CHAPTER 8, Part Five: Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy's killers; National Guard and police attack hippies and Black Panthers, and more . .

Photo © by Janine Wiedel, printed without permission.
For two weeks in 1969, the National Guard barricaded Berkeley streets with barbed wire on which protesters pin flowers during protests and riots in People's Park.

Against the backdrop of the conviction and sentencing of the killers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Black Panthers vs. police, and people attacked by the National Guard, I start commuting to work on a three-speed Raleigh bicycle.

In March, James Earl Ray got 99 years for killing MLK, Jr. A few weeks later, Sirhan was sentenced to death for the murder of Robert Kennedy; and the troops in Vietnam number 543,000. Student strikes and anti-war protests grow. That same year, the Oakland Police ambushed the Black Panthers, and hippies in Berkeley's Peoples’ Park were attacked by police and the National Guard.

Over the years, I had given my kids bikes for Christmas and Lynn bought me a classic three-speed Raleigh with a back-rack (See picture). Now that the boys were older and went to Douglass Elementary (now Harvey Milk Academy) just down the hill and my sister and brother- in-law moved in next door, we no longer had to bus it downtown to school and back. After school, they’d be home for an hour, looked after by Sis till Lynn and I got home. So I started riding my Raleigh to work. This was pre-helmet 1969. I believe I was the only commuter riding down busy Market or Mission Streets with bike messengers. I soon upgraded myself to a 10-speed Gitane, which I bought at the newly established Valencia Cyclery on Valencia Street near 24th.

There were few if any bike racks close to the buildings I worked in, so I’d lock up to a parking sign pole. I finally found one a block away. One night after work, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The space in the rack where I'd left my bike was empty; someone had ripped it off. I felt sick and angry; I rode the bus home almost in tears. As soon as the insurance claim was paid, I bought a Peugeot. Paul , the owner of the shop, suggested I secure my new bike with a U-bar lock when I told him about the Gitane. I’d been using a cable with a padlock. Ignorantly, I went on using a cable until I lost a couple more bikes. I finally bought a U-bar lock. Later, when we moved further out in the Mission, whenever I visited his store, Paul would tell me that opening up in the morning, he’d see me whizzing down Valencia.

It took me about twenty minutes to get to work, a little less time than on the bus. I rode from 20^th St. down Collingwood to 18^th Street, then down 18^th to Mission, then cut over to Market to Sansome. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system was being built. Construction crews were tearing up Market Street from the Ferry Building to Van Ness, and Mission Street from where it meets Valencia all the way to Daly City, to dig the tunnels that would carry the BART trains and SF’s light rail streetcar: MUNI Metro. Normal bus and streetcar schedules and routes were completely disrupted. On my bike, I sped past all the mess and gloatingly waved at crowds of commuters abandoned on street corners when construction caused a power failure, stopping trolley busses and streetcars; and when diesel buses were delayed by break-downs or altered routes.

Continental Insurance had no showers for its employees. I never brought a change of clothes. After a while, using meditation and bio-feedback, I psyched myself out not to sweat. Also, since I rode every day, my body adjusted to the physical exercise. Mini-skirts and dresses were a slight problem, but mini-skorts came in handy. Gradually, I started wearing all-natural fabrics that could breathe: loose skirts, dresses, and short jackets. I stitched up for myself a series of what my friends called a coat of many colors, made up of quarter yards of various, brightly-colored corduroy fabric, in order to be visible to drivers.

My coat of many colors, modeled by Dino Petrucci, a friend who bartended at Rosa Pistola's (which became the famous Washington Square Bar and Grill, or "the Wash Bag" thanks to Herb Caen) in North Beach. He ended up having me make him one to wear to a Frank Sinatra concert.

I knew that by wearing such outfits to work would ruin any chance for promotion since I eschewed tight-fitting skirt suits and polyester or silk blouses, nor did I wear “heels” but flats, the easier to slip in and out of toe-clips; at times, dress shoes with a short heel. Panty-hose and tights were just coming on the market. Lynn hated them, saying they made women look like sexless Barbie Dolls. Still, some women, myself included, wore nylons with- or without seams up the back- and garter belts. Wearing them with mini-skirts, I believe I may have caused a few car crashes, because, as I passed on my bike, I heard screeching tires and shouts. I know I once caused a bus to lose its trolleys. Still, I rode on, mindful of what was going on in front and to each side.

