Chapter Three –

On January 14th of 1967, 30,000 people showed up in Golden Gate Park for the Human Be-In. There was some loosely knit music and some speakers spoke. Alan Ginsburg once again delivered his message of tolerance, loving compassion, impermanence, peace and non-violent resistance.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti spoke of apocalyptic times and suffering humanity, drowning in materialism. The Vietnam War is a symptom of this social pathology. It will continue until we reduce our reliance on government leadership that plays into the hands of the economic elite. An “anarchist at heart” he conceded that until we’re all “saints” we might aim for something akin to democratic socialism. In the meantime, rather than attempting to fight the system we should simply refuse to partake in it by such things as refusing to be drafted and refusing to pay taxes that support war.

Or as Howard Zinn would later state: “We don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Timothy Leary Spoke, imploring all to turn-on, tune in and drop out. For many it had been an ongoing dialogue. How best to bring about a better world. Leary implored us to let go of longing for things like vengeance and justice and practice unencumbered love.

I wondered: How is dropping out going to accomplish anything? Was this movement, whatever it was, a threat to the anti war movement? What is love? Can art, poetry and music bring change? Maybe that’s not the point. I can’t stop the war. I can however refuse to participate.

Turn on, tune in and drop out. Timothy Leary’s words rankled. But the idea as further elucidated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Alan Ginsberg of simply not participating in the dominant paradigm? Who knows. It was something.

In 1967 a sandal maker in Sausalito taught people to make their own sandals. The soles were tire sidewalls topped with leather. There was a single strap around the great toe and one that ran from the outside around the ankle and back to the outside off the sole. They were comfortable, they lasted forever, they reused a rubber tire and they were of a local origin.

What we eat became a prevalent question. The macrobiotic diet, whole grains, beans and vegetables, transformed many to a wholesome, simple way of life. The ideas put forth at the 1967 Human Be-In blended all religions and science. All plants and animals respond to stimuli. All life is sentient. God, the blending of all sentient beings, is real. Native cultures understand this. Saint Francis of Assisi understood.

Growing up, there was a home for “shell shocked” veterans of World War II in the neighborhood. One of the veterans could always be found walking somewhere in the neighborhood. He walked slowly, taking small steps, looking at the ground a few feet ahead, his lips always moving as though he was talking. Sometimes another gentleman, walked next to him in a slow but more normal stride.

At the age of four I was playing in one of my favorite hiding places under a hedge next to the sidewalk. I realized that the walking man was approaching. I could remain hidden in the hedge until he passed or I could make a run for it. I decided to remain hidden.

The man approached at an agonizing pace taking tiny steps, his lips moving.  As he approached the words became audible. “He loves me. He saved my life. He loves me. He saved my life”. This was all the man ever said. Two short sentences over and over for the rest of his life. War did that to him.

John Hammond performed in the Gym at SF State followed by The Chambers Brothers who performed an hour long version their psychedelic hit “Time”. Third on the bill and who no doubt didn’t relish following the previous two, was Steve Miller.

On January 17th, 1967, Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, refused army induction. He was looking at a long jail sentence. Ali said: “In war, the intention is to kill, kill, kill, kill, and continue killing innocent people”.

Richard Magnoli got his draft notice and didn’t bother appealing. He did however show up at his physical high on LSD and sat in the corner of the hallway weeping and laughing. He was granted a 1-Y classification which is like being 4-F for a year. He repeated the show the following year and was declared 4-F, unfit for military service.

I doubted my capacity to do the same or even similar and my student deferment was ending. I had one chance to appeal. When my time came, I stood before three men and listened. “You’ve used up your student deferment. Why are you even here?”

“I’m here to inform you that I’ve been following this genocide and there is no power on earth that’s going to make me go over to Vietnam and kill innocent women and children”.

I hadn’t considered the audience for my little tirade. The big guy on the right stood up from his chair and glared across the table.

“We’re all veterans here” he snarled. “You’ve got a lot of goddam nerve”. 

The guy was the right age to be a veteran of World War Two. A slightly younger black guy in a tailored suit sitting next to him put his hand on his friend’s arm. “Hold on” he said. I was then asked to “just leave”.

