists wanted change; the problem was they were achieving it.

Non-violent civil disobedience is a powerful tool. Base your fight on legitimate moral and political issues; use the sit-in and the picket line to make your point. When the police come, don’t fight back; go limp. If they beat you over the head, you win. Sing songs of peace and justice; put a flower in the barrel of the weapon facing you.

It is incredibly hard to fight against these tactics. People tend to get upset when they see nonviolent protestors being beaten with nightsticks in national and international media. It gives power to the powerless.

Major businesses being targeted for their discriminatory practices in the Bay Area, the Sheraton Hotel, United Airlines and Safeway, blinked. Each would alter their practices.

One business that didn’t back down was the Oakland Tribune, owned by William Knowland, a conservative Republican, former Senator from California and leader of California’s Republican Party.

As the protests in the surrounding community became more successful, the power structure being attacked struck back. Calls were made to the Regents, the President of the University system and the Chancellor at Berkeley. ‘Control your students or else’ was the ominous message.

The Regents, President and Chancellor bowed to the pressure.

Some members of the Regents and Administration undoubtedly agreed with the businesses being challenged and saw the protesters as part of an anarchic left-wing plot. Others may have believed that the students’ effectiveness would bring the powers that be down on the university. Academic freedom could be lost. Some likely felt that the activities were disruptive to the education process and out-of-place on a college campus.

One thing was immediately clear; the Administration woefully underestimated the reaction of the leaders of the various organizations and large segments of the Campus population to its dictum. Possibly the administrators believed they were dealing with a small, unpopular minority, or maybe they just needed to believe: the outside pressure was so great it didn’t matter what the students believed or how they reacted.

Next blog: I become involved in ‘civil disobedience.’

Proud to be a UC Berkeley student, I display my sweatshirt.

The Revolution of the 60s and the Occupy Wall Street Movement

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

“If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there.”

Robin Williams

“We have to be careful not to allow this (the Occupy Wall Street movement) to get legitimacy. I am taking this seriously in that I am old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s…”

Peter King, Congressional Chair of the Homeland Security Committee

“Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

Jerry Weinberg during Berkeley’s Free Speech Moment in 1965

The forgotten 60s of Robin Williams is a legacy of the hippie era. Tune in and drop out became the rallying cry. Flower children flocked to San Francisco, Timothy Leary became the high priest of LSD and the Grateful Dead emerged out of the Bay Area. Ken Kesey, Neal Cassidy and the Merry Pranksters hopped on their psychedelic bus and toured America. “It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” the Fifth Dimension sang and some 500,000 people trekked to Woodstock to see if it were true.

I skipped the drug-induced haze of the hippies, for the most part. I assume Peter King did as well. Our similarities end there. While he worked his way through private colleges in the East, became a lawyer and joined the National Guard, I went to UC Berkeley, majored in International Relations and joined the Peace Corps.

The challenge to become involved was what captured my passion in the 60s. “If you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem,” Pogo asserted.

John Kennedy kicked off the decade with his “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Later, his perspective was broadened by Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream,” Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” and Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” as well as others.

Like tens of thousands of young people across America, I felt that the times were changing, that we could make a difference, that there were solutions to international relations beyond endless war, that America could live up to her dreams of equality, that we could reverse and repair the damage we were doing to our earth, and that there were motivations to action beyond greed.

In other words, what was happening then with the civil rights, human rights, environmental and anti-war movements of the 60s, bears a strong resemblance to what is happening with today’s Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Then, like now, a massive, nation-wide grass-roots movement was founded on the concept of creating positive change, young people played a major role, and the establishment fought back. Those with wealth and power saw us as a direct threat to their ability to gain more wealth and power.

We were labeled as leftists, radicals and communists even though the vast majority of us were not. We were told we were anti-American bent on destroying the nation. And the police and the National Guard were called out to ‘restore order.’

Thus it is when the Peter King’s of the world describe participants of the Occupy Wall Street movement as “anarchists” who are “a bunch of 1960 do overs trying to create chaos” and that “ they have no sense of purpose other than a basic anti-American tone,” I feel compelled to respond.

What happened in the 60’s is relevant to what is happening today.

But the relevance lies in the vision of creating a better nation, not in Peter King’s McCarthy like posturing. I am proud of what we able to accomplish in the 60s.  I am proud of how so many young people of the 60s and 70s would go on to create positive change throughout their lives. And I am proud of the folks who are now participating in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Over the next two weeks I will revisit the early to mid-60s and reflect on how these years impacted my life and thousands of others who shared my experiences. And I will strive to make those experiences relevant to today.

I will start with how a small community college in the Sierra foothills changed my world-view and then move on to look at UC Berkeley in 1963. Next I will provide an inside look at Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement in 1964 and give an overview of the nation’s first major anti-Vietnam War protest at Berkeley in 1965. I will conclude with my thoughts on how the Berkeley experience reflected and influenced what was happening in the nation.

The Peace Corps Leaves us Behind in New York City…

/ Curt Mekemson / 2 Comments

There's an old saying: "When treed by a lion, you might as well enjoy the scenery." My trip to the 1965 World's Fair in New York City resembled that. In this photo, Jo Ann poses with Rex.