Not only were there few places to lock up outside the office, companies provided no accommodations for bike storage during working hours. One day, I read an article in Time Magazine by a New Yorker whose boss let him bring his bicycle into the office when it rained. I sat down in front of a typewriter and, using Continental letterhead, wrote a letter to Time saying that I commuted to work by bicycle as well and how nice it would be if companies would allow its bike-riding employees that privilege, especially if it was raining, and also to keep their bikes from getting stolen. I typed my name, left the standard two spaces for my signature, then typed "Senior Underwriter" (which I was), signed it, Xeroxed a copy for myself , stuffed the original in a company envelope addressed to Time, and threw it in the mail pick-up bin. Time wouldn’t print it, I reasoned, they get tons of letters every day and my letter is about bicycles and rain. I totally forgot about it.

A week later, I got a call from Marion, the vice-president Mr. B-'s secretary, asking me to come to his office immediately. I had no idea why. So I hopped on the elevator to the executive suites on the seventh floor, and announced myself.

“Take a seat,” Marion said, “Mr. B- will see you in a moment.” Her console buzzed, she picked up a receiver, murmured something, looked at me and said, “Go right in, dear, he’s expecting you.” I walked in, sinking into the carpet; noticed he was holding a torn Western Union envelope, but though nothing of it. He gestured to a chair in front of his desk. I sat.

“I’m impressed that you got a letter published in Time,” he said, waving the telegram.

“I did?!”

“You might want to read this.” He held out the telegram, leaving me to stand, lean over his massive desk, and take it. (It would be beneath him to do the standing and leaning.) “I took the liberty of opening it,” Mr. B- droned on, “since it was addressed to you at Continental. I assume you wrote your letter on our stationary.” All the while, I was thinking: isn’t it a felony to open other people’s mail let alone a telegram? I should say something. But I was too excited about a major newsweekly accepting my letter. The telegram stated that my letter would appear in the next week’s issue.

“Yes,” I admitted, “I thought it would have a better chance of being published.”

“And so it was. Well, please let me see the magazine when it comes out. And, next time you ride your bike to work and it’s raining, just come to my office and I’ll see that you can leave it here overnight. It’s dangerous riding a bike in the rain, especially at night.” Mr. B- walked me to his door and said goodbye, patting me on the shoulder.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll take you up on that.”

“Please do.”

The skies were clear the morning I left for work on my bike a month or so later, but by early afternoon, it was pouring rain. I hoped it would stop around quitting time, but no such luck. I went up to the executive suite and approached Marion.

“Hi Marion, is Mr. B- in?”

“No, dear, he’s on vacation and won’t be back for a couple of weeks, why?”

“Well, he said I could leave my bike here whenever it rained."

"Yes? and . . .?"

"It's raining really hard, so can I leave it in the supply room overnight?”

“I’m sorry, he never said anything to me about that. You certainly can’t leave it here.”

“Why not? He said I could.”

“I know nothing about that,” she said, testily, getting her purse from her desk and pulling her coat from the rack. “I said you can't. You certainly can’t leave it here because of liability issues. I’m sorry.”

I ended up drenched, wheeling my bike down Sansome St. I spotted a parking garage on Pine and pushed my bike in. The guy in the booth said I could leave it overnight and charged me five bucks.

Next up: CHAPTER 9, Part One: A man on the moon, Stonewall riots in New York, the Manson Family massacre, and more, as honchos from Continental’s head office take over the SF branch, demote me, relegate me to a windowless room in the basement and restrict me from leaving the “floor” except for lunch. Time to move on.

CHAPTER 8, Part Four: 1967- 1968 Seminal Years: How the counter culture, the Vietnam war, free speech, and civil rights affected the workplace.

Race riot in Detroit, 1967

The late sixties were seminal years in the US that had an impact on most of the Western world.  Though I was busy working and taking care of my kids, I was quite aware of what was going on.  We didn’t have a TV, but newspaper headlines, the alternative press, and radio news commentators screamed.  It was hard not to be informed.  In the summer of 1967 race riots broke out in Chicago, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Baltimore, Newark and Detroit; over three dozen people were killed.  35,000 anti-war protesters showed up at the Pentagon with over 600 arrests.  That same year, the Summer of Love launched in San Francisco. (See photo below, taken in Golden Gate Park.) Independent media encouraged people to come here and enjoy absolute freedom.  And thousands did, singing the Mamas & The Papas song ( a group from LA).“When You Come to San Francisco, Wear Flowers in Your Hair.” 

