Jodi Mitchell’s post—written for the blog of the Wheeler’s Ranch commune—offers another set of stories that fill in some of the intricacies of Jodi’s experiences on the street. In this story, Jodi describes encounters with three “guardian angel” figures to whom she feels she owes her survival to varying degrees: a police officer, an old Jewish man (her “benevolent street grandpa”), and a helpful woman who saved Maggie, Jodi’s dog, her best friend and source of strength on the road.
Aside from the guardian angel cop, Jodi touches on the harassment she faced from Berkeley’s police force, as they addressed her with derogatory comments and made her feel unsafe. Her post articulates some of the tensions between the youth that floated in and around Berkeley and the police that denied them protection and sought instead to get rid of them.
