 |
| National Guard #3 - Berkeley 1969 |
 |
| National Guard #4 - Berkeley 1969 |
Bottom photo taken at the intersection of Bowditch and Dwight Way. The street sign is no longer there, but telephone pole number 2225 is, as shown in the Google Street View photo below.
 |
| 2225 Telephone Pole (Google) - Berkeley |
4 comments:
I remember those guardemen. They were none too friendly.
If they caught you walking up the wrong street, they'd tell you to turn around and go the other way.
And they had rifles, so you didn't argue.
So, these photos were taken using a Nikon F with a 50mm lens. I had to have been able to get kind of close, 'cause I haven't really cropped that much. (Except for maybe the top, "tree" photo, today.) Honestly, can't remember having any interaction with the troops. In hindsight, maybe I can understand them not being too friendly! I'm sure that they didn't want to be there.
In 1968-69 I lived on California St. next to the empty lots on Hearst onto which the Alameda County sheriffs, all wearing rifles, disgorged from their buses before dispersing into Berkeley. It was a daily frightening and awful sight. The helicopters flew overhead throughout the day and night.
I was a schoolbus driver in those days, driving kids from the School for the Deaf and the Blind. We came upon lines of sheriff deputies, all uncomfortable looking in their blue jumpsuits and rifles, sometimes standing in the wafting remnants of pepper smoke and tear gas. The kids were horrified and frightened, eyes teary, unable to understand what was going on. I didn't understand it all that well, either.
I moved from Berkeley to Humboldt county in the fall of '69.
Interesting times! (I've put up some photos of tear gas being deployed on an earlier post.)
Post a Comment