On April 15, 1967 a march began downtown on Market Street and headed up California. Half way along l could see an ocean of people filling California from side to side and one end of the city to the other. News sources pegged the number at 100,000. I’d say it was twice that number. The march ended at Kesar Stadium which filled to overflowing. Vietnam veteran David Duncan gave a brief speech followed by Eldridge Cleaver, Robert Vaughn and others. Judy Collins and Janice Joplin performed along with other local bands.

May 27, 1967 Jan and I ran off the Reno and got married. We had a big party at her mom’s house the following week. Neighbors all showed up. My parents. Jan’s mother. But not her sister who lived in Aspen. And not her father.

Mac’s home, 251 Marion Avenue in Mill Valley, had belonged to her parents. It was the house in which Jan had grown up. The main floor was at street level. Trails led down either side to the lower level that had once been her father Roddy’s studio. The main room was twenty by forty feet. The ceiling was sixteen feet overhead. Windows ran floor to ceiling the length of one wall, looking out over a redwood forest. I converted other rooms to a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen and Jan and I moved in.

The next door neighbors, Bob and Emily were smart and outgoing. She was a talkative redhead. He was an engineer working on the new Bay Area Rapid Transit system. His specialty was seamless track.

Next door to Bob and Emily an old friend of Jan’s named Terry lived in the house in which he’d grown up. Terry had been an all state wrestler in High School. He was a sweet gentle guy. And apparently also the toughest guy in town and a member of the Hell’s Angels. Their house always had a Harley in pieces in the living room. Their dog once ate an ounce of pot. The poor animal was comatose on the floor for 24 hours, barely breathing.

Across Marion Avenue, lived Bob and Jean Anderson and their two teenaged boys. Bob was a TV producer. A friend of Bob’s named Al Khine was a TV cameraman. One night Bob, Al, Jerry Slick and I gathered at Bob’s to look at some 16 mm movies. We smoked some opium in a bamboo opium pipe my dad had picked up in China.

The projector was an antique that Bob had found in a thrift shop. Cylinders, bars, reels, wires and cables protruded in all directions. “Are you sure this is a movie projector?” Al asked. We smoked some more opium and Al attempted to thread the projector. Then Bob joined in. Film emerged in large loops like ribbons on a package. “I think it’s supposed to come out of there and go in over here.” And so it went until we decided that it looked good enough.

Al was highly sought after for his camera skills. One thing holding him back had been a refusal to ever fly. As things would turn out, he took a job on a major production entitled The Primal Man where flying was essential. It was a big career move up. The first time Al flew was his last. The airplane crashed in the Sierras killing everyone on board.

The Charlatans, Moby Grape, The New Tweedy Brothers, music was going in all directions. If a person saw one show per week over a two year period that’s 112 shows. They drift into one another with a few standouts. Quicksilver Messenger Service performed on an open field across from Mill Valley High School. John Cipollina’s monster amp was fed through a wall of speakers topped with a row of truck air horns. Everyone’s ears were left ringing. He joined the Red Legs for a show at Old Mill Tavern. Van Morrison joined the Red Legs the following week. It’s A Beautiful Day performed in Old Mill Park. Mill Valley was crawling with rock stars in 1967. As Plato said ; “Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life.”

In June of 1967 Jan and I wandered up to the Magic Mountain Festival on Mount Tamalpais. The festival took place in the amphitheater that holds about 4000 people. Several local bands played along with the Seeds, the Grass Roots and the Byrds. The festival went on for an entire weekend and was closed by The Doors. It was a relaxing time in the sun. Hippies and Hells Angels lounging in stoned bliss listening to music.

Tour busses were now a daily sight on Haight Street. Crowds of curious onlookers. In October of 1967 the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street held a mock funeral in an attempt to bury the hippie movement.

On Tuesday October 16 1967 protestors blocked the entrance to the Oakland Army Induction Center. As inductees climbed over the protesters they were handed leaflets, asking them to change their minds and join the protest. Police attacked the protestors injuring many and arresting others, including Joan Baez. The following day protesters returned and a hundred were arrested. On the third day 10,000 protesters arrived and were dispersed.

Jan and I were in school and working but we had been following the events. On Friday thousands more arrived including Jan and myself. Upon arriving we saw that many windows had been broken out. A bomb had been detonated in the early morning in a mailbox out front.

The police formed up in military style assault units and moved toward the crowd. Jan and I turned and ran but our retreat was cut off by police in riot gear advancing from that direction. There were thousands of people running through the streets, swarming like insects, advancing, retreating.

