Side Roads and Dandelions

by W.H. Harrod

  ~~ Chapter Twenty-Four

  For the first time since they so unceremoniously loaded him into the bus back in Oklahoma, Bobby sat behind the wheel steadily guiding their trusty peace wagon towards the California coast. The seemingly interminable expanse of the vast central California valley was behind them and none too soon. With each rotation of the vehicle’s tires, Allison’s excitement intensified. Off in the distance loomed the hills that separated the bus from their first view of the bay. A steady stream of vehicles coming from the densely populated coastal area noisily announced the end of another workday. They were going to make it before the President’s meaningless 5 p.m. deadline after all. Somehow, though, knowing a war would start regardless of the date and the hour specified earlier by the determined leader of the free world, from the comfort and the security of a bunker in Washington, D.C., lessened the relief that otherwise might be expected.

  “Do you guys mind if I listen to public radio?” asked Allison as she reached for the radio control knob. “I hope they transmit on AM because that’s all this thing will pick up.”

  None of her fellow passengers responded to her inquiry, so Allison accepted their silence as an okay. The static that identified the less used frequency spectrum sounded alien. Allison could not recall the last time she tried to tune in an AM station. Try as she might, all she found was Spanish language programming, country music, farming reports, and the ubiquitous we can save your soul if you will send us a few dollars please stations.

  “Guess I should have gotten around to upgrading the radio during the last thirty-four years, shouldn’t I?” said Allison after giving up on her attempt to find a reliable source of information relating to her country’s developing military adventure. For a long time she lamented the fact that if you didn’t talk conservative smack, it didn’t get on the air. Most of the smack talking sports commentators ranted from positions of experience. They had at least played the games they offered their loud opinions on. Regarding politics and military intervention, however, the airwaves were filled with outraged, pompous, blathering, arm chair warriors most of whom had never even been boy scouts much less members of the armed forces. They screamed at the cowards who refused to stand up and support sending our troops out to make the world safe from terrorism, and while out there, install governments sympathetic to our elected representative’s ideas of corporate globalization and free market capitalism. Hopefully, those governments would turn out to be democratic, but in a pinch, about any kind that readily agreed to support our country’s foreign policies and economic needs would suffice.

  In the past Allison had contested the parroted comments of the millions of mindless listeners of such unmitigated horse crap and cautioned that our concerns might be better placed if we instead asked our leaders questions regarding the loss of millions of good paying jobs to foreign manufacturers owned by multi-national corporations. Or why millions of Americans did without adequate medical care or had to work three or four jobs to make ends meet. Often she was told that the real problems with this country had nothing to do with economics but instead were caused by a break down in moral values such as homosexuality, abortion clinics, and schools teaching evolution to our children. Some days the crap got so deep Allison felt she needed a tractor with a front-end loader. A simple shovel may have worked in the past, but not anymore.

  “Are we going to the professor’s house first?” asked Allison having given up on the idea of finding objective commentary concerning the country’s newest crisis. She turned to face Ernest slumping half asleep in the back seat alongside Sam, who likewise had succumbed to the long drive north through the valley of plenty.

  “Yes, go to the professor’s first. We can make our other arrangements there. What time is it? Did we make it?” Ernest spoke hastily as he sat up rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “It’s 4:15 p.m., and yes, we have made it as soon as we get through those hills in the distance. No word on the status of the start of the war. The way I see it on the map we should stay on this same highway. I think I can get us to the university, but then I’m going to need some help finding the professor’s home. I do recall that we have to go towards the hills once we’re in Berkeley,” said Allison looking at the map in her lap.

  “Here,” said Ernest as he reached into his hip pocket and brought forth some folded papers. “I printed this out before we left. It’s a Berkeley city map showing the exact route to the house. It’s amazing the information they have available on those little home computers.”

  Allison retrieved the folded papers and upon inspection agreed that the professor’s house would not be difficult to locate with the help of the map. “Bobby, stay on Highway 580 until I tell you when, okay?”

  Bobby nodded his head in understanding.

  “I’m glad we’re getting there before the sun sets,” added Allison offhandedly. “I used to love to walk up into the hills so I could get a good look at the beautiful sunsets. I imagine that everything else has changed in the last thirty-four years, but I’m hoping they’ve not been able to ruin the sunsets.”

  “How about you Bobby, what’s your favorite memory of the bay area?” Allison asked.