Summer of Love

One day, a friend and I were sitting on the wall bordering Crocker Plaza eating lunch when a flat bed truck pulled up and parked.  On it, long haired and bearded people in colorful clothes: tie-dye, bell bottoms, fringed leather and beaded headbands- sang and danced, playing guitars and whacking tambourines, stunning passing office-workers into jaw-dropping disbelief.   I heard people  say, “Oh, God, who let the freaks loose?!”  “I can’t believe this is happening in San Francisco- here [the financial district], especially!” and  “What is the world coming to?”  A sign on the truck bore the words “The San Francisco Mime Troupe."  

 A Mime Troupe early poster, 1967

A grinning Bill Graham, who managed the troupe at the time, stood in the center. (It was founded by mime/actor/writer R. G. Davis).  Above the music, he shouted and handed out flyers, exhorting people to come to their shows in the Geary Temple.   (The Geary Temple gained notoriety in the 1970s when it became Jim Jones' Peoples' Temple.  It was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and rebuilt into a post office.)    My friend and I were ecstatic, watching them and the reaction of dumb-founded workers.   Not too many years later, I would see Bill Graham at the Fillmore Auditorium, on the corner of Fillmore and Geary where to this day people flock to rock concerts.  As a producer of rock groups there and at the Avalon, he'd  be handing out apples from a barrel, on the stairs leading up to the ballroom.    
The people in my office rarely went out for lunch.  I asked the few who did if they saw the Mime Troupe on their flat-bed truck.  “No, but I heard all this noise.  I thought mimes didn’t talk.”  "What was going on?" some asked. When I told them, they shuddered and said they were glad they missed it.   Timothy Leary had it all backward, I thought-  with his mantra: “Tune in, turn on, drop out."  He felt people should drop out into what was called the counter-culture.  But to me, the people who dropped out seemed to be office workers.  The clueless- ignorant of major changes occurring in culture, the war in Vietnam, free speech, and civil rights in the late '60s.  These were not popular water cooler topics.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In December, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Allen Ginsberg were arrested for protesting the war in front of a military recruiting center in New York.   The same day-March 16, 1968-as the horrendous My Lai massacre occurred in Vietnam Robert Kennedy announced he was running for President of the US, and Lyndon Johnson said he wasn’t.  Then on April 4, Martin Luther King was assassinated in a Memphis motel by James Earl Ray.  Here in San Francisco, Blacks rioted in Hunter’s Point in the south eastern part of the City.  Across town, several miles away in Eureka Valley, I was anxious about sending the kids to school, but I trusted officials to handle things peacefully, which they did.  The atmosphere was tense in the Financial District, but by the end of the day, it appeared things had calmed down.  The media ran with the news, interviewing everyone from politicians, religious leaders, and civil rights sympathizers.  Jesse Jackson was everywhere.

Once in a while, I had to go to the understaffed Marine underwriters’ department on the 7^th floor to get coverage information.  I talked to the supervisor, Jack Weinberg, an engaging, stocky, swarthy man who reminded me of the actor Rod Steiger whose films “The Illustrated Man” and “Dr. Zhivago” had just been in theatres. Jack dressed nattily in expensive, three-piece suits and colorful ties, and pastel or striped shirts with white collar and cuffs, setting him apart from the rest of the drones. Often, to relieve the boredom of my department, I would invent an excuse to go to his office where we’d chat and laugh about work, the hoops you were expected to jump through to get anything done, or just dish about co-workers. One Friday night, I met Gene at a bar on Castro (Eureka Valley was rapidly evolving into the gay Mecca it is today) a few blocks from my place.  Jack walked in through the crowd.   I had to look twice; Gene glanced at him, touched my shoulder and winked.  Jack was wearing a moss-colored, one-piece hot-pants outfit.  He looked at me.  His eyes widened and his mouth opened.  Then he grinned and put his finger to his lips.  I responded with the zipped lip gesture.  Like Gene, Jack would not have set off anyone’s “gaydar,” even in gay bars.  Much later, as the crowd got nosier, Gene left with Frankie.  Jack approached me.   He’d had more than a few drinks. 

                “I wanna make you a proposition,” he said, setting his drink on the bar and lighting up a cigarette.

                “A what?”  I laughed.

                “I’m serious,” he said.   

                “Okay, what?”

                “Look , hon, I have to go to the Juneau office for a few days to check out a new client.” 

                “Okay . . .”

    “I need a woman to accompany me as a foil.  I was wondering if you’d like to go.”   I didn’t say anything, but a thought flashed through my mind: what on earth do I have to wear to Alaska?  As though reading my mind, Jack went on, “I’ll have a huge expense account, so I can buy you whatever you need: fur coat, boots, a cocktail dress for the reception, shoes, anything.  So don’t worry.”

