April 1965 – Jackson, Mississippi

I’d served seventeen days for breaking the injunction against demonstrations put into place by Jackson’s mayor after the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. I was sleeping in, following a night of partying, because I’d been bailed out of Hinds County Jail.

My jailhouse buddy, Ben Brown woke me up.

“Mike, I just heard you’re headed for Natchez.  A SNCC car will pick you up Friday morning.”

That evening a bunch of us volunteers living in the Jackson freedom house wandered down to the COFO office, about 10 blocks away, to check out the latest news from the front and see who was in town. We were just about to head out to Edie’s Chicken shack to have some gumbo and ribs when the office manager pigeonholed us.

“Hey, guys, we need someone to work the midnight shift on the WATS line.” I volunteered.

The WATS line was a lifeline for the folks spread across Mississippi in the projects and riding in SNCC cars equipped with radios. Someone sat in front of a receiver twenty-four hours a day, accepting reports on troublesome incidents and urgent calls for help. We had the numbers for the SNCC office in Atlanta, the FBI, local police departments, sympathetic press, northern bail possibilities, and lawyers. The name of the game was to shine as many lights as possible on a dangerous spot to let the bad guys know they were being watched. We wanted to minimize our losses and save lives.

While I was in the office, I thought I might as well use the time to get a better picture of what I would be heading into in Natchez. I began by checking the files for information about my new assignment.

The first document I encountered was a mind-blowing statement Bill Ware submitted to one of SNCC’s beleaguered volunteer lawyers. It was a record of the beatings he’d received from the Natchez police while on a short visit home from a college in 1963.

“Thirty stitches were required in my mouth and gums my front tooth was broken, two others were deadened, and two lowers were jarred loose and knocked in. I spent the night nude from the waist up on an iron frame with no mattress or pillow or blanket where I remained for the rest of the night in pain. I was found guilty and spent 30 days in jail before I could get an appeal not having any money for bail.” His crime, refusing to buy gas after a pissed-off gas station attendant prevented him from using the whites only bathroom. The police supported his beating, saying to him, “You’re a difficult nigger.”

A year later, in February of 1964, Arthur Curtis, a highly successful Funeral director, active NAACP member, and one of few Negros registered to vote in Natchez, was tricked into picking up a nonexistent heart attack victim in a deserted part of town. He was gun-whipped and severely beaten by white-hooded men who demanded to see his NAACP card and wanted the names of other NAACP members.

Three churches burned in Natchez that summer. In August, a tavern and grocery store next to the freedom house, where three civil rights workers stayed, were firebombed and burned to the ground.

The chief of police told one of the workers, “This was meant for you, George. If you don’t get out of here, you and your friends are going to get killed. I can’t protect you.”

The bombing, beatings, and death threats didn’t scare SNCC away. The courage of my SNCC brothers and sisters and the spirit of the people spoke to me. Natchez felt like the place to be. It wasn’t that I didn’t have fears about bombs or bullets. It just seemed that it was in my blood to be on the front lines. My mother taught me when push comes to shove, “stand up to bullies no matter how big they are.”

May 1965 – Natchez, Mississippi

It was a steamy night in Natchez. I was wiped out from too much drinking and dancing at the local juke joint, but my mind wouldn’t shut down.

I finally fell into a restless sleep when the sound of someone knocking on the front door woke me up. I was tempted to go back to sleep, but I thought someone in the community might need help. The knocking grew louder as I stumbled down the stairs.

I opened the door. An overweight, middle-aged, white guy in a wrinkled suit, oozing booze, swayed drunkenly in front of me with a belligerent look on his sweaty face.

“Hey, boy, I’m going to shoot your commie ass off if you don’t get out of town and stop messing with my niggers.”

I felt like telling him to get fucked and get his fat ass off the porch before he fell on it.

“Take it easy.” I said, “We don’t want any trouble. Why don’t you calm down? Go home. Get some sleep and come back tomorrow if you want to talk.”

He blinked his eyes and started mumbling something about blowing us up. Then he suddenly turned around and careened down the stairs. I slammed the door and collapsed on the living room couch. I was a little shook up. I tended to do well in rough situations and then get shaky afterward.

I dozed off for a moment. More banging and pounding on the door startled me awake. Pissed off, I jumped up and opened the door. Before I could say anything, the drunk stuck a revolver in my face.

“Well, boy, you’re not so smart now, are you, you commie punk? I’m going blow your head off.”

I was tempted to throw a quick left hook, but I knew better. I just stood there and let him ramble on about the Klan’s plans to wipe us off the face of the earth. Suddenly he belched, lowered his gun, swung around and vomited down the steps.

I turned around. Pete and Pat, the two other white volunteers, were standing behind me.

“Mike, what’s going on?” Pat stood on the stairs with a blanket wrapped around her.

My heart was pounding. Sweat dripped down my face.