Police had come from neighboring jurisdictions in police cars that were parked throughout surrounding neighborhoods. In our retreat we came upon a couple of police cars from Berkeley. A group of people watched as one of their group slashed a tire. Jan and I stopped. “You want to do one?” the guy asked.

“That’s OK”

We watched as he held the knife at an angle against another tire. “You see” he said “you can’t stab straight in. You have to stab at an angle. Hence the term slash”. The knife smoothly entered the tire and the air went out of it. I don’t know how any of the police got home that night.

The same month protestors with the National Committee to End the War in Vietnam gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capitol and then attempted to march to the Pentagon where they were blocked by the US Army. Abbie Hoffman vowed to levitate the Pentagon using psychic energy. He claimed it would turn orange and vibrate at which time the war would end.

Canada held a growing appeal for numerous reasons. John, Richard and I drove to Vancouver, British Columbia to check it out. It rained the entire three days we were there. Richard declared that he couldn’t live in a place where neither grapes nor olives will grow.

Muhammad Ali was sentenced to five years in prison, a sentence that was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court. Traditionally conscientious objector status was tied to orthodox religion. The courts were now including unique things in one’s upbringing that would make one a pacifist. If nothing else, perhaps the appeal process would put off my arrest.

I collected letters. My father wrote one about his own military background and war injuries and pacifism and how pacifism was pounded into my little head every night at the dinner table. I received advice and assistance from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and the American Friends Service Committee.

While holding down the front desk at one of these non-profits I was told that if any AWOL soldiers came in I should send them to a back room that had a private bathroom. Neither I nor anyone else other than these soldiers was to ever enter that room. Every few hours someone would come by with a pizza or a bag of sandwiches and hand them through the door. Every few of days the room would empty in the middle of the night. This was not something to be talked about even among friends – part of the underground railroad to Canada.

The FBI had been poking around asking if any of the neighbors in Mill Valley had any dirt on me. My arrest appeared imminent. I kept a backpack with some belongings and two hundred dollars cash by the back door. From there a trail led through the woods to downtown Mill Valley. The plan was to stay with friends until I could arrange a ride to Canada.

As it turned out that wasn’t necessary. The CO status was granted. The question moved on to performing alternative service. I submitted a job as a teacher in a private school. They replied that the arrangement was not enough of an inconvenience and the pay was too good. I was to be as inconvenienced as a soldier. I was soon after informed that the Selective Service had found me a job at Los Angeles General Hospital.

I considered the offer briefly. I didn’t want to move to L.A. Moreover, I didn’t want to give in. The whole idea was to make things difficult for the Selective Service, to make some kind of stink.

The Flamin’ Groovies were cutting a record, Teenage Head, in Los Angeles. They were provided a mansion in Beverly Hills that the record company owned for just such occasions, a gaudy mid-fifties place, complete with a pool and gold plated faucets in the bathrooms, everything worn, torn and stained by an endless chain of overindulgences.

I drove down in the Rambler and settled in with the Groovies and over the next couple of days proceeded to ignore matters of appearance and hygiene. I arrived for work in a disheveled state, mumbling and stammering through what must have appeared to be delirium tremens. The hospital personnel manager asked “Do you really want this job?”

“It wasn’t my idea”.

“You didn’t have to put yourself through all this. Just say you don’t want the job”.

“Well, there’s the little matter of the draft board”.

“I’ll just tell them you showed up drunk” she laughed. “No, just kidding. I’ll tell them you were unacceptable. Best of luck”.

Back at the mansion I cleaned up and settled in for a brief vacation. Roy, Cyril, Danny, George and Tim spent long hours in the studio and little time at the house and those hours were spent resting. After a couple of days I returned north.

I received a grant to edit a movie for the University of Connecticut, “Southeast Nuba Sport and Dance”. An anthropologist had recorded an hour’s worth of footage of an isolated tribe in Sudan who wore no clothes but rather elaborately painted their bodies. The footage had been filmed at 16 frames per second which works for silent movies. Music and live sound had been recorded separately and a narration would be added. Every third frame had to be printed twice, a system called “step printing”, to bring it up to 24 frames per second to accommodate sound. Though there were some initial setbacks, a career in movies was looking promising.

