P.N.ZOYTLOW

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The first (known) Field Report and one that would set some of

the  parameters of what would follow over the years. Note the curious manner in which

time limits for observation were determined. What is not clear here is whether the writer

was attempting to ingratiate himself with the humanities or the social sciences.

Oh, shining University of California at Berkeley, great compass point of American higher education. One must go there and in the same sprit that Harvard must be visited on the other coast, a mix of curiosity and dread.  Who has not heard of Berkeley?  UC Berkeley! We have heard that you are the hated despoiler of youth, vanguard of all American colleges, object of awkward love and jealous hate by your sister institutions in this Golden State. Besides, it was time, after months of wanderings, to step on academic turf and let the ooze work itself between the toes and into the senses. But, being realists, this visitor wore shoes anyway.

A dull sky and little hope of sunshine this 24th day of February. A good afternoon to cross the bay and all those hidden seismic fault lines. Even the Richmond bridge is being retrofitted to withstand the shocks of quakes which must  come. Soon we are there, the solid ground of Shattuck Avenue and a parking space on the edge of this massive campus, this fortress   There are coins enough to feed the meter for one hour and fifteen minutes; that will have to do.

Ah, Berkeley, you do impress! Hills with groves of monster eucalyptus trees, themselves dwarfed by redwoods and flanked by lesser species not recognized. Hills with cream or  stone pharaonic buildings carved with the names of the great luminaries of the institution and this state: Bancroft, Hearst, Gianini or the solid disciplines, Botany, Physics, and so on. And so on. The map at the edge of the campus shows us that we must make choices. What shall we see?  Oh, ho! Sproul Plaza!  Rings a bell. Yes, we will go there, there must be a marker for the place that changed universities, changed the thinking of students and cast them into new and often difficult relationships with their institutions. Ushered  in whatever era we live in now, whatever name it has. Changed our lives, for chrissake!  Hail to you, you Berkeley are the volcano from which flowed much of that business in the Sixties, right?  You are Vatican and you are Mecca.. Are you not the Big Bang?

Halfway up the first hill, the Free Speech Movement Cafe!  So they have not forgotten. It’s a small place serving a limited menu. Inside and out, students are chatting and studying. Oddly, a piece by Brahms , barely audible, is whimpering thinly out of speakers in the ceiling.  On the wall are photo murals of the events of the autumn of 1964 when a philosophy student, Savio challenged the University to allow use of campus space for the open expression of political viewpoints. Mario Savio, sometimes seen as the progenitor of all campus radicalism died in 1996, according to an information kiosk explaining these events. Prominent on one of the walls are the words Mario spoke at a demonstration on December 3, 1964. (And where were we all on that day?)

There is a time  when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you  can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve  got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people  who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

This reader is smitten by that combination of “machine” and “odious,” but half wishing he had said “odoriferous.” UC Berkeley seems no longer to be at odds with his words. At least not in the environs of the Free Speech Movement Cafe. Here are written expressions of pride which appear to say, take note all you other places of higher ed: This Is Where It All Started!

On to Sproul Plaza itself. Where did Mario stand and utter those words. Where were the 800 standing (or sitting-in) who were arrested that day? “Largest mass-arrest in California history.”  Near the Plaza itself sits an old man playing a wailing Chinese violin and hoping to sell CDs . Students were crossing the Plaza, not in great numbers. Where is everyone? No one seems to be obese on this campus and all are dressed in the same drab colors of the pale stone used for the buildings. Are they the descendants of Savio?  The visitor inspects the bulletin boards and scans the student newspaper (a grave disappointment).  It reveals anger because the janitorial uniforms are made by cheap labor in impoverished countries. Here and there a whiff of socialism. Same old problem with military recruiters coming to campus.  In the restroom, what graffiti exists is pedestrian, ordinary and tired.  Something about true knowledge is about knowing how little you know or something to that effect.No time to inspect  all the restrooms. Perhaps more cutting edge stuff is penned elsewhere.

Here is the bookstore and through the ceiling speakers the Beetles are imploring shoppers to “Love Me Do.”  Oh, Berkeley now you will show your standards are! Aisles of history courses!  How do the High Priests do it? Some guy requires a dozen texts, many of them hardbacks. Really, how do they get away with this? Maybe this is why everyone seems skinny and subdued here. Nearby a student center for Latinos and another for Blacks, but it is the Asian-Americans who dominate here.  Everyone seems to be on a cell phone at the same time. All those little waves of unseen energy cutting through us as we walk among them.

Berkeley, did you and early Anthropologist Kroeber not shelter the last California Indian, famous Ishi,  in a museum here on campus? That would be something to see, where the melancholy story of the last “wild” Indian in California ended after his people collapsed. Turns out that in those days, c. 1916 the museum was in San Francisco across the bay. Maybe his ashes are near, but no., they have been repatriated to the foothills of the Sierras, so they say. What else can we do here?  We dash to the another palace to see if there is any trace of a friend who taught here for many years to some acclaim.  But there isn’t and since now time’s up! down on Shattuck Avenue we have no further time to ponder how fame evaporates. Five minutes left on that ticking meter, barely enough time to lift our eyes again to these dense hills: envied, loathed, celebrated, reviled. Good-bye, University of California at Berkeley. Thanks for the sights and  sound and the faint smell of eucalyptus. Enjoyed the visit, mostly.