                “When?”

                “The date hasn’t been set yet.  You'd be perfect.  I can't think of anyone I'd rather have accompany me.”

                “Good, wonderful, because I’d love to go.  I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska.  It’ll be fun."
                 "I’ll let you know," he added. "You have some time to think about it."   I pictured myself in a gorgeous hooded fur and great-looking boots.  I would have to tell Lynn and make sure he was okay with taking care of the kids.

Robert Kennedy after he was shot. 

                One night few weeks later, on June 5, 1968, I turned on the TV to watch Robert Kennedy give his acceptance speech in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, after winning the California primary, and saw him assassinated.   I could not believe what I was seeing.  I was devastated as were the people in the US and around the world.  The shooter was Sirhan Sirhan, a stable boy at the Santa Anita racetrack, a Jordanian Christian who had issues with Kennedy's support for Israel.  He is currently in a prison in Coalinga. 

The MUZAK logo.

 I digress:   Several years earlier, some marketing firm and a team of so-called psychologists who studied worker behavior came up with the results: employees churned out more work when they listened to pre-recorded, piped in music.  The firm that nailed the contract for most businesses was MUZAK (which is still at it, by the way).  The “music” is pre-digested pop or a pabulum mix of instrumental scores from Broadway musicals, pop, and easy rock-  no vocals as they proved distracting.   The only place you could get away from it then was in the bathroom (not any more).  Even elevators were wired.
  The morning after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, I stepped into the elevator at work to the strains of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses!” walked to my desk to “Put on a Happy Face!”  I was livid.  I put my purse away, hung up my coat, and marched into the building engineer’s room, which, ironically, was MUZAK free.   The engineer was sitting at his desk with his back to me, reading The Chronicle.  I’d never met the guy.  I said, “Turn that crap off!  Don’t you have any sensitivity about what just happened?  Robert Kennedy was shot dead last night and you’re playing that?  Please, turn it off now!”  I didn’t wait for his response.  Soon as I closed the door behind me, I heard “S’Wonderful” cut off in mid-phrase.   Later, a co-worker looked up from her desk and said, “Gee, it’s quiet in here.  What happened to the music?”  “Thank God,” someone responded.  “I can’t stand that shit.”    The quiet lasted only a couple of days.  (The impact of Kennedy's assassination had more of an effect on the general public than King's as it was shown live on TV.)

 Back to Jack and Alaska:   I had to talk to him about marine coverage a few times, but he never again mentioned the Alaska trip.  I figured he’d had a lot to drink that night and regretted asking me.  Somehow, I knew not to bring it up.  Actually, I was relieved.  The last thing I wanted was to spend time with a bunch of drunk insurance men and their hair-sprayed wives and/or mistresses in a remote place like Juneau where I couldn't just hop on my bike or catch a bus home.  Those business junkets wind-up as drunken orgies, anyway.  And, I’ve never been away from my kids for too long and didn’t feel comfortable leaving them in Lynn’s care.                             

Cops beating protesters at the Convention.

 In late August, at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, about 10,000 anti-war demonstrators clashed with a thousand Chicago police, FBI and CIA agents; a few thousand National Guard, and  US.  Army troops.  Bystanders and the press were also beaten.    In November Nixon and Agnew were elected President and Veep, against Hubert Humphrey and Edward Muskie, who ran on a pro-war platform.  The next day, students struck at SF State University followed in 1969 by college student strikes across the country.

NEXT:  Part Five ends Chapter 8:  Against the backdrop of the conviction and sentencing of the killers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Black Panthers vs. police, and hippies attacked by National Guard; the Branch Manager opens a telegram addressed to me from Time Magazine.  And men on the moon; Woodstock, Altamont, Stonewall riots, the end of segregation; head honchos arrive from the main office in New York and wreak havoc on many of us.  I’m on my way out.   Again.   My choice.   And more.

CHAPTER 8, PART THREE: HANGING ON; POT IN THE “DISH”" . . .

. . . . AN ANTI-VIETNAM RALLY; UGLY SCENE IN LOBBY; RED-LINING; CAREER ADVICE.

April 1967 anti-Vietnam march on McAllister Street to the Polo Grounds in Golden Gate Park, City Hall is in the background.

As I locked up my bike across the street from the office, late, as usual, I saw Tom, my boss, waiting for me; he was sitting on the rim of the "dish." I crossed the street and sat next to him. (The “dish” was lost when the building’s façade was remodeled.)