“A crazy cracker just threatened to blow my head off with his thirty-eight. I think his puking saved my ass.”

“Did you get his license plate?” Pete asked.

“No, but he was driving a ‘63 Oldsmobile. He was by himself.

“We better call the cops.” Pat went to the phone.

It took them two hours to show up, and only after our second phone call telling them we’d contacted the FBI, the Council of Federated Organizations office in Jackson, Mississippi and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee national office in Atlanta.

The cops didn’t give a shit.

“We know the guy. Don’t worry.” The Sargent said, “The boy’s name is Mr. Felter. He lives on 531 Duncan if you want to follow up. We’re not planning to get involved. No one got hurt.”

“He’s harmless,” his partner joined in. “He’s just a drunk.”

“Everybody knows him. He goes around the neighborhood trying to pick up the little nigger girls.”

We were all shaken up.

“We need to talk,” Pam said when they left.

Pete made coffee and we sat on the couch, gathering our thoughts.

“I think we’ve done everything we can,” Pat said. “We might as well cross our fingers and get back to bed.”

“We should take turns staying awake so we can call the cops if he comes back,” Pete said.

Oh, great, I thought, give him another chance.

“I’m too wired to go back to sleep. I’ll take the first shift. I’m all for posting a sentry, but there’s no sense standing guard without a weapon. I’m going to wake up Peter Rabbit and borrow his 22 just in case Mr. Felter decides to wave his 38 in my face again.”

Both Pat and Pete freaked out.

“Mike, you know SNCC staff and volunteers can’t use guns,” Pete said.

“Let’s be real,” I said. “Didn’t you see what was going on at Steptoe’s picnic. There were 45’s and shotguns in every corner.”

“It’s one thing for community members in the delta to defend themselves. That’s their choice. It’s their culture, but it’s not ours. We’re committed to nonviolence, philosophically and practically. You can’t just do what you want to do.” Pat said.

“This isn’t a game. When it comes to people pulling guns on me, I’m going to defend myself. I’m not alone. George Greene told me at the picnic last August that all three SNCC staff members had pistols stashed in the freedom house after the Klan blew up the building next store.”

I got up from the couch to check out the front window and break the tension.

“Look,” I said. “I accept nonviolence as a strategy for demonstrations and organizing in the community, but when it comes to someone showing up on my porch waving a pistol in my face, I draw the line. Look, folks, let’s get real. Policy is one thing. Survival is another.”

I crossed the room and stormed out the back door.

Scrawny chickens scattered and a skinny mutt growled then slunk under the sagging porch as I rushed by them. Peter was a faithful supporter and our mechanic who lived with his large family in one of the shotgun shacks in the back.  I knocked loudly on his battered door.  A few moments later, he appeared, blinking in the rising sun.

“Brother, what’s coming down? Must be sumpin’ big to wake me up so early.

He listened patiently and shook his head.

“Sounds like Natchez,” he said. “Man, I don’t blame you. This ain’t no game. You’re welcome to my rifle as long as you want.”

I spent the early hours dozing on the living room couch with a well oiled, single-shot 22 cradled in my arms. Over a light breakfast, we decided to compromise. I stored the 22 under my bed wrapped in my sleeping bag. We didn’t include our discussion or my decision when we called the Jackson office that morning. We agreed to disagree.

1967

The trial was getting closer and we still hadn’t met Melvin the Great.  It made me nervous. I was anxious to meet Belli in person and size him up. I had done some research and his client list read like a “Who’s Who” of American celebrities. He’d represented my childhood idol, dashing Errol Flynn, who had captured my imagination as Robin Hood, robbing from the rich in Nottingham Forrest to give to the poor. Za Za Gabor, sultry German actress and 1950’s movie screen sex symbol, and even Jack Ruby, the assassin of Bobby Kennedy’s killer, had worked with Belli.

“Look guys, as soon as he returns from Rome, let’s schedule a press conference with Belli and get our case on the map.” Jerry was itching to have at it with the press.

“Sure Jerry,” I said. “Maybe we can bring Tony Curtis on board to push Belli’s movie at the same time. Add a bit more Hollywood glamour to the movement.”

A few weeks later, we stood cockily before Judge Bruin. He glared at us.

“I am issuing an order prohibiting you, your attorneys, your agents and the D.A.’s office, from discussing or disclosing what takes place in my courtroom with the press. Henceforth, and until the conclusion of the trial, if you violate this order you’re going to jail. “

A fucking gag order; So much for free speech in the city of Berkeley.  The D. A. had already roasted us in the press. Delete Maybe the thought of Jerry Rubin, the Barnum and Bailey of the antiwar movement, and Melvin Belli, the world-famous king of torts joining forces in his courtroom was just too much for the uptight judge.

