From Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones ...
Nostalgia, 1990
A
NEW DOCUMENTARY film, Berkeley
in the Sixties,
opened for one night only at the campus theater. CJ and Helen arrived
early, expecting a crowd, but found themselves taking seats in a
half-full movie house. Most of the audience were their colleagues at
the university.
The documentary affected CJ
strongly and early. He was not expecting this. On screen Joan Baez
was singing to a group gathered around her, many sitting on the
ground at a building on campus, Berkeley students who were part of
the Free Speech Movement in 1964, and as Baez sang, “all my
sorrows, soon forgotten,” students sang along, such expressions of
innocence and hope on their determined young faces, “all my
sorrows, soon forgotten” and Baez's angelic voice rising to heaven
itself, and CJ couldn't help himself, he started softly weeping.
Helen leaned close and whispered,
“Are you all right?”
All my sorrows, soon forgotten.
CJ excused himself and went to the
men's room. Looking in the mirror, he experienced a moment of shock
when he saw himself as an old man, not all that far away now. His
best years were behind him.
When he returned to his seat,
Helen took his hand and kissed him on the cheek. They watched the
rest of the film in silence.
In the lobby after the film, they
ran into George and Mary, colleagues in history.
“Boy,
that brought back memories,” said George. “Those were the days,
hey?”
Mary added, “Would you like to
join us for a drink?”
“I'm
under the weather,” CJ said quickly.
Helen drove home. Before they
arrived, CJ said, “It was a good film. It captured the moment
pretty accurately.”
“I
thought so.”
That
was the end of their discussion of Berkeley
in the Sixties.
A
few years later CJ was renting a video cassette when he ran across
Berkeley
in the Sixties
on the shelf. In a yellow circle on the box cover was a blurb from
the New York Times: “A potent blast from the past!”
“Jesus
Christ,” CJ muttered under his breath. The sixties had joined the
ranks of panty raids and eating goldfish.
