There was no conversation as we wound our way through the outskirts of San Diego to the freeway. I looked over to the driver.
"Did you notice that attendant?" I asked him.
"Yeah." He switched channels on the radio. "A real Orange County-type."
"Yeah," I answered.
IV
I WENT to a B. U. Weatherman meeting to hear Mark Rudd speak at the beginning of last fall. I was shocked, intimidated, and confidently opposed to their violent, quasi-Fascist narrow-mindedness.
I walked out after the second speaker had finished. The last thing I heard from the podium as I melted into the crowd that was pushing through the exits were the shouts of a Weatherman I didn't know. "Anyone who leaves now," he screamed, "is a wimpy mother-fucker who only cares about his white-skinned privilege! "
As I walked outside the auditorium, I remember having shaken my head at the childish brutality of Weatherman's oversimplifications.