A month later, the Friday morning before the trial began, Jerry, Stu, Steve and I, held a press conference on the courthouse steps, deliberately violating the judge’s order and milking it for all the publicity we could get. We each said a few words into the microphone to be on record. Cops, TV cameras, and attorneys frantically taking notes surrounded us. That was our last blast before the gag choked us off.

The gauntlet thrown down, we headed for the International House of Pancakes to chow on exotic pancakes with all the fixings before we were rounded up and put on the special troublemakers express to holding cells at Santa Rita jail. There, they would slow walk our bail processing and leisurely treat us to dinner. The menu was always the same: Baloney on white bread, without fixings.

We were in a good mood. We had done our best to give the judge a black eye. After we paid the bill, I said to my comrades, “I just want you all to know I’m going underground. I’m not going to make it easy for these clowns. I’m going to have some fun before I get busted. Everyone laughed.

That afternoon, while the rest of the crew was securely locked up in Santa Rita, I was safe and sound in Pam’s cozy little attic apartment on Piedmont, listening to her badass record collection, and smoking a joint.  I had a small stash of high-quality Panama Red hidden close to the toilet bowl for an emergency dump. I made sure the toilet was functioning. I knew too many people who had been busted because of faulty flushing.

Margie had decided not to join me. Playing hide and seek with the police was just a little too nerve-racking for her gentle soul. Her tranquility, however, was shattered in the wee hours of the morning when a dozen cops made a boisterous and over-enthusiastic search of our three-room pad in the notorious Pink Palace. They took their time rummaging around, freaking Margie out, along with all of our dope-smoking neighbors.

I scanned the news that evening. We had a few minutes of TV coverage on the East Bay channel.

“Three out of four of the non-student agitators, who violated the judge’s gag rule were arrested today. The fourth, Mike Smith, recently dismissed from the University of California for anti-war activity, has not yet been apprehended.”

The last story on channel nine, our public broadcasting station, announced the first “Human Be-In,” which would be held at San Francisco’s polo field in Golden Gate Park the next day.

Jerry, along with LSD guru, Timothy Leary, the Diggers, Allen Ginsberg and leaders of various rock bands, planned the get-together as a symbolic wedding of the peace movement: political activists and brothers and sisters in the cultural scene.   The title of the event symbolized the joining of the tribes.” Human,” the young generation’s yearnings for a new life style, and “Be-In” a takeoff of “Sit-In,” the tried and true tactic of the civil rights movement.

Hiding out was getting boring. The Be-In was my solution. The group had decided, at our pre-bust breakfast, to stay in jail until the people raised our bail; an effective way to dramatize the judge’s attack on our rights and to mobilize popular support.

I decided to go in disguise, and interject some realty into the revelry. I’d tell our story, ask the multitudes to support the growing anti-draft movement, and ask for bail money.

I woke up early the next morning raring to go. Over coffee, Pam filled me in on the latest.

“Mike, people were cracking up last night at the Blind Lemon. A whole boat-load of Berkeley’s finest showed up in force around midnight, shining flashlights in people’s faces, looking under tables, and asking people if they knew where you were hiding out. It was a blast. Just like the keystone cops. People were hooting, laughing, shouting, ‘He’s over here!’  ‘He’s up my skirt.’  ‘You’re too late. He’s on his way to Cuba.’”

The press jumped into the fray and pumped up the story.  The morning edition of The Berkeley Gazette had a front-page headline reading, “Wanted Activist”.

I had an affinity for American Indians, so I painted my face with colors mimicking war paint. I put on my fringed buckskin jacket over my bare chest, tied a scarf around my head with a few feathers from Pam’s eclectic collection of doo dads, and donned a colorful Halloween eye mask as the final touch.

Some friends gave me a ride to San Francisco. Thousands and thousands of eager people were already there, stoned, dancing and chanting. I arrived early, hoping to talk my way past the usual security and speak to someone with juice to get on the agenda. Everyone was happy to see me. The poet, Allen Ginsberg, asked me about Jerry, who had been scheduled to speak.

“Allen, unless there’s been a jailbreak, he’s still in Santa Rita.”

The MC, a vivacious and energetic dude hugged me.

“Of course you can say a few words and make a pitch.  Just keep it short and punchy. You can speak after Timothy Leary.”

I dove into the safety of the swaying, gyrating, swirling, butt-wiggling crowd, caught in the throbbing beat of the new music being nurtured in the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms. New, local bands, like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company, were creating these magical sounds. Their tantalizing, trippy lyrics and entrancing melodies would give birth to Acid Rock.

I looked around. Could this be the beginning of a new world? The Hells Angels, who broke our bones two years before when they attacked the Vietnam Day Committee’s peace march, were rounding up and babysitting lost children.

From time to time, the music stopped, people stopped dancing, and joined in chanting Buddhist mantras. Poets like Allen Ginsberg led the crowd in gentle, harmonious, hypnotic chants. “Peace in Berkeley.” “Peace in Vietnam.”  “Peace in San Francisco.”

