Winter 1987 - Lia Mezzio 

 

I was born on Christmas Eve. My mother had gone into labor the day before on Telegraph Avenue, trying to make those holiday season sales. As Elaine went to the hospital to deliver, Stoney was about to go to the Med, like usual. When Elaine called to answer him to the delivery room, she remembers him asking, “Do I have time for breakfast?” And she said “sure”.

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Outside of school and playdates and time at home, I would grow up on Telegraph Avenue. With the closing of the factory and the untimely death of Stoney, my mother would make ends meet for her and I by selling Stone Candles, once again, on the Ave. She fired up the old, wooden oven Stoney had built for use at home and set to work, crafting the array of candles from the veneer and other supplies salvaged from Alice St., stored in our basement. Just about every evening at home meant us gathering around the warmth of the oven in the dining room while I played with toys and crafts and she made candles, watching “Jeopardy!” and soap operas.

  

To get candles to market, I remember foggy mornings in Peoples’ Park, full of vendors vying for selling slots on the few blocks south of the UC Berkeley campus available to artists and craftsmen. Some slots were better than others. Everyone had their favored spot, but the way it was done, vendors had to enter a lottery to get their location for the day. Much depended on when your name was pulled from a hat. The Park is always and forever about peace and love, but sometimes it could get heated with loads of hippies and punks competing to make a buck. 

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On a typical weekend, during the first ten or so years of my life, I would get up in the morning and head to the Park with my mother in our old Volare station wagon. The back of the car was filled with buckets of candles wrapped in newsprint paper, a set-up table and cloth, alongside little things like brown paper bags for buyers to take their purchases home and hand-drawn business cards. The usual place for our setup was near Durant St. outside a clothing store and a cookie shop that occasionally gave away free samples. Customers would wander by and it was very touching to see and listen to them admire my mom and Stoney’s work. So many potential customers said they loved the candles, but didn’t buy them because they said they would never burn them as they were too beautiful. (All the more reason to buy them, people!) We would pack up for the day around six o’clock pm. At home my mom would count up the day’s cash earnings: 20, 40, 60, 80, 100. I was too young to know whether we’d made enough for the day, but I could tell this part of the whole ordeal was pretty important. 

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For a kid, spending long hours sitting behind a table on the street selling wares wasn’t a lot of fun actually, but boy could one make it work. I befriended the other vendors (Vickie, Ruthie, Tamai, Irene, Dorothy, Russell and Sheen) who were always kind to me. Vickie and Ruthie sold jewelry made of precious stones and crystals; Tamai sold tye-dyed Bob Marley T-shirts and made incense; Irene recycled old computer parts into earrings and bracelets; Dorothy pierced ears and sold necklaces; Russell the “Fire God” made quirky, elegant ceramics; Sheen created fantastic sculptures of wire and beads. I especially loved Irene, because she had a daughter my age and when our vending tables were set up near each other we’d craft embroidery thread friendship bracelets together. I have a collection of Vickie’s $1 gems she freely gave to me one by one as gifts; I had one of Ruthie’s snarky buttons pinned to my backpack in high school; to this day I visit Tamai to hear a silly, dirty joke; my ears were pierced by Dorothy, and Sheen’s wire sculpture of an anglerfish --a birthday present-- hung from a nail in one of my college dormitories. 

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There were many others of course; the Ave was and is a vibrant place full of creative energy. Some vendors lasted just a season, passing through, while a solid few have made their living there for 40 years or more.  

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My mother and I would also pass the time playing tic-tac-toe, Boggle, Scrabble and Scribble. During busy times when my mother was occupied with serving customers, I would involve myself with a journal full of stories about cats and different drawings. I truly believe that this experience helped develop the independent person I am today. 

Not like there was ever a dull moment though. Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue then was full of interesting characters. Most memorable was “Rare” who would course up and down the Ave, agitated, bellowing his name and swinging from the streetlight walk signs. This was not everyday and he was mostly harmless. The 90s it was too and so neon-dyed mohawks were still quite prevalent among the traveler kids and runaways that would gather outside the record stores and cafes, most likely asking for change and accompanied by a dog. Tattoos galore! And of course there was the constant flow of students coming and going from their classes, attending a university known for activism and invention. As I got older, I dreamed of being amongst them one day. And, when the time came in 2006, I was. 

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As a UC Berkeley college freshman myself, my early days of getting to know the campus filled me with flashbacks of the times I would spend playing in the creek that trickled through the redwoods and rolling down the hill on the lawn outside the main library, during breaks from selling candles. Even some of the classroom buildings were familiar to me. Growing up my mom would take me to see the dinosaur bones in the biology department and the extraordinary rocks in the earth sciences building, as the campus was open to the public. I felt quite at home as I navigated the challenges of beginning my adult life. Stressed about academics with 100 pages to read and 12 to write, I could easily wander down to the Ave and get some perspective by chatting with my old vendor friends --so much like family.    

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