The Student Union Building was buzzing with electricity as Spartacus was about to play in the TV lounge. The whole business with the Black Panthers on the streets and in the auditorium did not bode well for any public gathering but every chair and couch was taken. Young idealistic eyes were glued, ears tuned to the images and dialogue. I wondered what these kids would do if faced with real oppression and wondered further what they would do if the state, they so wished to smash, were to come down with any force at all on them? Yearnings of youth aroused by the musings of Kirk Douglass and Tony Curtis over liberty from the Roman State… flashbacks of the cowardice and spineless resistance to the Hells Angels from the Altamont Speedway fiasco reverberated in my mind and contrasted with the bravado and clenched fist salutes of these kids living out the fantasy. Had I not just left an auditorium where a handful of organized and militant thugs had randomly displayed what brute force could do at will among them?Night time came along and I made myself a safe place on the roof over the hall where we had lunch at the Lutheran Church. Bob-O and I stretched out our sleeping bags on folding aluminum lounge-chairs under the eave of an overhang. “Hey Bob-O…”
“Yeah?”
“I need to get out of town where there is water and green trees… you know, away from this crap.”
“I know a place up north, Lake Mendocino.”
“I’d like to go there.” I mumbled, as I drifted off to sleep thinking of warmer, dryer places with hot meals and good company.
Jonestown miracles next... as we continue...
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