Ben Treuhaft ’64

The trippiest Technite was Dana Forbes. At Claremont Junior High and in Oakland Tech’s class of 1964, Dana was the house intellectual, constantly reading philosophy, making accurate tracings of Greek architecture, and studying Roman history. While I was flunking out of college, Dana did a stint in Vietnam– he figured Socrates would have enlisted, so he volunteered. While I was casting aimlessly about Berkeley after St. Johns, Dana had thrown in with a commune overseen by a powerful guru/chef. They made yoghurt. Heavenly, amazing, creamy, tangy yoghurt and Dana had been brewing it for months. He had the cultures and he had the technique. We decided to go into the business. We bought heat lamps and bowls, and, from a local dairy, a milk truck only needing some engine work. The enterprise collapsed when 1) we failed at rebuilding the engine, somehow putting the crankshaft in backwards; and 2) while trying to sell our first batch, out of an antique icebox on wheels, the first customer, at Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, said, “Doesn’t this taste kind of funny?”