“You’re such a good employee,” he said, “Don’t jeopardize your job. I can’t give you a raise this time because of your tardiness.”

“What about all the people who come in on time but don’t do anything all day? I’ve actually seen them literally sleeping at their desks, like Henry, with his head thrown back, practically snoring! ” (Henry, a soft-spoken, affable man, was near retirement age; wore thick glasses pushed up on his forehead.)

“That’s not the point. Rules are rules. They want to see a body behind that desk at 8:30, period. Asleep or not.” I looked at him. He smiled. We laughed and went inside.

Employees meeting people for lunch or after work always said, “I’ll meet you at the dish.” Gene, a senior property underwriter from the seventh floor, and I passed the dish one Monday after a weekend of unusually warm, late summer weather; he started laughing, pointing at some really tall plants in the center. “Oh, man,” he said, “those are pot plants! That’s wild!” They were gone the next day. An investigation went nowhere; it could’ve been a passerby.

A warning against going to an anti-Vietnam war demonstration. A creepy lobby attendant gets physical.

Old Stock Exchange Building (now a sports club) at 301 Pine Street.

One day, November 15, 1969, anti-war mobilizers in San Francisco joined Washington D. C., New York, and other major cities and staged a protest of the Vietnam War on the steps of the old Stock Exchange building a block or so away from Continental. Gene and I decided to go. About 11:45 the PA crackled and the Branch Manager's voice came on:

“We strongly forbid any of our personnel from attending the noon demonstration at the Stock Exchange.”

The PA buzzed and went silent. Nothing was said about what consequences we’d face by going. A couple of minutes before noon, I met Gene in the lobby. Continental’s former uniformed elevator operator- now relegated to lobby attendant- still wore a black leather glove on the hand that used to work the extinct door lever. He was a strange little man who looked like the noir actor Peter Lorre. Now that elevators were computerized, his job was to screen people coming in and going out of the building, announce when an elevator was available, and herd people into them. I guess this made him feel important. We walked past him along with others on their way to lunch. He put out his arm, barring our way.

“You are not to go to the rally!” he barked.

“We’re on our own time. We can do whatever we want.” Gene moved the attendant's arm aside and we pushed through the doors to the street.

“How does he know where we’re going?” I said.

“I don’t know; the guy gives me the creeps. He’s always watching me.”

After the excitement of the rally, we walked into the building jabbering away with the crush of people returning from lunch (we saw no one else from the company at the demonstration). Gene stepped into a waiting elevator. The attendant followed him, grabbed Gene's sleeve, and tried to pull him out, then threw a punch. Gene struck back, but missed; the elevator doors closed on a shocked crowd and a stunned Gene. Dazed, I went to my desk. I estimated the time it took him to get to his and called him. He told me he was so upset he was going home. He didn’t show up the next day, so I phoned him. He told me that personnel had called that morning and fired him for being physically violent on the job.

“It was self-defense! What about that jerk of a lobby attendant? He hit you!"

“It doesn’t matter. I’m out of there.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked him. The whole incident baffled me.

“I’m going to try the Post Office.” Within a few days he was hired and stayed with the PO until he was laid off for disability.*

The Chronicle Building on the corner of 5th and Mission.

Gene lived with his partner, Frankie, in a ground floor apartment on Minna Street, an alley behind the Chronicle Building on Mission at 5^th Street, a “red-lined” area, meaning property owners and renters either couldn’t get insurance or if they did, paid twice as much premium. He once told me that he’d been lectured by his boss, the manager of the Property Department, for living in an “undesirable” neighborhood. He warned Gene that if he didn’t move to a better area, his career would be jeopardized. (In the past few years, red-lining has become illegal. And today, condos on Minna Street are selling in the hundreds of thousands.) His boss went on to say that, furthermore, Gene was single, so he’d better find a girl and get married if he wanted to get somewhere in the business. They had no idea he was gay

Next up: Chapter 8, Part Four: A chance to go to Alaska on company business. The Branch Manager opens a telegram addressed to me from Time Magazine. Head honchos arrive from New York. Everything changes. I’m on my way out again.

* Gene had inherited a rare form of arthritis from his father who had died from the disease a few months after I had met him. He and I remained close for decades. The last few times I saw him, he appeared to be calcifying right before my eyes. Then he stopped answering his phone. I went to the last place he lived on Bernal Heights and found it vacant. I neither heard from nor saw him again.