In our search for raw journalism material we occaisionaly dive into local dumpsters, gold mines of startling data for those trained in the science of "Garbology" (a real UC Berkeley class title of years past). Our passion for local history led us to the dumpster across from the Monterey Library, a site not far from the Monterey Police Department. There among bundles of old yellowing Heralds and junk mail were neat boxes of approximately one scrillion negatives.

Spread out in piles on our office floor, the negatives showed us faces of people involved in the drug war in Carmel way back in the late sixties and early seventies. Although the sign below each glum face did not come with a name, it did give an arrest date. Back issues of the Herald and Pine Cone told us just who was busted that day and just what they were accused of.

The prettiest women and the ugliest guys stood out, of course. Some names told us the arrestees were sons and daughters of prominent local families whose kids were living, perhaps temporarily, on the wild side.

A quarter century ago, the Carmel police did not have the facilities to register and jail lawbreakers picked up on Ocean Avenue. Those arrested for various misdemeanors and felonies were driven over to the Monterey Police station, where they were processed and booked. As drug busts happened throughout the Peninsula on a weekly basis, as did DUIs, there were plenty of mug shots taken and a scrillion eventually found their way to our source dumpster.

One attractive young lady, so the Herald reported, was found freaked out at an accident scene. She had been driving her car down Calle Principal in Monterey on LSD and sideswiped several parked cars. A scruffy and bearded derelict was picked up because he had begged for money at Carmel's Devendorf Park, not leaving when the officer suggested politIn presenting the faces of these young girls who posed before police cameras over twenty years ago, we are not implying that the persons depicted committed any crimes, only that they were arrested. We're also not naming names. We thought it best just to let their faces tell their stories. These are the faces of young people caught up in that fascinating era -- some charged with illegal drug use, some for other minor offenses. We are just letting the history of those times be told by the eyes of those who lived it, embellished with the hair styles and choice of clothing that now looks so dated.ely that he exit the city limits.