Ceding Telegraph

WE were strolling down Telegraph Avenue, popping into Amoeba and Rasputin and all the little hipster shoe stores and tattoo joints. Each place had a nook that I would have otherwise ignored where stacks of high-gloss fliers sat, neatly or messily, depending. They advertised events at Shattuck Down Low or Luka's or clubs in the city. Brian added a stack of his Influence fliers to each collection.

The walk was so familiar (Dwight...Haste...Channing...Durant) but something felt off-kilter. And it wasn't just my "It's Spring!" outfit of denial, which was leaving my toes cold.

I used to own this street. A decade ago, I would pound my way to class to the beat of Drummer Larry, and if my hips were swaying, well I just couldn't help it. Shades on, hair bouncing: I was on my own and on my way. I'd trade smiles with the guy selling Rasta hats and grab coffee at C'est Cafe and take a mercy "Dollar Off at Amoeba" card from that lanky dude who looked like an Addams family cousin. I dined at Mario's La Fiesta and the old Pasta Pomodoro. I treated myself to custom-scented lotions at the OG Body Time. I even enjoyed my quiet irritation with the old hippies hawking bumper stickers and tie-dye onesies.

There are plenty of eulogies for Telegraph these days, after Cody's, but they mourn a place I never knew, a memory that the gray-ponytailed street salesmen render into nostalgic tourist wares. On that mythical street, students in berets and bell bottoms debated anti-war strategy in cafes and pored over philosophy books in Cody's and threw molotov cocktails at campus police.

My Telegraph, with all its thumping vibrancy and Tupac shirts, was a disappointment to sixties Berkeleyans. A sad hangover.


AS I walked down the street last weekend with my latte and my inappropriate sandals, I realized that I was an old lady. Everywhere I looked was a new breed of Telegraph rat. Punky girls in black skinny jeans and preppier girls in leggings shimmied along with effortless sass. A tribe of gay black teenagers dodged in and out of the sneaker stores alongside us, one guy sporting a big gold handbag. A table of students in Peet's argued over a brain teaser in adorably pompous tones. An Asian guy walked hand-in-hand with a white girl, white guys flirted with black girls. There were lots of those Bay Area kids whose ethnicity is so delightfully indistinguishable.

I had just read that morning's Frank Rich Times column, so I knew what I was looking at: millennials. The smoke shop and the Wet Seal and the slick new ATMs--all crawling with millennials.

"The so-called millennial generation (dating from 1982) is the largest in American history, boomers included," Rich explains. He adds that "roughly 40 percent of it is African-American, Latino, Asian or racially mixed. One in five millennials has an immigrant parent. It’s this generation that is fueling the excitement and some of the record turnout of the Democratic primary campaign."

Most interesting.


OF COURSE one's initial instinct in revisiting an old haunt or alma mater is to poo-poo the new population and lament the ruin they've brought to the place that was so perfect. That inner grump saw my funky Telegraph replaced by a teen shopping Disneyland, scrubbed of seriousness and homeless people, just as the boomers before me saw their lefty mecca overrun with apathy and street punks.

But if there's one thing I hate it's being hated on by baby boomers. So I wasn't about to do my successors like that. When I set adrift my feelings of being a dork and belonging to a bygone era, and opened my eyes a bit more, I liked what I saw.

These millennials, they're very charming. It appeals to me the idea that each new generation will make progress, that my children will evolve beyond my limits. Millennials have something going for them in that respect: a personal swagger, an open-mindedness, fewer hangups about race and gender and sexual orientation. And of course they are great followers of Obama: supporters, but also heirs.

Maybe it was nothing more than a big gold purse confidently tossed over the shoulder of a black teenage boy that won me over. That's doing sixties Telegraph proud.


SO, no back-in-my-day grumbling from me: I'm ceding Telegraph to the millennials. It's as it should be. My thirtyish brethren and I can hit up the Lakeshore Farmer's Market and go to the clubs on the fliers. Telegraph is theirs now. I'll trust millennials to do their thing, and watch with curiosity.

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