A couple of young women were helping out behind the counter in a natural foods restaurant in Mill Valley. I often ate lunch there, seated at the counter. One of them methodically peeled a clove of garlic. It took forever. I sat sipping my Mu Tea, wanting to advise her to “just give it a little whack and it’ll open right up” but I just watched.

We talked about music and their alternative lifestyle, traveling and bartering. A couple of young men crossed the street and entered the restaurant. The first to enter was short and thin with glaring dark eyes. He talked with some people and left, a man in a hurry.

They exuded togetherness. A more together than thou kind of togetherness. “The Manson Family” A friend told me later.

Americans had been assured that the war in Vietnam was all but over. The communists had been defeated on every front. Then in January of 1968 the North Vietnamese surrounded the Khe Sanh combat base and began what would be a long siege. A week later they launched the Tet Offensive. North Vietnamese and Viet Kong forces struck six cities in the South, including Saigon, where they overran the American Embassy. US and South Vietnamese troops eventually reclaimed ground they had lost but the psychological and political impact in the US was incalculable.

Jan’s mother Mac showed up at every demonstration, every sit-in, every riot, always carrying an enormous purse that held two 35 mm Leica cameras and assorted lenses, light meters and film canisters. She frequently stood, facing a line of police, snapping photos to their obvious discontent. She managed to always get out of the way and not get clobbered when the clobbering started.

Mac and her boyfriend John were professionals. John had spent time traveling with Martin Luther King and had published a book of intimate photos. John was a natural athlete. A baseball player and wrestler.

Mac and John invited Jan and I to go with them to a birthday party in Oakland. It was February 17th, 1968 the birthday of Huey P. Newton, a Black Panther who had been arrested and imprisoned on charges of murder and kidnapping, things that seemed unlikely. This was the apex of the Blank Panther movement.

We arrived at Oakland Auditorium, which was packed. Of the 5000 people in attendance, our party of four were the only white faces visible. Early in the show H. Rap Brown was speaking. “How many white people have you killed today?”. The crowd roared.

As the evening progressed Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver struck a more conciliatory note. And then Stokely Carmichael spoke and everyone’s mood buoyed. The message was clear. This nation was founded on genocide and nothing has changed.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned tearfully cursing “the goddamned Air Force and its goddamned bombing campaign that had dropped more bombs on Vietnam than on Europe in the whole of World War II and we hadn’t gotten a goddamned thing for it”.

American soldiers were patrolling areas under the control of the Viet Kong, being ambushed and stepping on mines in an endless carnage. On March 16, 1968 troops under the command of Lt. William Calley killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and elderly in the My Lai massacre. Later in March President Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.

Martin Luther King was being vilified in the news for shifting gears beyond civil rights and taking on issues of poverty and war. It was OK to protest racism but these were questions that he was not considered qualified to address.

On April 4th of 1968 Martin Luther King Jr was murdered.

Robert Kennedy became a leading Democratic Party candidate for president. He ran on a platform of racial and economic justice and peace. Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was murdered.

In August of 1968 10,000 people gathered in Chicago to protest at the Democratic Party National Convention over the party’s apparent pathway toward continuing war. They were met and brutally attacked by over 20,000 police and National Guard troops.

At SF State, the Black Student’s Union had been calling for strikes to shut down the campus. Cops would show up every day and march around. Violence was a daily event.

Things on campus went from bad to worse. Every day there was a gathering in the center of campus. Students would take to the speakers platform and lambast the government and the school. The war in Vietnam was raging full bore. The country seemed to be coming apart.

The cops initially showed up on foot and marched around with their billy clubs, knocking a few heads here and there. It was a cat and mouse game. Dodge into one end of a building and come out the other, behind the cops. Go between floors if necessary. A plainclothes cop was recognized by some demonstrators who surrounded him in the business building. He drew his gun and fired a shot into the ceiling and protestors allowed him to pass.

Upon exiting a building I saw horses ridden by riders in blue. They had approached the campus from a sidewalk on the south side. On command they charged into a crowd of students. There was no escaping. The cops surrounded a group of people and began beating them with their long clubs. Cops on foot closed in from the back, a classic hammer and anvil. Blood covered faces. Blood matted hair. Blood flowing on the ground. Quantities of blood a person could lose and somehow live.

