Flashback: My Brush with the MOONIES

Christmas break, 1975.
Four of us decide to take a road trip to California before returning to Austin for the spring semester at the University of Texas.

Nearly ran out of gas in West Texas, but stop at a trailer in the middle of the desert at 2 a.m. and knock on the door, asking if we can buy some gas. A cowboy siphoned some out of his truck, but refused payment.

New Mexico. A stop at Carlsbad Caverns. It's snowing.

San Diego. Went to the zoo.

LA. Stayed with my uncle in Sherman Oaks. Hit a few clubs.

Up the Pacific Coast Highway.

Oakland. Stayed in a fleabag downtown hotel. Lots of traffic all night in the hallways.

On to San Francisco. Visit the Haight. Many zonked-out street people.

Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement.

Here's where it gets weird.

We're walking around on the edge of the Cal-Berkeley campus. A cute young woman approaches me. Hi! Hi. What're you doing? Oh, just looking around, sight-seeing. Visiting from Texas.

My friends are scattered up and down the street. Looking in bookstore and head shop windows. Almost everything is closed. It's Sunday.

The cute young girl invites me to to dinner at her "commune."
She gives me the address and the time.

I'll have to check with my friends, I say. That's cool, says she. Hope I see ya!

Why not?

The commune is in what appears to have been a sorority or fraternity house, right next to the campus. Large white columns out front. Big door.

We ring the bell and are invited in. Table cloths are scattered on the floor in a large room. Ready for dinner. Immediately, we are each greeted, separately, by individual commune members, who take it upon themselves to be very friendly, very inquisitive and very clingy.

Dinner is served, vegetarian, on the floor. We are directed where to sit. Each of the four of us end up in separate dining groups.

But before dinner, someone appears with a guitar. Song sheets are passed out. It's time to sing? Yes. Hmmm. Group songs are sung, including, "You Are My Sunshine." Across-the-room glances are exchanged between the four of us. We're singing "You Are My Sunshine"? Yes, we are.

After dinner, it's time for a little talk. We gather in another room, where there is a lecturn. Giving the lecture is someone named Mose Durst. He gives a talk about love and understanding and peace and evil and good. Nothing you can rationally disagree with.

But before the lecture, one of the commune members makes a pointed effort to sit between me and one of my travleing companions, Harrell, who already is pretty suspicious. This is the final straw for Harrell. He excuses himself and says he's going outside to walk around. My other two companions, Gail & Susan, stay for the lecture, as do I.

After the peace, love and understanding lecture, it's time to leave, but not before we are invited to spend the weekend with the commune members up in Northern California. Up in the remote forest. Where it's very beautiful.

Well, that sounds nice but we've really got to head back to Texas. School's fixing to start. It's a 2-3 day drive. But it sounds nice. Thanks for dinner. OK, buh-bye.

Back in Austin. Final semester. As a reporter and columnist for The Daily Texan, I write a little travelogue on my California trip, and mention, in 3 or 4 graphs, about visiting this Berkeley commune.

A reader responds. Hey, man, do you know who those people were?
Huh?
Those people were Moonies!
Moonies?
Yeah, Moonies! They're a cult, man. The Unification Church. They're right here in Austin, too. Right here on The Drag!
Huh?
You better be glad you didn't go up to their place in Northern California. That's where they brainwash you!

Epilogue:
Just think. I could be editor of The Washington Times by now had I only been a little more open-minded and gone with the commune members to their remote forest retreat, where, via sleep deprivation and long lectures on peace and love and understanding, I might have seen the light. Then, I might have been betrothed in a mass wedding held at a gigantic football stadium. I coulda been a Moonie instead of what I am now -- just a blogger here in Palookaville.

Who's Sung Myung Moon?
What's The Unification Church?
Congressmen Attend Moon's `Coronation'!
Who's Mose Durst?
LA Times Editorial re: Rev. Moon
Blog by Reporter w/ Moon Scoop