Stanley Osley, the San Francisco street chemist who discovered how to crystallize acid and make it available for the masses, wandered through the crowd with his disciples handing out colorful paper tabs in defiance of the California law,  passed three months earlier, criminalizing LSD.  This was giving the Sacramento know-nothing crowd the middle finger.

I was tempted for a moment to take just a lick or two of a magic tab. Enough to get a burst of psychedelic energy, a shower of rainbow colors, a shimmering of sensual hallucinations and a jolt of spirituality before I ended up behind bars again.

Thank God a voice inside warned me to be careful. I flashed back to my acid trip in a Berkeley courtroom two years before; an iron vice gripping my arm, a bloodthirsty buzzard cawing my name. I shook my head. Christ, I thought, sometimes I’m crazy. I’m a wanted activist. The cops are on my tail. I may soon end up in jail: Definitely a bad trip.

“No thanks. I’ll take a rain check.” I hugged the stoned sister with the acid in her outstretched hand.

I looked around. Bangles, beads, feathers, flags, noisemakers, tambourines, peace symbols and incense mixed together in a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and sounds.  Weed drifted in the air; smoked cautiously, in half -assed, semi-secret fashion behind and under blankets or robes, and boldly, in the open, fears and inhibitions conquered by our numbers.

For some reason the cops were nowhere in the swarms of people, content to watch in relatively small numbers on the outskirts of the park. The ever-present, covert plain-clothes cops and clandestine undercover agents still lurked in the shadows watching, but not acting. Maybe the scene blew the cops’ minds. This scene wasn’t in their playbook, so they seemed to be sitting the day out.

The crowd grew by the minute. A mix of cultures of all colors, sizes and shapes. Curious bystanders, young and old, black and brown, grandpas and grandmas, young families with kids, straight looking crew cut guys, hicks with Jackie Kennedy hairdos straight from the suburbs, and bare-assed, bare-breasted hippies all mixed together.

I was getting down with the rhythms of Santana, a new group straight out of the Mission district, when the MC announced between songs,“ Get ready, folks. Timothy Leary, the guru of LSD is going to be the speaker after this set.”

I was scheduled to speak after Leary, so I hightailed it to the stage in time to hear Leary’s now-famous words that became the symbol of 1960’s cultural rebellion. He paused to look around, a twinkle in his eye and made history with six words: …”turn on, tune in, drop out.” The crowd roared. They got the message. So did I. I could dig “turn on” and “tune in,” but what does “drop out” mean to an organizer. We had a war to end. We needed everybody to join the fight.

The throngs were fired up. I decided to keep it short. The MC introduced me. “We have a brother from the Berkeley Peace Movement who needs our help for some brothers in jail.”

“My name is Mike Smith. I’m a wanted a peace warrior. I’m tired of our troops dying in an unjust, illegal, immoral war.” I gave out a war hoop. The crowd roared its approval. “Some of us were arrested in Berkeley, last fall, for taking on the draft. We need your help. My brothers Jerry Rubin, Steve Hamilton and Stu Alpert are in jail right this moment for violating the Judge’s gag rule prohibiting us from talking about our trial to the press. We need money for our bail. We need you to join us in the fight to stop the killing in Vietnam. “ Once again, the crowd went wild.

A voice behind me said, “Mike. I’m not in jail I’m right behind you.” I turned around. There stood Jerry Rubin for a moment grinning at me like a Cheshire cat. Then he got down to business.“ Mike, I appreciate your hutzpah, but you have to turn yourself in. All the press is talking about is your sorry ass.”

“Okay, Jerry. I promise to turn myself in. Just give me one more night and I’ll show up on the Berkeley cops’ front porch bright and early tomorrow morning, if they don’t bust me today.”

Believe or not, they didn’t. I was smuggled out of the park with a Moroccan robe covering me head to toe, lost among the exiting crowd.

The next morning, I walked into the police station. I was amazed the desk sergeant didn’t recognize me. I said,” I’m here to talk to the officer of the day. It’s really important”. He shook his head and said, “Follow me, he’s just finishing the morning report to the guys”. He took me through some locked doors and into a large room full of cops listening to a police lieutenant finishing his briefing.

“Men, we have to bust that asshole, Smith. It’s getting to be an embarrassing situation for us. I want him behind bars today.”

“Officer,” I said, with a shit-eating grin, “You don’t have to look too far. Here I am: all yours for the taking. He looked stunned. The party was over.

A half an hour later, I landed in a Berkeley cell. Luckily, bail had been raised. I missed out on the Santa Rita ritual of having to strip and be sprayed with pesticides to kill any critters lingering in my armpits or crotch.

I rushed back to catch Margie before her first class.