  Bobby, per his usual custom, pondered the question. “I enjoyed the cool nights. I remember thinking while I was in Vietnam that I would never gripe about the cold again if I ever got home or anywhere else where you didn’t sweat like a horse all the time. I wore my fatigue jacket and it felt great, especially, at night. I guess that’s about all I remember. I drank too much to be doing a lot of thinking, but it didn’t take much brain power to be aware of, and appreciate, the cool temperatures.”

  “Ernest, what’s your favorite memory?” Allison obviously didn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts presently, and the easiest way to accomplish this was by keeping a conversation going.

  Unlike Bobby, Ernest answered right off. “Leaving! Leaving is what gave me the greatest enjoyment. I did no sight seeing, visited no relatives or friends, nor enjoyed any of the world-class restaurants I’ve since heard about. When it started to get dark we went inside forgoing the beauty of the sunsets, lest a friendly law enforcement officer got nervous at spotting black men in black berets and black leather coats afoot in the community after dark and ended up taking a free shot at one of us. Considering the reason I’m coming back to the area, I seriously doubt I will take any wonderful memories away with me this time either, except being a part of the present company, of course.”

  “Well, thank you so much for sharing those special moments with us, Ernest, and now, Mr. McCarthy, would it be too much to hope that your personal recollections of the bay area are not quite so, shall we say, distorted as Dr. Grinch’s?” Allison’s inquires found Sam in a similar condition to Ernest who only moments before had been sound asleep.

  “Let’s see, not considering the delightful face-pounding incident which I’m assuming we are omitting for purposes of conversational decorum, I would have to say it was the great weed and the really cool California chicks that caused my heart to flutter. Man, I was so toked out from smoking dope and exhausted from humping the cute coeds that dug my eastern accent and admired my militant anti-government viewpoint that I hardly found the time to do any real anti-establishment consensus building while I was here. If it hadn’t been for the University Regents getting nuts over People’s Park and J. Edgar’s local surrogate sending in the cavalry, I probably would still be hobbling around the campus trying to hit on the naive lasses.”

  Allison, too stupefied to speak, turned in the direction from which the last amazing statement came. Before she could think of a suitable response, Sam defended himself, of sorts.

  “I know! I know! I’m an idiot. I’ll admit it. But, at least, I don’t smoke, and I haven’t dated a woman under forty in the last five years. It’s so exhausting, and I can’t stand the music they listen to. Plus, they come up with sexual stuff I have never even imagined humans would think of trying to do. My chiropractor got a new Mercedes
out of the last relationship I was in. From now on, they have to be using a walker or a cane before I’ll even talk to them.”

  Allison was still too dumbfounded to say anything. She did make out Ernest’s muffled giggling and Bobby’s pathetic snorting which was his peculiar way of laughing. She decided to give up. She had absolutely nothing more to say to this gathering of the missing links society.

  “What?” said Sam in his own defense. “She asked a question, and I simply told the truth. Is it suddenly a bad thing for a lawyer to tell the truth? I told you, I’m trying to become a new person here. You want me to start out lying? If you ask me, I should be the one sitting in judgment here.”

  Things went on like this for a time: Sam pontificating on the need for personal veracity. Ernest and Bobby laughing in their peculiar ways. Allison staring out the front window, shaking her head from side to side. That’s what I get for attempting to engage this group in a little polite conversation, thought Allison as she watched the hills separating their vehicle from an unobstructed view of the bay come closer and closer. But, at least, it had distracted her for a time.

  They completed their passage through the Castro Valley and emerged to the sight of San Francisco Bay off in the distance. Allison hoped that a view of the skyline of San Francisco proper lay under a late afternoon mist. The miles of open water between the VW bus and the city would not be crossed this day. The road they were on took them north to Berkeley along the base of the hills and miles away from the bay that separated San Francisco from the mainland cities. I guess that means I won’t get to see my sunset today, realized a dejected Allison.

  “Are we still on the right road?” asked Bobby as their direction of travel turned away from the bay.

  “Yes,” answered Allison reviewing the map she held in her hand. “Up ahead about five or six miles we should get off on Highway 13, which should take us into Berkeley. Once there, we can stop and get our bearings.”

  Allison scanned the roadsides. She really had not been familiar with the communities in the bay area other than San Francisco and Berkeley, so she held out little hope of seeing anything she might remember from thirty-four years earlier. For the most part, the buildings looked much the same as anywhere else. She did recognize the names of the usual franchise outlets one expects to see every place you go in the country and the names of the big merchandisers that had plopped their mega-marts on every large plot of land available in developed areas across the land. So far, absent the misty bay off in the distance, she could be in almost any city in the country.

