Memories of Growing Up In Berkeley

The Dot Man.
La Vals - Northside @ 3am.
People's jungle-gym at Ohlone - Ah, "People's Park Annex" That's where I used to dump my papers instead of doing my paper route.

Timbo you are bringing up some great memories.
How about the tunnel at night at cordonices park, conga drummers at lower Sproul plaza when I was supposed to be at class (HS) , peoples park riots,
bubble lady, sparky, fire slides in the Claremont, sneaking in the claremont pool, smokehouse burgers. The Berkeley City Club pool.

Those were the daze.
V

Twisted kidz...
I miss the Keystone, saw BB King, Canned Heat, Garcia...that was cool.

Ortman's (sp?) Ice Cream parlor. Edy's on Shattuck.

Oh yeah, my parents and they're friends getting the bug to see Rocky Horror at the University on Saturday night!

Globe Stamp store, Games of Berkeley on Telegraph...

Husteds where it originally was on Center where I got my first pair of patent leather shoes. Yes, my first memory of Berkeley is getting shoes there and how bustling a place it all was, even before BART was downtown. I lived outside St. Helena before I was five but my mom would drive us to Berkeley to go shopping and to stay in touch with her friends who lived in the East Bay. Berkeley was the Big City to a three year old from the countryside...

It was McCallum's on Solano and Eddie's on Shattuck.

Remember breaking into the Greek Theatre to "play" when there weren't shows there...Polka Dot Man...evenings at Au Cocolat...UC Theatre...the Rialto on Gilman, where I saw Stop Making Sense.

Indian Rock!!!!

Holy Sh*t,

Edy's! (on Shattuck), I used to work there right out of high school.

Also, there were two ice cream shops on Solano, one were Starf*cks is now, an one right up the street. And of course I can't remember the names of either of them, damn!

McCallum's was on Shattuck across from Missing Link.

Edy's I think it was on Shattuck. Ate there many times.

yes, my parents were Mods in the 60's, my mom studied art at the SF Art Institute and dad taught science at UC. Berkeley Kids are a breed apart...not hippies...won't fit into any mold as I think we were taught to march to our own beat.

Always did piss me off when people right away say "Oh, you're a hippy". Thank God I'm rarely at a loss for a suitably sarcastic comeback!

I swore on that fig leaf. They asked us who was the leader of our "gang". I think we giggled.

I lived on Neilson street right up from Toots Sweets and Brothers Bagels and this really cool little deli that had the BEST garlic cheese bread. Evo had a liquor store on the corner. He used to give me a piece of candy everyday and walk me across Gilman street.I remember hearing the fog horns and the sound of the BART train going by right behind my house on Evelyn?? Man the good old days. Whoever said it makes him homesick for a place that is not there anymore sure hit it on the head.

I remember tear gas in kindergarten!

Ah yes, I remeber the bowling alley at the ASUC! Remember when Arinell's first opened on Shattuck?

Kips and the horseradish--had to duck once when a friend who didn't know what horseradish was said that it can't be that hot and took a big bite of a burger that he'd just slathered a tablespoonful on it! Was that fun or what?!

Loved the Buttercup. My friends parents owned it and we would go there before dance class at Shawl Anderson - it's amazing we could move after eating one of there brownies - God they made the best mint brownies! We always wanted trade lunches with Louise.

Thanks............tis true.

And yes everyone, I do remember Orange Julius in El Cerrito!

Bear's Lair I think is what you are talking about. It's the only place in lower sproul that serves beer. Still there.

Spent lots of time at the Berkeley Square but never went to Your Place Too.

I spent many an hour at the Kiddy Korral.
I ate a lot of playdough. mmmmm playdough.

I played with toy cars and flashlight lightbulbs, wires and batteries at the one on Shattuck. Wanted to stay when mom came and said it was time to go.