A bomb went off in somebody’s locker. A failed attempt at sabotage. The State turned up the screws. The days of carrying protestors out of the hall on stretchers were long gone. It was a daily cop riot.

Several windows in the administration building, which had been closed and locked were broken and it was occupied by students. There was a scuffle between protestors and jocks who ultimately barricaded themselves in the gym. Through it all the cops rode back and forth smashing heads. The San Francisco Chronicle published a daily dose of half truths and exaggerations.

One day as cops were charging back and forth on horseback, people screaming, heads being bloodied, I noticed John sitting calmly in the center of campus on the lawn, cross legged. I approached and noticed a baggie of pot on his lap. John was rolling a joint. I asked what he intended to accomplish and John didn’t reply. He opened his shirt, showing his Army Colt 45.

The Beatles released the White Album. George Harrison’s guitar wept.

In November of 1968 the violence became so extreme that the college closed its doors. Some classes continued to meet in places like professors’ homes. The discussion in these classes ultimately went to the war in Vietnam. The war was the only thing on anyone’s mind. It was impossible to think about anything else. People were dying every day. Every minute. In a class that continued to meet at a teacher’s apartment a student asked:  “Is someone dying right now in that war? What right do I have to even sit here and talk while it continues?”

On a weekend trip to San Jose to visit my parents I walked into the living room and Tommie Smith and John Carlos were seated on the couch. I recognized them immediately as the gold and bronze medalists in the 200 meter race in the Olympics. Not long before that I’d walked in to meet the actor Sterling Hayden seated on the same couch.

In 1968 Nixon won the election. In 1969 he became president of the United States. He immediately began bombing Cambodia with B52s. Bombing and bombing and bombing on the theory that the Viet Kong were sneaking through Cambodia to wage war against the duly appointed government of South Vietnam.

The summer of 1969 Jan and I picked up a drive-away car in San Francisco and drove across the country with my parents. The car was a new Pontiac that belonged to a paraplegic. There were hand controls for the gas and brake so it could be driven legs crossed yoga style. I walked out the back door of a motel in Iowa and saw a large field of marijuana growing wild.

We dropped the car off in Washington DC and caught a train up to Storrs Connecticut where we spent a month with my sister Pat and her husband Eric. In August Jan and I headed to the Woodstock Festival with some folks we’d met at a place called Diana’s Pool. About a mile from our destination, traffic came to a standstill and a hard rain set in. We turned around and headed back to Storrs.

We caught a flight for Detroit where we met up with Paul and Barbara Zemke, two friends from high school who had gotten married and moved to Detroit. They owned a Volkswagen beetle that had been painted all the colors of the rainbow. Paul and I drove all over Iowa picking marijuana flower tops that were by then perfectly ripe. We’d pull up in front of a farm and hop out of the car and hack all the flowertops off some giant weeds growing in a ditch. Farmers would come out on the porch and scratch their heads. They knew the hemp had been bred for rope fiber not THC. Paul and I ended up burying the weed in Detroit.

From Detroit, Jan and I picked up another driveaway to deliver back to San Francisco. The car was a new Thunderbird. We picked the car up from the owner, a professional looking black woman who worked for the Ford Motor Company.

“I ordered this car in house” she explained. “Thunderbirds normally come with a de-tuned engine for insurance reasons. Not this puppy. You be cautious accelerating.” She didn’t mention top speed. 

We drove as far as Aspen Colorado where we visited with Jan’s sister, Jackie, and her husband Roget. Roget was an Olympic athlete, a skier in winter and a kayaker in summer. From Aspen we gave ourselves one day to get the car to San Francisco. We drove through a moonlit night, not another car in sight mile after mile. The T-bird handled beautifully, gliding like a bird at 130 mph through Colorado, Utah and Nevada.

The Woodstock Festival seemed like a culmination, a birth of a new age of love and tolerance. The Hells Angels had turned into nice people. Some things seemed to be heading in a beautiful direction.

Jan and I moved to Santa Cruz where we rented a small house surrounded by a small orchard. Old family friend Max lived in a house in Felton, in the Santa Cruz mountains. The area was a mecca for whatever the current group thinking could be called, beginning with one of the first acid trips festivals. Max had a large studio in back of the house where he threw parties every Thursday night. The only rules were no booze and no tobacco.

