Bruce,

Yes, it is I. I have fond memories of you and BG also, despite what I wrote in a letter published in the People’s World in the mid-to-late ‘70's when you were, shall we say, de-unionizing. The journalism class of yours I took at Cal was in 1968, the fall quarter. It was about two thirds of the way through that quarter that I received my induction notice and stopped going to classes because of it. But right after finals you saw me on campus and told me to come to the BG offices and I could take the final there. Which I did. Therefore, the last report card I would ever receive had an A- on it to go along with the two F’s. When you learned I was going to refuse induction in Oakland, you suggested I consider writing an article about it for you. Which I also did. I remember staying up all night rewriting that article per your instructions and getting it to you just ahead of the deadline the next morning. After catching up on my lost sleep, I came to your offices to help prepare that issue for the printer. Besides changing the title from “Following the Brown Line” to “I Refuse,” you also changed the first name of my byline from “William” to “Will.” I strongly objected to the name change and was able to get it changed back on the front page, but it was too late to alter the byline for the story itself. You had also cut three or four paragraphs from near the beginning of the article, what you called my “moralizing.” I had no problem with the cut because I saw immediately that you were right to excise it. But since you had simply pushed the two parts of the article together after the excision, there was a very noticeable gap in the article’s continuity. There was no transition from A to C now that B had been removed. I asked to be allowed to write a sentence to provide that transition and you let me do it, even cutting out one of the sidebars to accommodate it on the page.

I also remember helping you prepare a later issue of BG for the printer, an issue for which one of your regular writers, Wilbur Wood, had written a long, fascinating article about the famous People’s Park riots he had just witnessed. The article needed to be cut by about a third but no one wanted to do it because Mr. Wood apparently had a history of reacting angrily when his articles were edited. Since I did not know Mr. Wood the assignment was given to me. A major portion of his article consisted of him walking about the streets of Berkeley and telling what he saw taking place. While this was interesting (at least to me), I noticed that after a while it became somewhat redundant and that a large part of it could be cut without impacting the article’s composition or insights. There was my third and I cut it out. But like with my own article previously, the cut left a continuity gap, so I wrote a sentence that went something like, “I saw many more things like this as I walked around until I came to . . .” where ever. I never did meet Mr. Wood, but when I asked after the issue had been published if he had said anything about my editing job, I was informed, somewhat incredulously, that he had uttered not one peep of complaint. It made me feel I had done a pretty good job of editing if Mr. Wood did not think I had compromised his work in some way.

It was not long after this that, as far as you were concerned, I disappeared because I could no longer be found selling underground papers to tourists on Haight Street. Indeed, I stopped doing that, or anything to earn money, in the spring of 1970. After a series of psychedelically aided visions that May, I decided I was in position, with a little bit of help, to singlehandedly challenge the American Capitalist War Machine and create the catalyst which would begin the aggressive nonviolent overthrow of the disgustingly corrupt and murderous government then in control of this country, a government not too dissimilar from the one exterminating civilians, torturing “combatants,” and jailing journalists today. Alas, I could not get that help. The underground press sat on the story and would not even acknowledge my existence, I guess since playing at revolution was one thing, actually doing something about it another. I was arrested, though ultimately not charged, for breaking windows at the Berkeley Barb. With some improvised guerrilla street theater tactics, I boldly attracted the attention of the Feds and almost faked them out of their jockstraps. Right after this, coincidentally, I was unsuccessfully framed by the SFPD and the DA’s office for selling drugs, though it cost me six months in the felony section of the Hall of “Justice” fighting this. Next up, I was tried and convicted of malicious mischief and disturbing the peace for smashing up the Rolling Stone’s intercom system. After this, I spent several years on the streets of Berkeley in the Telegraph Avenue area as what now would be called a homeless person. Not long after the fall of Saigon, in 1975, I started working in a used record store and continued this kind of work into the early 1990's. Since 1994, I’ve worked as the night custodian (janitor) at the Pacific School of Religion, where I compose comments like this during my breaks.

One of the things I’ve done over the years, but especially while I was on the street, is write poetry and songs. I have approximately 100 poems and 60 songs posted on my web site, at tycho.i8.com/wombtie, along with a couple of recent essays and a couple of pictures. Ten of the songs are recorded and can be heard on MP3 file. Since there is chatter nowadays about the draft coming back, I would like to post “I Refuse” on my site if I could. Are there still copies of it available? Would it be all right with you if I put it on my site? And I think I would enjoy discussing things like revolution and reform with you some time, though I’ve had to give up most alcohol intake because of my rosacea so I would pass on the martini. Talk to you later.

Wm Ty