A few stores:
Adam's apple ( telegraph and dwight)
The "garden spot" ( now the intermezzo)
The "5 and dime" (across the street from intermezzo)
"sunset theatre_ (after the five and dime)
Edy's Ice cream (shattuck and allston)
"the houf brau" ( an old world meat and potatoes joint across from larry blake's)
"Robbies" ( the place that was there before Larry blakes)
The print shop next to cafe med with the mean looking lady with the pirate eye patch on.
"Irv's house of leathers" (where they made hurraches, and cool hippie leather)
"Pepe's Pizza" (Next door to where Irv's was. these were both next to the Med.)
"the blue cue" (pool parlour where the second room of amoeba records is now)
"the eclair bakery" (next to where cody's books is now)
"dave the orange juice guy)
"the pizza heaven" ( bancroft)
"baskin and robbins" (bancroft)
"Pacific cinema" (telegraph, above where fred's market is now)
The roller skating rink on telegraph next to where Leo's pro audio is now.
"birdie's toy store" "on shattuck in the square.)
"reza's beer gardern" (now the outside of it is part of the raligh's out door deck)
"bernini's ( on channing right above telegraph.)
"cornucopia" Above bernini's. (One of the first, if not the first psychedelic hippie clothing store, run by my godmother)


soooo many more. but than I am a little older (45) than most here, and I was on the ave EVERY DAY.

P

deep east Texas? huh...that is where I live now!

I miss Hester :(

Yeah - it was Solange... she's back on tribe again... although I don't know if she's on this tribe.

Her name is Solange and we called her Solo at her request when were kids. I am proud to say that since viewing her "Berkeley Kids" blog-being one of the kids she was looking for-we have reconnected. She is a fabulous writer !!! If you get the chance check out her blog. AWESOME!! You won't be sorry!!

Vine variety was my first lesson in economics (must have been 69 or so) as the big gum balls went from a penny to a nickel and then to a dime a few years latter. I asked my mom about it and she replied "price of sugar".

Duh, I think I meant the UC Theater, on University. God, I can't believe I don't remember...the place where Rocky Horror played every weekend, the UC right?

Are you sure it wasn't in the SF/Berkeley Punk Rock tribe?

Jenicide tells me, Bailey and Tamera's band was called Ravage.

...from a band called ANGEL OF THORNS.

and I'm quite sure I was one of the "older guys" who hung out at Barrington talking baseball all night. Ouch. I was the rare Berkeley Kid AND Barringtonian. I had the big yellow dog named Droog.

John Hanscom, he is married to a latin woman named Leslie, has a daughter and works at a Recyling plant in Berkelely still! His home is in Martinez. We still keep in touch, was the first boy I ever had sex with! Still adore him to this day!!

I'm late to this but so far seem the eldest memory-digger. Hi, Jerome's my name, and pardon if this gets longish... About 1 through 4 lived on Milvia St about 4 blocks north of University. Vague memories of running through Live Oak Park, the old Streetcars going over the Bay Bridge, my older brother squashing pennies on the tracks. My Grandmother and her apartment in a brick building on Alston half a block up from Shattuck, and her books on Atlantis and Mu... Mother had a breakdown and divorced my father and ended up staying at a house in the hills near Tilden Park. and going to a preschool up there... Later moved to a big brick apartment bldg. on Grant St. between Addison and Alston and lived on top floor. The phone # was still a Thornewall prefix (TH). I loved Berkeley... I remember Hinks before it deteriorated, a grand place, and nearby the See's candy store. I played at Grove Park (Now on MLK Blvd across from City Hall) and was always frustrated by the big pipe I couldn't jump high enough to get on top. But I was a good spinner of the little merry-go-round. There used to be a lot more bushes there to play hide and go seek amongst. My brother and I would hang there ditching church (Christian Science (the Frank Loyd Wright designed one (on Channing/) across from People's Park. I went to Washington Elementary... (much meta).

I would go to the U A theater when there were matinees and it was the era of Sci Fi and Horror B movies. Also across Shattuck to the Cal(?) theater. Often I'd check the phonebooths and find lots of money. It was beatnick days, Rathskeller's basement, across the street was a hamburger place that sold "Ranchburgers" and a piece of pie with melted cheese and ala mode. My mother Evelyn was a part of the art scene and had nude models and other students in the apartment, and worked at the International House at UC, which got me into Strawberry Canyon Pool, where I learned to swim, but worked up to Jr. Lifesaver at the pool at Berkeley High School. I spent half my time in Berkeley Library, almost a second home, listening to storytime, then scouring for books... People kept talking about the "Big C" and pointing to the hill but I was looking for a sea up there... till I was brought there on a day it was over-painted by Stanford... I used to spend a lot of time up on Campus wandering, My favorite place to play was in the Eucalyptus grove where Strawberry Creek came through, And I'd wander up to the T. Kroeber Anthro Museum and learned all about Ishi. Also hung out at the UC library where they had that spurious plate displayed said to be left by Sir Frances Drake at "Drake's Bay."

