The Problem With Us

The following is an interview of sorts with a former Berkeley activist who graduated from Harvard in 1970.

PATRICK says the fact that Kermit the Frog addressed this year's graduating class at Harvard is an obvious emblem of the times.

"This year's batch of college graduates is socially and politically fogbound," says my 33-year-old friend as we sit in a cafe near the UC Berkeley campus.

"Today's graduate," says Patrick, who received his academic discharge 10 years ago, "lives on intellectual junk food. He or she is simply not as bright as he or she was a decade ago."

Patrick always says "he or she" when women are in earshot. He thinks he ought to say it also when only men are around--to set a good example--but it usually makes him feel like a neon Boy Scout.

"Standardized test scores have been dropping every year," he argues. "You can see it in Sproul Plaza, the birthplace of student protests, now covered by a blanket of mediocrity."

"They got flabby brains," he says. "They grew up in the shadow of the late '60s and early '70s, and it stunted their growth." Patrick always says "late '60s and early '70s" as if it were one word. He graduated from Harvard 10 years ago and gave up going to the law school of his choice in order to join the counterculture in Berkeley. He used to sleep on the floor to express solidarity with the struggle of third world people, but now he does it because it's Japanese.

I relf him the Vietnam war is over.

"Not for long," he snaps. "Everybody's joining up again. The fraternities, ROTC, the Christians." Patrick thinks the growing conservative tide on campus and the U.S. involvement in El Salvador are symptoms of the same disease that brought us Vietnam, but he's afraid it makes him sound stuck in the late-60s-early-70s to say so directly.

It's lowered expectations. I tell him, repeating a familiar litany. Resources shriveling, economy sputtering, empire disheveling--no wonder everybody's worried about a good job. Small is beautiful, and what else could be smaller or more beautiful to take care of than Number One.

"I think it's dead batteries above the neck," he says petulantly. "Just look at the facts. Course loads are lighter, grades are more inflated, and yet fewer and fewer students are able to finish in four years.

"And now look at them standing up for their diplomas. Their parents and teachers come along and pat them on the head as if they were good little puppies who've learned to take orders."

Patrick feels betrayed by the new generation. He had worn a red armband of protest on his graduation gown, renounced his earning potential and set off to join the hippies or become Bob Dylan. The way he sees it, he went out on a limb to save the world, and the world came along and cut down the tree to make more paper for Playboy and Mademoiselle.

"All they care about are clothes, suntans, jogging and ice cream," he says. "They don't take drugs anymore, and their music could have been written by Donald Duck."

Patrick tells me about Norma, a fresh-minted graduate and friend of his. Norma said she was crazy about her new boyfriend because he was "wild." Patrick asked her what was wild about him.

"He drives me to Oakland with a cigarette dangling on his lip," she reportedly said. "And he has a history of drugs," she reportedly added with a shiver of delight.

"Today's graduates are too sheltered," Patrick concludes, wiping cappucino foam off his new beard. He read an article in Esquire that said balding men could offset their loss of sex appeal by growing beards.

I ask him what kind of wild things happened to him after he graduated.

"Three of us were sharing an apartment on Cedar St. in 1972," he recalls. "I was sleeping on a raised platform above the back porch for 30 bucks a month. There were six drugheads crashing on the living room floor and shooting up in the bathroom. We didn't want them there, but they were friends of our grass connection and didn't have any place else to stay."

"One night, one of these guys stole an ounce of cocaine. He stayed up three days and nights shooting the stuff every hour or so. On the third night about 3 a.m., I was awakened and looked down to see this guy with an eight-inch hunting knife, cursing and snarling at me. He said he knew somebody was up on the platform with me and that we were talking about him."

That's pretty wild. I tell Patrick, but what happened?

Patrick says he got down off the platform, let the guy have a look, and went to crash at a nearby commune of militant lesbians who kept a stash of rifles in their attic.

Berkeley's not what it used to be. I assure him.

"Yeah," he says as his face lights up. "Remember when we pulled the fence down at People's Park and a fleet of cop cars screeched up and started shooting rubber bullets at us?" He notices I'm staring out the window.

"Well, that's okay," he adds, getting up to leave. "I'm late for my shrink. No time for old war stories today."

The author is a freelance writer based in Sun Francisco.