The studio was packed with musical instruments of all kinds, electric guitars, drums, an enormous round steel Coca Cola sign hanging from the ceiling that served as a gong and a napalm bomb canister that had been cut open, strung with strings and amplified. The Space Bass, as it was called, was held like an upright bass and could be squeezed to change its tone, which was similar to a sitar. People danced, gracefully swirling in hypnotic patterns.

Max believed that anyone can play any instrument. A person may only play one note but if they play it rhythmically it works. It’s not just about the notes, it’s about the spaces between the notes. Sometimes more space is better. Sometimes it’s best to know when not to play and it doesn’t take a lot of training to not play.

Some of the musicians were skilled. Sometimes the music was melodic and beautiful. Sometimes it was flat, as happens when music is improvised. Sometimes, there were moments of random brilliance.

In August of 1969 the Charles Manson family, the holier and more together than thou hippies I met in Mill Valley, went on a murdering rampage.

In December of 1969, three hundred thousand people descended onto a spot of land in the East Bay for the Altamont music festival. The event was being billed as a Woodstock Festival west, free in all ways, to complete the transition into the era of peace, love and understanding.

There would be no cops. Security would be provided by the Hell’s Angels. And why not, they had been gentile souls as of late. As it turned out, not attacking peace marchers was a different category than providing security. When justified, why not stab somebody in the back with a big knife? People were beaten and killed. The unholy alliance between the Hell’s Angels and peacenik hippies descended into its reality. The dream of a Woodstock world was just that, a dream.

The Beatles released Abbey Road to mixed reviews. Because. The End. It was beautiful music but sad in a way. Like the end of a beautiful dance.

War demonstrations occurred regularly throughout the country. These were ignored by the media or discounted. The killing and dying that passed during LBJ’s efforts to conquer Vietnam militarily and Nixon’s protracted withdrawal, became an endless tragedy, a part of every day. In November of 1969 what was surely a million people took to the streets in San Francisco. Standing at a high point on California Street looking downhill in both directions, I could see all lanes and the sidewalks of the entire length of the street were packed with people. Every city in the nation held similar protests, part of the Vietnam War Moratorium. Surely this would be the end of the war. 

Jan’s mother, Mac and three or four pals liked to gather at her house every night and drink wine, lots of wine. Ted was one of the regulars. Ted spent the first 21 years of his life pleasing his ivy-league professor father. Then after graduating with honors from Cornell he discovered wine. It was an animated intelligent gang of drunks. Ted fit in well despite his youth.

Ted could talk about anything with anybody. Art, music, literature, philosophy, whatever a person wanted to discuss. He was six feet five with long, straight blond hair that seemed to droop to one side. He was a gentile genius, welcome everywhere. He had no home. One night he’d sleep on our couch, the next night he’d sleep on David Crosby’s boat.

I’d fallen asleep on the narrow bed in their living room where Ted occasionally slept. Around three AM I heard the front door open and saw Ted’s enormous figure silhouetted against the moonlight. He slowly walked toward the couch, not seeing that the pillows had been removed and were lying on the floor in his path. I watched, half awake, as the giant figure leaned forward and slowly toppled like a giant tree, hitting the floor with a tremendous crash. A short time later he commented. “Hum”. Then he was asleep. I threw a blanket over him.

In April of 1970 the Beatles broke up.

As of May 1970, the bombing of Cambodia continued. “Peace with honor” Nixon said. What honor is there in killing more people? Everyone wanted peace. Anger boiled over on all sides.

On May 4, 1970, four students were shot dead by national guard soldiers at Kent State in Ohio. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released the song “Four Dead in Ohio”.

On September 18, 1970 Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose. On October 4th of 1970 Janis Joplin died of a drug overdose. Hendrix had played a politically charged song about the war at Woodstock. Joplin was showing up at protests. Everyone wondered if the timeliness of their passing was not their own doing.

Meanwhile I was finding jobs working in alternative schools that I would submit to the draft board as alternative service. They would turn them down and send me on another interview for a job the interview for which I would fail in ways at which I was becoming practiced.