1967

School was out at Berkwood. No more sleepy-eyed kids to greet at seven in the morning. Margie had taken the letter from Leslie as a big deal. Fed up with my antics, she declared a time out from our relationship, dropped out for the semester and went back to Ojai with her parents to think things out. We gave up our treasured pink palace apartment overlooking Telegraph Avenue. Everything was up in the air. Part of me panicked. Part of me relished the freedom.

A few weeks later, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I hitchhiked from a Peace and Freedom party convention in Santa Barbara to her house in Ojai to patch things up. Her parents were cold. She was distant. We had separate rooms. I convinced her to sleep in the apple orchard with me, hoping to rekindle the fires of love. We didn’t.

I grabbed my funky Montgomery Ward sleeping bag with grizzly bears printed on the inside, my army-issue duffle bag and headed out the door, dressed in my finest movement version of hippie attire.

I wore my trusty blue denim shirt, blue jeans and scruffy cowboy boots. For flare, I replaced my worn-out World War II brown leather bomber jacket with a treasure Margie had found in a second hand store: an antique, yellowed buckskin jacket with fringe fit for wild Bill Hickok. I perched my battered straw Mississippi freedom hat on my head. It had been a gift from my jailhouse buddy, Ben Brown. It was adorned with the iconic SNCC button with its clasped black and white hands and a United Farm Workers button with Mexican Revolution hero, Pancho Villa, sporting a ten-gallon hat and crossed bandoliers. I wore a necklace I’d made on my last trip to the beach with Margie: a leather throng with shiny blue-green abalone shards and exquisite, tiny seashells. A “Free Huey” button, the Black Panther leader sitting in a chair, holding a rifle, was its centerpiece. My final touch was a leather belt with silver conchos.  A worn scabbard hung on my hip holding a hunting knife. I wasn’t exactly subtle.

As the sun rose, I stood on the freeway, my thumb out, waving a cardboard “Big Sur” sign.

By noon, I was crossing private land on a faint trail headed for my secret beach; a hidden paradise with a bubbling stream and a waterfall, tons of driftwood for fires or sculptures, and a dugout to sleep in, which we had built on our last trip there.

In a flash, I was naked smoking a joint and mesmerized by the power and beauty of my mighty mistress, the Pacific. I went into a trance, lost in the sun’s golden rays bouncing off of the emerald-green, pulsing waves that exploded into sparkling rainbows of colors. Lulled by sea birds dancing minuets across the shimmering blue sky, I relaxed and let Mother Earth wrap her sensuous arms around me. I drifted off to sleep in a cloud of collective consciousness, memories and longings.

I awoke at sunset, salty, sandy and sunburned, dreams lingering. Images, swirled with fragments of voices: “Sweetie, politics give me a headache. I’m scared your gonna’ get hurt. Can’t you quit?” Margie, the gentle deer woman, with a hurt look on her face, melted into Leslie, my elegant, intellectual enchantress, her eyes possessing me. She seemed enraptured with my bittersweet life. “Michael, I so admire your passion, your love of the people your ability to channel your pain and anger into to action.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. It was time to look for some warm company.

I headed for Nepenthe, the happening restaurant and bar, perched on a bluff that stretched out over the Pacific. It was a cross between a moneymaking tourist trap and a hippie hangout that had good vibes. It also had, spacious grounds with plenty of bushes and trees to get high behind, spectacular views of the ocean, and a primo juke box loaded with ass-kicking tunes, from old 50s hits to the best of Motown and the latest Beatles. The management was hang lose. You could start at noon, nurse a beer and close the place down. It was definitely the place to meet my kind of folks.

My waitress, attractive in a rawboned, horsey way, with a wide mouth, square jaw, almond-shaped inquisitive, liquid brown eyes, high cheekbones and a nose a shade too big gave me a warm smile and said, “My name is Wanda. What can I do for you?”

I liked her long, sun-bleached and sandy mane, but kept my thoughts to myself.

“My name is Mike. I have a bad case of the munchies. How about a hamburger and French fries?”

Her eyes took me in. “That’s some outfit. Where you from?”

“I’m on rest and recreation. I just got a 60-day sentence for an anti-draft bust in Berkeley.  I need to mellow out.”

“Right on. I hate the fucking war. My kid brother just got drafted.”

“Have you ever been to the Esalen Hot Springs?” she asked, later that night, just before closing. “Some of us are going down after work. You want to come along? We get in free, no hassles, because we know the folks that work there.”

In the old days, when Henry Miller and the beats hung out in Big Sur, the hot pools were nature’s gift to everyone. Now it was a hip scene for rich liberals. A touchy-feely place: nude gatherings, a splash of free love. Wandering hippies were not welcome.

A little after two in the morning, five of us packed into a beat up, green Volkswagen and whizzed past the gate guard who recognized the car. As we pulled up to a large stucco building with lots of windows, I could hear Aretha Franklin blasting out her latest hit, “Respect.” My hips started moving. I was up to get down on some Motown sounds.

