Carl Becker

The Confessions of a Shade-tree Mechanic: Berkeley the 60s & 70s Carl Becker

Roger Williams stumbles through adolescence with the aid of a few friends and his love for the automobile. At the end of college he hits the road to the West Coast in a rolled and tucked, convertible Pontiac, along route 66, over the Sierras to Berkeley for graduate school in 1963. At Berkeley he meets Ginny Wyant a Phi Beta Kappa from Boston University. In the explosive environment of Berkeley in the 60s Roger and Ginny fall in love and move in together. In revolutionary times Roger and Ginny decide to drop out and join the gypsy life. Roger becomes a shade-tree mechanic for artists, musicians, and drug dealers. The parties, the concerts, the riots, the drugs, and the attempts to create a sustainable life outside the mad house of the Vietnam War culture that Roger and Ginny participate in are legendary. After a few years Ginny decides to return to school and complete her PhD in psychology. In 1970 Roger and Ginny have a daughter. The family sustains them through the brutal 70s. By the end of the seventies the war is over, the movement for social change is dead, and the move the to the political right begins. Roger and Ginny move into the next revolution in Silicon Valley. Ginny, who has gotten her degree, gets a job at a psychiatric ward. Roger and Ginny change gender roles. Roger becomes the President of the Mother's Club, rebuilds the house they have been able to buy, and has time to sum up the utopian 60s.