  Their arrival was less dramatic than Allison had envisioned, and although she did not have a clear picture as to exactly what she expected to see, it wasn’t this. She saw people going about their business as usual with lines of weary commuters trying to get out of the metro areas to their personal safe havens far out in the suburbs. Probably most of them needed to make stops at the grocery, the cleaners, or the daycare center to pick up a couple of grouchy, demanding toddlers angry at having been warehoused for the last nine hours. As far as Allison could tell, this sight represented nothing more than another typical end to one more day of living the so-called American dream in any large city in the country.

  She observed no banners waving in opposition to war, no cars honking horns in protest, nor any traffic tie-ups caused by disgruntled citizens attempting to draw attention to crimes in the making by the government. This wasn’t San Francisco, nor was it Berkeley. If it involved protesting the actions of our government, it usually started in Berkeley. Be patient, she told herself, you’re not there yet.

  “Well, what do you guys think?” asked Allison. “Does it look different or the same?”

  “I don’t know. I was drunk most of the time,” answered Bobby.

  “I was high most of the time,” said Sam.

  “I didn’t go outside unless they made me,” commented Ernest. “I was afraid of getting shot.”

  Once more Allison closed her eyes and asked herself why she thought it necessary to surround herself with this prime example of male ennui.

  “I do recall the Golden Gate Bridge,” commented Sam attempting to placate Allison’s feeling of aloneness. “If you can get me there, I’m sure I will be able to get myself oriented.”

  “Are you sure you’re not referring to the Bay Bridge instead of the Golden Gate?” asked Allison weakly, suspecting Sam might be confused. “Unless you had business over in Marin County, I don’t know why you would have crossed over the Golden Gate. If you went between San Francisco and Berkeley, you more than likely used the Bay Bridge.”

  “Really?” interrupted Bobby. “You mean I’ve never been across the Golden Gate Bridge either? I told everybody back home I crossed it several times. I’ve got to do that this time because this is embarrassing. I’ve been lying to all those people.”

  “I’m with you on that one brother. We’ll do it together,” said Sam in response.

  Allison turned towards Ernest silently pleading for something from his direction to give her hope.

  “Don’t look at me!” declared Ernest, “I thought the thing was located in Hollywood or some place like that. Besides, I never went over to San Francisco the first time I came here. There wasn’t anybody they wanted me to shoot over there.”

  Allison began to laugh. Quietly at first, but soon everyone in the bus knew what she was doing and became alarmed. Possibly, they thought she finally lost her mind under the weight of having to contend with three marginally moronic and completely irreverent males for the better part of two thousand miles.

  “I’m thinking maybe things aren’t as important, or as worrisome as I’m making them out to be,” Allison said calmly. “Otherwise, the creator of the universe would not have sent me out to save the world accompanied by the Three Stooges!”

  “Is this the turn?” asked Bobby, interrupting any further thoughts on Allison’s part or possibly even a rejoinder from Sam or Ernest.

  “Yes, thank you for staying alert, Bobby. I lost my concentration for a moment. Keep going for a few miles and look for Telegraph Avenue. I hope you guys remember that name,” said Allison.

  “I remember it,” said Bobby. “That’s the street where the deputies did most of the shooting. Man, that was wild. I thought I was back in the Nam during Tet. It’s a lucky thing for them and me that I wasn’t packing my M-16 because a bunch of those guys would have gone down hard.”

  “I remember it, also,” added Sam. “Wow, I haven’t thought of that name in a hundred years. Are you sure it’s safe? Maybe we should send out scouts first.”

  Ernest didn’t join in on the conversation. He probably would tell whoever asked that the streets in Berkeley looked the same to him back then, which meant they were filled with white people. So people were getting shot! Come on over to Oakland after dark and watch the fireworks as the cops went out on nightly safaris hunting for Black Panthers.

  As they got closer, they all looked around for anything familiar. Mile after mile it went like this. Until suddenly, off in the distance stood the three hundred foot tall campanile, the centerpiece of the UC Berkeley hillside campus. If there was one thing you would remember about the place, this was it. Standing gleaming white against the ubiquitous brown and green California hills, it took Allison’s breath away. The pleasant hours she sat beneath it or lay on the soft grass staring up at its towering majesty brought pleasant memories to mind. The simple recollection of something good that happened to her at this place gave her a sense of relief. Instinctively, she realized this was not a bad place, but rather a beautiful place where angry proles came one day long ago to plunder and pillage.

  The bus occupants, now somewhat oriented, continued their inspection of the community that played such an important part in how their lives turned out. Berkeley acted as a crucible, molding them during those critical and formative years as their incipient ideas and notions were melded into a cohesive philosophy of living.

