Berkeley, People’s Park, 1969, Ronald Reagan was the only Governor in history to gas his own people from a helicopter and  when it came down everything changed.

That was the day Jacque Bloxom dropped his brother off at the Oakland Induction Center

Drafted into the 101st Airborne, shipped out to Vietnam, six months later, following the horror at Firebase Ripcord, Jean Bloxom goes AWOL. bribing his way onto a military transport, with a half pound of black Afghanie stashed in his boot.

At the Berkeley Free Church, they are hooked up with the Underground Railroad, all they need is gas money and they’re home free. Canada.

That’s when Tulle finds them in his locker. In less than a week the hash is gone and all that is left in his boots is four hundred dollars. Then they vanish.

Reading the article, in an underground rag, Agent Burke is sure it’s the same Bloxom. Attempting to crush the Underground Railroad He tracks Jacque to Pleasant Hill High School,
‘I’m not going to narc, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Bloxom replies, staring at the boots, lying in the dust.
The next day, their identity papers arrive, and they pile in the back of a battered Chevy Nova. With the wind at their backs, a few days later, they cross at a small border town and their in.

Set up in an old broom factory, The Vancouver Committee to Aid War Objectors was so crowded that year they only had room by the pot belied stove. Every morning, frozen blankets, frozen floor, frozen air. It’s only a formality, he is told but the only way to obtain landed status, is to cross the boarder again . A Royal Mountie never forgets a face and their detained. In order to keep his brother from going to prison, Jacques makes the call. Agent Burke can help them, but at a price.

When Tulle notices a Ford Galaxy parked across the orchard, none of them can figure it out. Why would the feds bother to watch them? After citing an article in Time magazine, referring to Cointellpro  Hoover’s goons and startling revelations about surveillance in the Bay Area,  Sean reaches for the phone, and sure enough, two clicks come over the line. ‘We’re all being watched,’ he concludes.
Paranoia? All Tulle wants is a girl friend. And the night he meets her, he forgets all about the Galaxy.  But when his father is arrested, and the old black woman in Pittsburg tells him that the pick-up truck was stolen, the day after his father donated it to the cause, Tulle knows it’s not paranoia.
That’s when the first memorandum appears in his locker. He had no idea it came from Bobo the Clown, who would lead him to the guy with the florescent blue eyes, the kind that could cut facets at a glance, the one who sold it to Bloxom, who sold it to his dad, who donated it to the Black Panthers, only to have it stolen a week later and used in a liquor store hold up.
‘We have to fight fire with fire,’ Sean states, unequivocally.
‘And how do we do that?’ Tulle asks.
‘We watch him.’
‘Watch him, watching us?’
Compelled to do something, unable to do anything at all, in order clear his father’s name, Tulle is thrown into a labyrinth and the only way out is in.

At 124,000 words, The Summer That Never Was, is a coming of age novel, defining the cost of freedom in an era where freedom is lost. Carefully researched, weaving humor and intrigue, the themes of alienation and resurrection expose the roots of a contemporary social issue in the tumultuous period of the 1970s.

I have an MFA in Motion Picture Production from UCLA. Currently I teach Cinema Studies at Santa Monica College.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Steve Flood
sflood@ucla.edu
310-428-0171