Having successfully completed Peace Corps Training, our next task was to fly to Liberia, Africa. The thought was both exciting and scary. We didn’t need was another major adventure on the way…

Our reward for completing Peace Corps training was one week at home.

We were supposed to complete whatever business we had before disappearing into the jungles of West Africa for two years. Since there wasn’t much to do, Jo and I relaxed and recovered from our tumultuous year that had begun with the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley.

We wrapped up our brief visit with a going away party in Jo Ann’s back yard.

Surrounded by friends and family we talked into the night. It was one of those perfect summer evenings that California is famous for, complete with a cool breeze tainted with a hint of honeysuckle flowers.

Jo Ann’s parents drove us down to the San Francisco Airport the next morning for our flight to JFK where we would meet up with our group. Her mom slipped us a hundred-dollar bill just before we climbed on the plane. “Just in case.”

 

Now we were disembarking at JFK, two country kids who had traveled a long way from Diamond Springs and Auburn, California. All we had to do was check in at the Pan Am desk, grab a bite to eat, and catch our trans-Atlantic flight to Africa.

Ah that life should be so simple. Oh we managed to find the Pan Am desk all right, but no one was there.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where the Peace Corps group is?” I asked a harried attendant.

“I don’t have any idea,” was the brusque reply.

Have you ever had the sinking feeling that you have blown something critically important in a very big way? It starts with the hair follicles on your head and works its way downward to your toes. Every part of your body jumps in to let you know you aren’t nearly as smart as you imagined you were.

It’s the stomach that serves as the real messenger, however, and mine was rolling like the Atlantic in a hurricane.

“Check the instructions again, Curt,” the voice of reason standing beside me directed. Good idea.

“Well, it says right here we are supposed to be at the Pan Am desk no later than 5 PM.” It was only 4. My stomach calmed down to a respectable jet engine rumble. “Let’s have a bite and check back.” I suggested, working hard to be the man

Five PM came and no one, nothing, nada. It was serious panic time. “Wait here Jo in case anyone comes. I’ll go check the instructions one more time.”

We had stuffed our bags in one of those drop-a-quarter-in-the-slot storage lockers while we ate. I freed my shoulder bag from captivity and reread the instructions. Yes, we were in the right place at the right time. Then there it was, the answer, staring at me in black and white. “You will fly to JFK on August 7th.”

It was the 8th.

Uttering swear words on each step, I slowly climbed back up the stairs.

“I’ve found them Jo Ann.” A look of relief and the beginning of a smile crossed her face.

“Where are they?”

“They’re in Liberia.” Waaaaaaaaaa!

Let me say this about the two of us; we were both stubborn as mules when we thought we were right. This could create problems when we disagreed but the potential for disaster was miniscule in comparison to when we both agreed we were right and we weren’t. Reality didn’t matter and certainly a little date on a piece of paper we had each read a dozen times wasn’t going to deter us.

The 7th was our going away party and that was that, period. While we were kicking up our heels in Auburn, our compatriots were crossing the Atlantic. Now we were stuck in New York City.

“What are we going to do?” Jo asked in a shaky voice. The only thing that came to my mind was a double vodka gimlet

It was probably a good thing United Airlines let us on the airplane in San Francisco without noticing our tickets were one day out of date. Had we called Washington from home, the Peace Corps may have been tempted to say, “Why don’t you just stay there.”

As it turned out, the Peace Corps representative sounded amused when we called the emergency number after our visit to the bar. “Did we have enough money to get through until tomorrow?” Yes, thanks to Jo Ann’s mom.

“OK, call this number in the morning.” We decided to sleep in the airport to save our scant resources. It was a resolution with a short lifespan. I had one extremely unhappy young wife on my hands and my sleeping habits were unwilling to accommodate a deserted airport lounge.

Somewhere around midnight I said, “Look, Jo, I am going to see if a cab driver will help us find a hotel we can afford.”

The first guy in line was a grizzled old character in a taxi of similar vintage. I told him our story. He studied me for a moment and then said, “Go get your wife and I’ll find somewhere for you.

A more cynical observer might note we were lambs waiting to be fleeced but what followed was one of those minor events that speak so loudly for the positive side of human nature. The taxi driver took care of us. He reached across the cab, turned off his meter and then drove to three different hotels. At each one he would get out, go inside and talk to the manager. At the third one he came out and announced he had found our lodging.

“This place isn’t fancy,” he reported, “but it is clean, safe and affordable.” Affordable turned out to be dirt-cheap. To this day I am sure the cab driver finessed a deal for us. Two very exhausted puppies fell into bed and deep sleep.

The Peace Corps representative we talked to the next morning wasn’t nearly as friendly as the one the night before but at least he didn’t tell us we had to go home. A commercial flight to Liberia would be leaving in three days. “Could we hang out in New York? Did they need to send us some money? Could we follow directions?”

A very skinny Curt and the US Pavilion at the World's Fair

Yes we could hang out; no, they didn’t need to send money, and yes we could probably find our way to the proper airline at the correct time on the right day.