  “Well, this is it,” said Bobby almos
t as an afterthought.

  For a time they had traveled on a four-lane thoroughfare in the general direction of the campus. The closer they came to their objective the more the commercial outlets directed their activities towards the university’s denizens. There were trendy restaurants, bookstores, an upscale shopping mall, and even modern day street people. To Allison, these individuals appeared as imposters and interlopers. This act had to be getting old by now. To her way of thinking, young people like herself came here in the ‘60s to carry a message that was reflected in the way they dressed and shunned establishment’s rules of existence. To her and her fellow hippies, society was going in the wrong direction with its imperialist military policies and its emphasis on conspicuous consumption. Their lifestyle was a form of protest. What were these unkempt young people really doing here? Did they also carry a message?

  The place looked better now than it did back then. Life looked as if it had been good to the proprietors that occupied every available storefront. The people on the streets, except the street people, looked prosperous and happy with no concerns for a coming war visible. Were the students and the citizens of the community so completely out of touch with things going on in the world now? Then Allison’s attention was drawn to certain building features she did not recollect seeing during the days she roamed these same avenues. You could easily overlook them if you had no prior knowledge of how violent life could become, so very fast, right at this spot. These business people hadn’t forgotten, otherwise the trendy storefronts would not be outfitted with steel roll-down shutters. Maybe the streets did give off the appearance of serenity and prosperity, but the people who owned these businesses knew from experience how fast things could change.

  Without warning, Bobby made a right turn in the direction of the hills as the other occupants in the bus, including Allison, looked quizzically in his direction. Bobby answered their unspoken questions. “Well, there it is. The People’s Park,” he said as if pointing out something of little or no consequence. “That’s where it started.”

  “Pullover,” said Allison instinctively.

  Bobby did as requested and when the bus came to a halt, not a single person said anything. Allison did not know what she expected, but an image of this peaceful little plot of greenery situated amidst the trappings of civilization would not have been anywhere near the top of any list constructed in her mind. The last time she saw this place a hastily erected eight foot high chain link fence guarded by hundreds of armed deputies surrounded it. Her mind found it impossible to reconcile the two dissimilar images. How could something so peaceful looking been a part of so much violence?

  The great emotional and intellectual differences that separate twenty-year-old minds from fifty-plus year old minds became clear to Allison as never before. This would be something to bear in mind as she made her way back to the streets in the coming days.

  “This is good,” observed Allison unemotionally. “We can come back and take a closer look later. If you guys have seen enough we can go on. Okay? Bobby, keep going straight ahead towards the hills; I’ll tell you where to turn.”

  Several sharp turns later, the VW bus slowly wound its way up along one of the residential streets carved into the face of the hills that provided the backdrop to the city of Berkeley. As they continued upwards, the accompanying view of the bay and the city of San Francisco off in the distance improved.

  “This is definitely looking familiar,” commented Allison. “We’re getting close. Look, there it is!”

  Allison pointed excitedly towards a one-story beige stucco bungalow with a red clay tile roof sitting off to the left side of the street. The front of the house faced the bay, but as Allison recalled, the best view could be seen from the second floor balcony of the garage apartment located beyond the courtyard in the rear. Directing Bobby to turn into the driveway that ran beside the main house, she recognized the enclosed area behind the house where she parked her VW bus years before. By the time the bus came to a complete stop, her heart had almost pounded a hole in her chest.

  Before Bobby turned off the engine, he turned to Allison. “You sure this is it?”

  Not bothering to turn in his direction, Allison responded, “I’m sure.”

  Without further ado, Bobby turned off the VW bus ignition and looked at his watch. “Not bad timing. We have seven minutes to spare.”

  Allison acted like she did not hear Bobby’s comment as she opened the door to step outside. The cool, marine air, so typical to the area, greeted her unexpectedly as she emerged from the shelter of the bus, causing her to shudder momentarily. The other passengers stayed seated leaving Allison alone for a moment to ponder her return to the place that monopolized her attention during a part of every single day for the last thirty-four years.

  “Ernest,” she said rather unexpectedly, “you probably should announce our presence to the professor and make sure it’s okay for us to stay.”

  “Right, I’ll do that,” were the only words Allison heard as Ernest exited the bus and headed towards the main house.

  What was it Bobby said about the fear? Allison asked herself as she stood awaiting Ernest’s return. You never get rid of the fear. You find a way to control it and go forward. Well then, let’s do some controlling.