There was a bookstore on University called Castro's that had a big Comic Bin-table where I was allowed to read the returns (3 old for one new). They played old radio music in there from the 40's, I think it was QOIT radio. The guy got me interested in reading old philosophy books which he'd let me take home for free and return. I got my first rollerskates (metal wheel) about 7 years old and became Mercury with winged sandals and went everywhere. Everybody got to know me, could hear me coming a mile away... Met all sorts of people from everywhere between Fisherman's Warf to high in the Berkeley Hills, over to Oakland to near Albany/Richmond. Sometimes I'd run into wandering thugs who'd try to beat me up and I'd smash them in the knees with my skates and roll away. It was tough back then in some places, especially around San Pablo Blvd. I never looked for trouble, myself.

Lake Merrit on the 4th of July, fishing off pier, oysters and great fish at Spengers Grotto, Minestrone soup at this Italian restaurant where Telegraph ends in Oakland near that hotdog stand that looked like one... Iceskating at the Iceland, many times there, which I hear is going or gone under now... It was near all those Military Housing units up down Grove (MLK Blvd). The merry-go-round and big slide that needed a burlap sack up in Tilden, day trips over to SF to the Zoo and Natural History Museum... All that stuff that painted childhood. One really can't go back somehow, not with everything Berkeley changing over the years through various periods.

Teen years I moved away up Northern Calif. but came back again in the 60's. Start with our dear Bubble Lady... Everything on Telegraph, the Hells Agels and Diablos parked there, Lenore Kandal's 'Love Book' and knew Richard Braugtigan for awhile before he died.. the bustle of colors and patchouli, the Berkely Barb and Oracle, KSAN. Magnolia Thunderpussy in SF, the Avalon, the Fillmore, Chet Helm's Dog on the Beach, free park concerts, going to North Beach, (it wasn't all about Berkeley) the various riots, storm-trooping by Reagan's orders of what were once some of the best police there were to be found, I got caught in all that, curious to see Reuben and all, and People's Park, running and averting through back yards, military checkpoints, some throwing crap at police from building tops, I took shelter in my Grandmother's apartments, so many battered and bloody, then it happened down at the park I mentioned early across from City Hall... was there through all that. Saw the take-over of the Reagents office too, from the periphery. I lived on Haight and Divisidero for 69, and traipsed back and forth between there and Stinson Beach where I worked taking down old redwood barns, cleaning up the wood and installing first-growth walling inside homes. Also got up at 4:00 AM and would sneak over the fence of the Japanese Tea Garden and wade out to take all the quarters under the Moon Bridge... bought a lot of tickets to a lot of shows for a lot of people, and a lot of 10-15 dollar lids for everyone that way...

Moved back to Northern California and finished school while being a 24 hr Crisis Counselor in Redding. But I always came back to Berkeley, went to Concerts, saw Jimi in Berkeley and in Sacramento.... MAGIC! or went to go see Hair several times and made sure to stop at Dark Carnival books. Later noticed the corporatization change the look and feel... I moved up through the various communes to end up in Takilma, Oregon and stayed there a few years... Then after some college moved back awhile to Berkeley to attend UC for a while. Mostly nose to grindstone then, then back to Oregon and a short-lived marriage, and later new partner and off to Maui for 10 + years, then back to live in Piedmont area... while partner attended Mills College. Went a few times to UC theater to see Rockey Horror dressed up and accoutered with water pistol and stuff... I'd wander around, but it wasn't the same anymore. Still, so many great people around though to meet, and got into arts/craft scene, and others. I worked in Oakland at a Psychiatric Center with the youths about then, and hung with lots of friends, scattered willy nilly.

So much I leave out, but you all covered so much... Oh, did I talk about the Acid trips while listening to free concerts? or the drums in Sproul Plaza resonating so fine?

Fortune to all my fellow Berzerklians. Nobody knows what we all lived through somehow... Hugs to all! Huzzah!!!
Jerome

Barrington Diety was Onn Yahng. "Those who know don't tell, those who tell don't know."