Isao Fujimoto and daughter Isao Fujimoto (Barrington, Cloyne, 1951-55) writes “Cal was a life-expanding shock. I came from Coyote, population 150. I’m the oldest of 13 siblings so our family made up 10% of the small farming community south of San Jose. I got to Berkeley by flagging down a Greyhound. The same technique didn’t work with the Berkeley city bus so I ended up dragging my duffel bag a couple of miles to Cloyne Court all the way from San Pablo and University Avenue where Greyhound had let me off.

“My first class enrolled 300, double the number of people than lived in my entire home town! And these were students from all over the state filling up the seats in just one big classroom! Amazing! And so was everything else.

“The students at Cal were another source of fascination. On my first work shift at Central Kitchen, my working partner introduced himself thusly: “I am Hazum Al Tak from Iraq. I am an Arab!” After getting to know people like Hazum, places I had known only through stamps I had been collecting burst forth with life.

“Being on the judo and wrestling teams, living in the Co-ops, helping out a local Scout troop, going to the seminars at the Berkeley Buddhist Church, which drew people like Alan Watts and Gary Snyder and making contact with the student movement in Indonesia with the Project Cal Indo team, were all part of the Cal experience that laid the foundation for a positive, hopeful and constructive outlook on life that have contributed to my teaching of Community Development at UC Davis the past 38 years. The Co-ops were integral to the richness of my education experience at Cal.”