The room was crowded with happy folks dancing and carrying on. All ages, all shapes, a mix of staff made up of trim young dudes and delicious, longhaired beauties and an assortment of older paying guests. l just couldn’t hold back. The beat ran up and down my spine. I jumped in and joined the swinging and wiggling butts on the dance floor. My style, sharpened by months hanging out in Mississippi juke joints, stood out and I was soon dancing in and out and around a couple of sensuous women.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Caught up in the music I just ignored it. A more insistent tap and I turned around. A guy with a smile said, “Sorry to interrupt your fun, brother, we got to talk.”

“Hey man. What’s up?”

“I don’t think you belong in here. You’re not a guest and you don’t work here.”

“Look man, I’m with Wanda. She invited me.” He looked over at Wanda who was watching the scene come down. She smiled at him and yelled, “Tony he’s okay. He’s my friend. He’s with me.”

My adrenaline was running. I asked the dude, “Where’s the bar? I need a drink”

“In the next room, brother. I’m sorry I had to hassle you, but that’s my job.”

I hit the bar just as Aretha Franklin finished her last number. A surly looking dude, a cross between a biker and a hippie, with a street-hardened face and jailhouse muscles was pouring drinks and playing the music, “Give me a double whiskey and can you play Aretha again.” He looked me over and shook his head. “Hey man, how in the hell did you get in here?”

Fuck this, I thought. “I’ve already been checked out once, so lighten up and pour me a drink.”

His jaw tightened.

“That’s it, buddy. You’re eighty-sixed.” He rushed around the bar grabbed my arm. “Out of here.”

“Cool down man. Get your fucking hands off me. Check it out before you do something stupid.”

He turned red in the face and yanked my arm roughly. His mistake. My left hook knocked him on his ass. All of a sudden, the dancing, peace-loving people turned into a lynch mob. Screams drowned out the music. “He hit the bartender!” “Get him!” “Get him out of here!” People were all over me, both the guests and the hired hands, like chickens seeing blood and pecking some poor bird to death. Outnumbered, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. No more left hooks or combinations.

But if they were going to throw me out, they were going to have to drag me out. The whole place was a bedlam.

“This is bull shit,” I yelled. “What we get for free, you’re paying for. What happened to all your love? I’m a freedom fighter. The real revolution isn’t happening here. It’s happening in the streets.” That just pissed them off more. I was spoiling their party.

As they pulled me towards the door my fist shot in the air and I shouted, “Free Huey.” A punch hit me in the eye. Someone grabbed my free arm and wrenched it behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder. A boot smashed down on my instep.

I heard Wanda’s voice screaming, ” Are you guys crazy? Leave the poor guy alone. He’s with me.”

It was at least 100 yards up the hill. I felt like Christ carrying the cross. I wasn’t going to go down. I wasn’t going to give up. They were going to have to earn their silver pieces.

One of the kinder stooges said, “Bill, let’s not hurt this guy. He’s one of us”.

Shit, I thought. Bill. That’s Pam’s friend. Pam, who aided and abetted me when I was Berkeley’s most wanted radical, had filled me in about her on-again-off-again boyfriend, who worked there, just before I left. “Mike, look him up. He knows his way around Big Sur.” I had hoped to bump into him and maybe work my way in.

Luck of the Irish, I thought.

“Bill, I know your girlfriend, Pam. Calm your buddies down.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, ass hole.” He punched me in the ribs.

A little while later, I found myself in Wanda’s nest, a one room cabin snuggled in the pines. With a fire going, candles burning and Ravi Shankar’s gentle tones playing, two naked bodies linked in a soothing embrace. My wounds were licked with love. We blended gently. I sunk into her sweet-smelling honeypot, and we exploded together, a celebration of love and caring. We fell asleep two strangers linked by our shared dreams, touching briefly in the tapestry of life.

Wanda woke me up the next morning coming back from the store with breakfast.

“Mike you sure shook this little town up. The word’s out about last night’s Battle of Esalen. The community is buzzing. You’re either a wounded peace warrior or an aggressive troublemaker. Depends on who you talk to.”

We ate, talked about the night and a bit about ourselves. It turned out she was a UCLA drop-out, an art major, following in the footsteps of generations of artists, seeking serenity and creative stimulation in the rugged beauty of Big Sur. With a little prodding she opened up and shared her work. I was struck by her vivid surrealistic paintings, which had a touch of my favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh.

We sat on her bed and watched a deer and two fawns quench their thirst in a fern-lined, rippling creek. Our eyes met. Our bodies followed.

Later, we headed for Nepenthe.  I decided to head for home. Wanda asked around to see if anyone was headed for Berkeley.

There was no secret about who I was. Besides my garish get up, I sported a black eye and I had a slight limp where the foot had ground into my instep.

