Well put Ruby Pipes!!! – CIO!
by Ruby Pipes
The Berkeley Daily Planet
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. – Mario Savio
When I received my notification of acceptance from University of California, Berkeley I cried. I called my father and he wept. There was screaming and cheering and days of telling everyone I could about my incredible good fortune. As if I had won the lottery. I mean, really, I’d been accepted into the best public university in the world. Best in the world. Me: a two-time community college drop-out. Me: the girl who drank through her junior year of high school. Me: small-town kid from Washington state who was considered a success because she hadn’t gotten pregnant or addicted to methamphetamines yet. Everyone got a phone call. “Ruby’s going to Berkeley!” There wasn’t a discussion, just working out the details so that I could get down there and start studying. My dad tapped into IRAs and life savings. We filled out all the forms we had to for the financial aid package that would double my debt within a year. It was worth it. It was Cal. I stayed up at night reading about courses I could take, surfing the internet for virtual tours of the campus. Over and over I found myself watching Mario Savio’s infamous December speech on the steps of Sproul Hall. I’d make friends and family watch, too, and explain matter-of-factly, “I’m going to stand on those steps. I’m going to go down there and changing the world.”
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