I have always made the joke that everywhere is the center of the universe, but Berkeley is the center of many universes… and Telegraph Avenue is the center of Berkeley.

There is no tie dye like a Berkeley tie dye. Just sayin’. My kids had little tie dyed onesies when they were babies.

I used to spend so much time hanging around Telegraph… or ‘The Ave’, as we called it back in the day. You should Google Telegraph Avenue. Other than maybe Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, this was perhaps the center of the counter culture movement in the 60’s.

In the 70’s, when my hair was down almost to my waist, I used to stroll around here with my guitar.

I may have spent a little time in the head shops… but this is a family-friendly blog… so I am not admitting to anything.

I think the tie dye salesman may have spent some time in them too… like, maybe that morning.

That blue building is the old Tower Records store where I met my wife. I worked there as an artist, making the display signs, and she worked downstairs. We were the only store with an art department, so we sent those signs all over the world. My wife once sold a Stevie Wonder album to Carlos Santana. Another time, I went down to meet her for lunch, and she was talking to Whoopi Goldberg. She had no idea who Whoopi was, until I told her.

I ate a lot of Blondie’s slices in those days.

The UC Berkeley campus is right at the end of the Avenue.

It is a beautiful campus, not easy to get into. My wife went there. I was in Berkeley to hang out with Mollie… remember, she was living in one of the dorms for her pre-med camp.

Yeah… good luck with that… I mean, Berkeley has cleaned up a lot, and there aren’t five street dealers on every block anymore… but still…

On the top of the hill you can see the Lawrence Hall of Science. You may remember pictures of the life-sized plastic whale in front of it from old posts. I go up there, or to Grizzly Peak just behind it, every time I go to visit my mom. It is the best place to watch a sunset… maybe in the whole world.

The Ave just has a flavor of its own.

But I don’t know if I would get a piercing there.

I hope you liked these pictures, because I have more, from later in the trip, when I went down to spend time with my kid again.

Ha! I saw that shirt in a window. We totally used to say ‘hella’ back in the day. I hella need that shirt!