Gradually, people came over to the table with comments like, “Brother, what a bum deal. They shouldn’t have done you like that”. “Keep on trucking. We’re with you.” Maybe they were all Wanda’s friends trying to make me feel better. I felt a deep sense of community, and fought back tears.

Wanda, God bless her, found me a ride. We hugged. Two strangers: suddenly brother and sister, lovers who touched each other’s souls and then moved on.

I didn’t have a permanent pad in Berkeley. Since Margie and I had separated, I’d been moving around with my sleeping bag from couch to couch. I ended up staying at Percy’s house. He was an energetic, fast-talking black guy, who always had good pot, never missed a demonstration, had the best Motown collection in Berkeley and threw parties at the drop of the hat.

I felt a burning need to tell the story of my Esalen experience. I sat down to write an account of two communities clashing, of conflicting ideals and of pain and love. I sent my ramblings to Max Baer, the publisher of the Berkeley Barb. He said he’d think it over.

The next morning, thoughts of Esalen had vanished.  A story in the back pages of the San Francisco Chronicle broke my heart. “Ben Brown a 19-year-old civil rights worker, had been killed by the Jackson police the day before, during a demonstration. Grief overwhelmed me. Anger exploded in my brain. “No. No!” I burst into sobs. “Not Ben.’’

A few hours later, a poem poured out of me.

The Berkley Barb published my poem, “Who was Ben Brown?”

March 1969

The peace movement that had begun in the spring of 1965, with teach-ins aimed at the institutions supporting the Vietnam war, had spilled onto the streets, moving from symbolic to concrete resistance. People protested with more militant tactics at the Oakland Induction Center in 1967, and in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention. The war waged on. By 1969 the anti-war efforts had taken firm roots in a tenacious and rebellious GI movement.

In the spring of 1966, the first glimmers of a GI movement began in Fort Hood, Texas, where three privates refused to obey orders to go to Vietnam. The Fort Hood Three, a working-class, rainbow coalition, made history by being the first GIs to publicly and collectively refuse to participate in killing Vietnamese people.

The Army moved quickly to squash the troublemakers and make an example of them. However, instead of deterring further resistance, the protesters’ courage lit a spark of resistance in other GIs who were secretly opposed to the war.

By 1969, individual GI resistance became organized revolt. In Vietnam, whole units refused orders to go to Cambodia, and instances of “fragging,” tossing fragmentation grenades into unpopular officers’ tents, increased. Closer to home, GI coffeehouses sprang up next to military bases and GI newspapers flourished.

Twenty-seven GIs in the San Francisco Presidio protested with a spontaneous sit-down. A GI suffering from shell shock had wandered too close to the fence, and a trigger-happy guard shot him to death. The protestors demanded justice for their slain jail-mate and improvements in the atrocious stockade’s living conditions. The Army responded with mutiny charges for the men who became known as the “Presidio 27.”

In the spring of 1969, the Presidio 27 were being tried. So were we. The Oakland Seven had been indicted for Felony Conspiracy to Commit Misdemeanors for organizing Stop the Draft Week in 1967.

The day before the Presidio trial kicked off, we decided to get involved. We held a quick meeting and decided to throw our weight behind our brothers, now facing death penalty charges for engaging in a non-violent protest. We issued a press release calling our supporters to join us in a rally at the Presidio. We would present the base commander with our demands: Drop the mutiny charges, investigate the murder, and bring the officers responsible for the Presidio stockade to justice.

The Presidio brass freaked out.

The day before our march on the Presidio, two federal marshals disguised as civilians suddenly appeared at our trial. They were serving us injunctions to ban us from entering the Presidio, and threatening to prosecute us for disrupting military operations if we held a rally outside its gates.

The bailiffs smelled a rat and stopped the marshals at the courtroom door. Judge Phillips was pissed off at their attempted intrusion into his kingdom and banned their entrance.

One of the bailiffs tipped us off during the morning break.

I decided to scout out the situation. Two burly crew-cut guys stood ready, not entirely blocking the door, but poised to spring forward when we approached. I had an idea.

We huddled together in an empty corner of the courtroom when the proceedings ended for lunch. I opened up the meeting.

“Brothers, I have an idea.” In high school, at 150 pounds, I played middle linebacker and fullback. I was no great running back, but I knew how to punch a hole in the line and make a few yards.

“Let’s not make it easy for these clowns,” I said. “I have a plan. We walk up to the courtroom door, slowly like we don’t know what’ s coming down, and when I raise my hand, I’ll put my head down and punch a hole in their line.”

Only Frank Bardacke, athletic, imaginative, and a little wild volunteered to join me.

“Mike, I played quarterback in high school. I’ll be right behind you. Let’s go for it.”

The marshals saw us coming and immediately closed ranks. One held the injunctions in his outstretched hand.

We charged.

I knocked one aside, and we plowed through. The marshals never knew what hit them. Frank and I got away without being served.

That evening, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Chuck Findley’s article, Oakland Seven Outwits The Feds helped spread the word of the Presidio rally throughout the Bay Area.

