The cops were massed by Cody's Books at the intersection of Haste and Telegraph. The gas masked reporters, who wore suits, waited behind them with big film cameras on their shoulders, and the demonstrators were massed a block or two further down Telegraph towards the campus staring at the police, waiting for the next move. The police threw tear gas canisters, the demonstrators ran down Telegraph, the gassing stopped. The demonstrators stared down Telegraph towards the cops. At first I was somewhere in the middle, photographing the police and the demonstrators. Then I had to run too. 

             My camera was a Ricohflex twin-lens reflex box camera with 12 exposures to a roll. Each time I finished a roll, I ran to a small blue & white drugstore on Channing just below Telegraph and left it for development so that the police wouldn't get it if they got me and my camera. I wanted to be a chronicler of my time. I was 22, too new at this to show up with wire cutters, didn't know I was using the wrong format camera for street confrontations (and didn't really know how to load the film), and I was idealistic and convinced the students' cause was right.

After being gassed I felt somehow more righteous and invisible. The police were surprised when they saw me. One policeman stood in front of me while I was sheltered in a recessed wall on Telegraph, and I felt as if we were both pretending I wasn't there, that we had a silent agreement to do nothing. In this case being a woman worked in my favor.

The police moved down Telegraph and started arresting people. The demonstrators ran onto campus. I rushed up to the second floor balcony of the student union to get an overview photograph of the police in the intersection of Bancroft & Telegraph. As I was photographing them. the police fired tear gas canisters up on the balcony from launcher guns. Everyone started to scream and tried to get to the stairs to get off the balcony. A tear gas canister hit the bottom of my box camera, and I ended up photographing both the top of the canister seconds before it hit the camera, and the tear gas that sprayed out of it into the air.

             There was more confusion on the first floor of the student union. The police had blown in the huge ASUC window that faced Bancroft. Across the lobby, the men who were working at the student travel desk wore gas masks and kept on working. A man in a flack jacket and a hard hat (combat independent newsman?) ran through the first floor, yelling an update into a hand radio. Many of the gassed people were using the water from Ludwig's Fountain next to the student union to clear their eyes and throats.

            The demonstrators dispersed across the campus, and the police followed. I ducked into Dwinelle Hall for a bit and watched through the glass doors. Students waited for areas of the gas to disperse that were blocking their way to class. A well-dressed reporter pushed his gas mask back on his head and tried to wipe his eyes. Behind him the police, having rid the campus of demonstrators, marched back across the campus next to Wheeler Hall.

            I went in the Terrace Restaurant on campus to sit down and rest. Before I could find a seat, I had a bad feeling and turned around to see two policemen following me. The one in front held his baton in a clenched fist at a striking angle. Still in adrenaline mode, I photographed him before running out the side door.

            When I returned to the drugstore to drop the last roll of film, everyone I saw on Telegraph looked exhausted. A woman in the drugstore was furious about the gassing said, “Those pictures are going to be important someday.” I wondered if that would be true. It was just one day, an exercise it seemed to me, each side testing and seeing what the other would do. The people met to sustain their energy in defiance, knowing they would not win, that day, but believing they would win. And they did - the fence came down - just not that day or that year.