Jo and I visited the World’s Fair, checked out the City and considered the three days as an extension of our all too short honeymoon. As the old saying goes, all’s well that ends well.

Next up: Warm coke and cookies for breakfast in Dakar, Senegal

I sign up for the Peace Corps, but there’s this problem…

/ Curt Mekemson / 1 Comment

It was 1965 and I was faced with a dilemma. Uncle Sam was looking for warm bodies to ship off to the jungles of Southeast Asia to fight in a colonial war the French couldn’t win. Being a 22-year-old male about to graduate from college, I was a prime candidate.

If drafted, I would go. But fighting in a war I didn’t believe in, killing people I didn’t want to kill, and possibly being killed or crippled myself was at the very bottom of my list of things I was excited about doing.

A temporary solution presented itself. Peace Corps Recruiters were coming to campus.

Ever since Kennedy had created this idealistic organization three years earlier, I had been fascinated with the idea of joining. Two years of Peace Corps would not eliminate my military obligations but it might buy time for the war in Vietnam to work itself out.

Of more importance to me, it sounded like an incredible experience. My fiancé and I sat down and talked it out. She was willing to sign up with me and we would go together as a husband and wife team.

When the Peace Corps recruiters opened their booth in front of the UC Berkeley Student Union, we were there to greet them, all dewy eyed and innocent.

“Sign us up,” we urged.

Of course there were a few formalities; small things like filling out the umpteen page blue application and taking a language aptitude test, which featured Kurdish. We also needed letters of recommendation.

Apparently we looked good on paper. In a few weeks, Peace Corps informed us that we had been tentatively selected to serve as teachers in Liberia, West Africa. We were thrilled. That age old question of what do you do when you graduate from college and have to enter the real world had been answered for us, at least temporarily.

Uncle Sam with his growing hunger for bodies to ship to Vietnam would have wait.

There were still two hurdles, though, and both were tied to the illusive if. We could go if we could pass the background security check and if we could get through training. Training wasn’t a worry. We had enough confidence in ourselves to assume we would float through. How hard could it be after Berkeley?

The Security Check was something else. Jo Ann, of course, was squeaky clean. But Curt had been up to a little mischief at Berkeley, hung out with the wrong people, been seen in a few places where law abiding people weren’t supposed to be and had his name on a number of petitions.

“And where were you Mr. Mekemson the night the students took over the Administration Building?”

Maybe there was even a file somewhere…

Soon I started hearing from friends at home. The man with the badge had been by to see them. The background security check was underway. One day I came home to the apartment and my roommate Jerry was there, looking very nervous.

“I have to talk to you Curtis,” he blurted out. “The FBI was by today doing your Peace Corps background check and I told them you had been holding communist cell block meetings in our apartment.

Jerry was not kidding; Jerry was deadly serious; Jerry was dead.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I had yelled, seeing all of my hopes dashed. I knew that Jerry disagreed with me over my involvement in Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement and probably disagreed with me over the Vietnam War, but I hadn’t a clue on how deep that disagreement had gone. Or what he based his information on.

My degree in International Relations had included a close look at Communism. I found nothing attractive about the system.

The closest I had personally come to any truly radical students had been the Free Student Union. Yes I had held a committee meeting at our apartment but I had also severed my relationship with the organization as soon as I figured out the folks behind the Union were primarily interested in fomenting conflict.

It was not a happy time at the apartment that night or for many weeks. I assumed the Peace Corps option was out and begin thinking of alternatives. They were bleak.

As it turned out, a few weeks later we received final notification from the Peace Corps. We were accepted. The people who said good things about me must have outweighed the people who said bad things. Either that or Jo looked so good they didn’t want to throw the babe out with the bath water.

Or maybe most of the other students signing up for the Peace Corps from Berkeley in 1965 had rap sheets similar to mine. I suspect they did.

There was one final hitch. We had our Peace Corps physicals at the Army Induction Center in Oakland. That was an experience. I quickly recognized that the physical was designed as the first step in making soldiers, a part of the de-individualization process. Lining up with a bunch of other naked men to be poked and prodded isn’t my definition of fun.

“Turn your head and cough.”

I took it like a man and escaped as soon as the opportunity presented itself. A couple of days later I came back from class and there was a note from my other roommate, Cliff.

“The Induction Center called,” he wrote, “and there was a problem with the urinalysis.” I was to call them.

“Damn,” I thought. “Why is this so difficult?” So I called the Induction Center and resigned myself to having to pee in another jar. With really good luck I might avoid the naked-man-line but I wasn’t counting on it.

I got a very cooperative secretary who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative nurse who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative technician who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative doctor… none of whom could find any record of my errant urinalysis.

They didn’t see any problems and they didn’t know who had called. They suggested I call back later and be bounced around again. More than a little worried, I rushed off to my next class.

That evening I reported my lack of success to Cliff. He got this strange little smile on his face and asked me what day it was.

“April 1st,” I replied as recognition of having been seriously screwed dawned in my mind. “You little twerp!” I screamed, as Cliff shot for the door with me in fast pursuit. It took me four blocks to catch him. The damage wasn’t all that bad, considering.

Next up: What do Peace Corps training and a dead chicken’s dance have in common?