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Reflections on Two Worlds Growing up in Oakland during the sixties seemed to be a normal way of life. We would fall asleep to gunshots and to the steady screams of the ambulances, like a confederate war cry. There was the familiar roar of Navy helicopters transporting wounded soldiers from hospital ships or Travis AFB to Oak Knoll hospital, so that people would not know how many mangled bodies were coming out of Viet Nam. …

…horror. Our school in Alameda was a place of education. The Oakland school system was a place for children to be confined while their parents were working. In Oakland, lunchtime was survival of the fittest. Children would have to fight to get the best meal. In Alameda, lunch was healthy, nutritional and a time of relaxation. We were lucky to go from one world to another and experience the luxuries of an upper class neighborhood.