An Interesting Day in Berkeley

We spent part of my birthday morning in Berkeley, California. Mike had just finished a 2-day conference for his work, and so we decided to extend our stay in the Bay area for another couple of hours with a jaunt to Berkeley for lunch before heading home. Now, maybe it's a matter of comparison and contrast along political and ideological perspectives, but Berkeley has long held a reputation for its firebrand leftist leaning students, its 1960s style Free Speech Movement staged sit-ins demanding all sorts of rights to freedom and free speech, and its local activists that would possibly make even Michael Moore look like a conservative. Now, I'm sure that not all liberals are leftists, and vice versa, but to walk down Telegraph Avenue as we did during our brief visit to Berkeley Friday morning, you'd be hard pressed to think otherwise. We saw a good number of homemade cardboard signs propped up with messages ranging from "The Media Is Only As Liberal As The Conservative Businesses That Own Them", "Jesus Was A Liberal" and "War is Terrorism" to name but a few.

In the midst of the people watching and the cardboard sign reading, something else caught my attention that day as we walked about Telegraph Avenue. It occurred to me that Telegraph Avenue was perhaps a wonderful destination, once upon a time, to shop for local art and rare books; yet, as we walked about the sidewalks this past Friday, I couldn't help but feel that those more charming novelties had been replaced by junk shops and miscellaneous crap (for lack of a better word). The number of panhandlers was also quite striking, and it seemed that a good number of them were completely looney. One even coughed upon Mike, and Mike had to sweep off chunks of brown phlegm that had projected from the man's uncovered mouth. Shortly thereafter, Mike declared to me, "great, I probably just got the H1N1 virus."

The streets along Telegraph Avenue were quite dirty and the store fronts shoddy. There were several vacant looking stores and many that appeared to be operating in a completely unkempt sort of way. It was very sad in many different respects. I had visited Telegraph Avenue several years ago when first arriving to California and it seemed that in just a few short years, the condition of the area had dramatically taken a turn for the worse. It's still a very eclectic area and no doubt still maintains much of its appeal for both natives and tourists alike, but I couldn't help but wonder to myself if the city council of Berkeley, which seems to possess a reputation for being notoriously anti-property owner and anti-business, had not finally succeeded in that agenda. To walk about Telegraph Avenue in its current state would suggest that indeed they have achieved their goals in almost running the businesses and the street community into the ground. In reality, I don't know if its the fault of the city council of Berkeley or if it's just part of the resident culture, but regardless, it was sad to see portions of the city, such as what we saw on Telegraph Avenue, with the rich, eccentric history that it has, in such a pitiful, shabby condition.

The twins also didn't really enjoy their time in Berkeley either. They fussed and whined for most of the entire time that we walked the sidewalks of Telegraph Avenue. They also wanted to be picked up and held constantly and didn't want to go into any of the stores. It was actually a little out of character for the twins - they usually love cruising city sidewalks and shopping with mom and dad, but alas, no such luck while in Berkeley that day. We, therefore, didn't end up staying very long. Fussy twins is no fun for anyone...

Here are a few pictures taken during our short stay in Berekely while walking along Telegraph Avenue:

Mike trying to coax Paige and Taylor to walk rather than be held...

The fussing continues, but at least Mike looks up for a quick picture.

I take a turn for a family photo opp; unfortunately, Taylor is fussing still and Paige wants to be picked up again and is squirming so much she doesn't show us her sweet face for the photo opp.

Hold me, hold me, hold me.

Ahhhh, the joy. Just look at daddy's and Paige's face! Ha, ha.

A moment of success comes when Paige and Taylor are willing to hold my hands and walk rather than be carried through the streets of Telegraph Avenue.

It didn't last long...the tugging on my arms to pick them up started up again just moments later.

With much reluctance on their part, and a little coaxing on my part, I managed to continue walking with (rather than carrying) Paige and Taylor through the city.

Now, at some point, as we were hoofing it that day along Telegraph, our new Nissan Pathfinder was vandalized. We discovered the vandalism when we noticed that the front bumper on the driver's side was all scratched up as though a car had attempted to parallel park their car in front of ours and in doing so, drived right alongside our car leaving a good number of scratches and taking chunks of paint off in the process. Although this was a completely annoying and totally aggravating situation for us; after all, it's our *new* car, Mike and I couldn't help but laugh and find a little humor in the midst of our misfortune.

Let me tee it up for you in this way: Here we were in Berkeley, an area home to a good number of residents who would likely champion such phrases as "I am my brother's keeper" and "Do No Harm" and yet the irony of having our car vandalized by such resident(s), and leaving no note of apology or for further contact information to remedy the damage inflicted, somehow just seemed so ironic and quite hilarious. I even envisioned a character who might pontificate in large numbers and crowds when tv cameras are on them, but when the occassion to actually act in the manner in which they proclaim (i.e. such as when our car was vandalized), it was as if cowardice took over instead and the person(s) ran for the cover of darkness. So much for that whole "Do No Harm" thing and being a "brother's keeper"...Mike even laughed to me later about the whole situation that it at least makes for good bumper stickers even if there's no real substance behind those slogans. I joked back to Mike that I might even have been willing to overlook the vandalism and the person(s) cowardice of fleeing the scene had our car given them good "reason" to vandalize it. Oh, like say, if our car had any markings, bumper stickers or slogans that might have reflected our "right-winger" values. Ha, ha. Yes, I could almost understand then, ALMOST...

Unfortunately, we have no such slogans or bumper stickers with a "right-wing" bent anywhere on our new car leaving Mike and I to draw the following conclusion: that it was pure vandalism to hit our car, it was cowardly not to leave a note or contact information, and it certainly wasn't looking out for people and doing "no harm".

Needless to say, the time we spent in Berkeley on Friday wasn't so fun for us...

In time, the memory of that day will fade, the memory of Mike getting brown phlegm spit on him will fade, the memory of the deteriorating streets and store fronts will fade, the memory of the car damage will fade, the memory of the girls' constant fussing will fade, and perhaps we'll want to visit Telegraph Avenue again...someday.