Since I was the only Oakland Seven member with the distinction of serving in the Army, I had become the unanimous choice to chair the rally.

I was taking a significant risk. I was AWOL and would be drafted for two years of active duty if caught.

I decided I’d sock it to the military brass by wearing my army boxing team jacket to the rally. It was embellished with gold gloves and read, “Boxing Fort Ord ‘62.” My attitude was, “Bring it on, Baby.”

The rally was small, two hundred people, at most, but we made up for our low turnout with our pugnacious spirit.

We gathered on the street corner nearest to the base for the rally, I turned on the bullhorn and threw down the gauntlet.

“Just to set the record straight,” I yelled, “I want to let the Army know, I did fight in the ring at Fort Ord in 1962, but I won’t fight in Viet Nam. I’m AWOL from the medical reserve unit stationed a few blocks away at Letterman Hospital.  So, come and get me if you want. I’m more than happy to raise hell from the inside and join my brothers in the Presidio 27, and thousands of other GIs fighting against this immoral, illegal, and unjust war.”

Someone yelled, “Fuck the Army!”

“Right on!” I responded.

“Alameda County singled out The Oakland Seven for conspiracy charges because the district attorney believes cutting the head off of the movement will kill it. It didn’t. We are all still here.

“Yesterday, the Army sent two of their goons to serve us with injunctions promising we would be prosecuted on federal charges if we showed up today. Well, here we are.

“The mutiny charges against the Presidio 27 for organizing a non-violent, spontaneous demonstration against the cold-blooded murder of a shell-shocked GI will not silence their voices! Will not break their spirits! Their repressive tactics have backfired and unleashed a wave of support. This rally is only the beginning.”

We marched to the gates chanting, “One, two, three, four, Jail the Generals. Stop the War.”

The action awakened the press; TV cameras rolled, radio stations recorded, and newspaper reporters scribbled away.

A line of MPs stretched across the road just in front of the closed gate. We crowded up to them, chanting,  “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Let the Presidio Twenty Seven go!”

On the other side of the fence, clusters of officers and guys in civilian suits watched us. We were on Army property and subject to arrest. Someone must have sized up the situation and decided it was best to ignore us. Maybe the brass had second thoughts about enforcing their injunctions to avoid the spectacle of MPs dragging civilians away in front of TV cameras.

The MP detachment’s ranking officer, a lanky captain, stoically ignored my demands to meet the base commander.  He ignored my subsequent requests to present our demands to the closest officer of the day, and finally, my attempts to hand them to him. This made for good street theatre and kept the drama going, but I wanted to deliver our demands directly. Throwing them over the fence would not be good enough.

A grey sedan with Army plates inched its way through the crowd to the gate., breaking the stalemate. An Army colonel rolled down the rear window and motioned to the MP captain. I seized the moment and shoved the demands in his face. For some reason, he grabbed them and tossed them onto the seat beside him.

That was good enough for me to declare a victory. We’d served our demands. The growing support for the Presidio 27 was going to make the evening news and the morning papers.

January 1957

My job hunting was short-lived. My friendly employment agent had no problem placing me. My first interview was a success.

Blake Moffitt and Towne Paper Company on 9th and Brannon hired me. The company was a major leader in the paper industry, and its massive building was a familiar landmark visible from the freeway.

With little experience behind me and no recommendations from Dettner or Spiegel’s, once again, I got lucky. The department head interviewing me went to Saint Ignatius High School, where I had made the honor roll in 1955. He graduated from USF, where Dad had written the fight song, “On to Victory” as a freshman in 1927. It was the cultural ties that closed the deal.

I, at sixteen, became the cute mail boy surrounded by secretaries of all sizes and shapes, who flirted and joked with me. One brazenly commented, “Wish you were a few years older.” So did I. But, age didn’t matter in my sexual fantasies.

My boss, and only co-worker in the mail department, Barbara, was in her late fifties. She was a Sophie Tucker type, warm and bubbling with a wise sparkle in her eye. We got along fine. We both loved old movies, history and songs from the 1940s.

Every payday, she bought me a fifth of bourbon, which I carefully packaged, addressed and stamped to avoid any problems with nosey cops or my thirsty mom.

I was astonished to find out I’d been hired at twenty-five dollars more a month than Barbara, who had ten years with the company. She just accepted it. I thought it was outrageous and unfair. That was my first experience with workplace sex discrimination.

Payday also brought Dad, whose life had been saved by a new wonder drug discovered in Texas, to collect all but twenty dollars from my pay. He treated us both to a lunch of greasy meatloaf and lumpy mashed potatoes at the cheap diner down the street.

As summer waned and school grew closer, I began to lobby for a back-to-school clothing allowance. I never got it.

My biggest worry as a new kid at Drake High was getting through gym without anyone noticing I had no underpants.