On November 2nd, 1971, my 25th birthday, I took a job at Mental Health Services for the Deaf in San Francisco videotaping families with deaf parents. I helped set up an operations booth equipped with two half inch reel to reel videotape decks. Cameras pointed toward large windows on either side through which other small rooms could be observed. From these rooms, the windows, being made of special reflecting glass, appeared to be mirrors. Doctors of human behavior watched the tapes as time allowed, to learn how deaf parents successfully communicate with very young children. The families were also counseled on these things and how deafness doesn’t itself interfere.

I notified the draft board of the job. The board members, realizing that they were running out of time, accepted the job as alternative service and I began working forty hours per week spread out over three and a half long days.

I purchased a Yamaha 250 cc 2 cycle road bike. A two cycle engine is different from a four cycle engine like the one in the Norton in that each cylinder fires on every revolution rather than every other revolution. They vibrate less and like to be run wide open, like a chainsaw. Once each week I’d drive the eighty miles up highway one to San Francisco where I’d stay with Mac for a few days and then return south to Santa Cruz. The Pacific Ocean extended to the western horizon the entire way. Over long open stretches I’d hold the throttle wide open and hunker down. Sometimes I’d slide a little on sand that had blown across the roadway.

Driving at the usual ninety miles per hour I noticed the large bird sitting atop a phone pole next to the road. The bird ruffled its wings slightly. “Don’t do it” I thought. Did the milieu of distance and speed make me look like a small animal crossing the road? Sure enough as I approached the owl left the pole swooping down toward the road directly in my path, only pulling up at the last second, buffeting me with air under its wings. A couple of times I narrowly missed cars that turned into my path. Once a bee flew into my helmet.

Jan and I moved into the “tackle box”, a cabin in Stinson Beach that belonged to her mother. Though barely 400 square feet of living space, the view was an unsurpassed panorama looking out over the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to the South to Point Reyes to the North.

We set up a work station out back and purchased an oxyacetylene torch and made votive candle holders out of cans and beer bottles that we sold in shops catering to tourists. Wind off the ocean cleared the air.

I filmed families and set up a library that staff could easily access and taught them how to run the cameras and ultimately worked myself out of a job. A similar position opened up next door at Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute videotaping conferences and presentations and occasionally activities on one of the wards. This was all done on half inch reel to reel decks capable of recording 40 minutes of activity. I soon worked myself out of that job in the same way.

The hospital was kind enough to offer me a job on staff that would most definitely continue to qualify as alternative service. The interview was a formality, mostly chit chat, except for one question. “What would you do if you had to physically restrain someone?”

“I don’t know, sit on them I guess.”

That was good enough. I was hired as a Psychiatric Technician.

“We’ll see how you do on the Children’s Ward”.

“Children’s Ward?” he answered. “They have children here?”

“Oh yes”.

“Well, I notice this is kind of a maximum security institution”.

“Yes?”

The Children’s Ward at Langley Porter was headed by Dr. Zurich, a renowned expert in Autism. Langley Porter was part of the University of California complex. It was a research facility as well as a treatment facility. It was home to the most severely effected children in the state.

The heavy metal door leading to the Ward, like all doors at Langley Port, was locked. A nurse named Mrs. Paynter gave me the tour. Entering the ward, on the left was an alcove where two boys had beds. Between the beds was a small table at which the boys were sitting. About 12 or 13 years of age, they were introduced as Jon, on the left, and Steve on the right. Jon was giggling and Steve was playing with a napkin like a puppet, carrying on a monologue. The boys glanced in my direction and continued.

“Boys” said Mrs. Paynter “This is Mr. Branch. He’ll be spending some time with us”.

“Branch?” Jon, snickered.

Steve said “Can you take us for a walk?”

“Mr. Branch will probably be taking you boys for walks.” She replied.

“Can you take us swimming?”

“Sounds great guys. Glad to meet you” I said.

Across from Steve and Jon’s area, to the right going in, were two more beds. On one of these beds a girl sat with her long straight black hair draped around her like a shell. She rocked gently back and forth, sitting on her ankles. The other bed was empty at the time. “This is Lisa” said Mrs. Paynter. Lisa looked out from between strands of hair. She appeared to be slightly younger than the boys, perhaps eleven. Her dark brown eyes quickly surveyed the scene and disappeared beneath the shroud of black hair. She was a strikingly beautiful child.

“Hello Lisa” I said. There was no reply. Further down the ward there were more alcoves to the left and right. One of these was occupied by three children all about Lisa’s age. They were introduced as Robby, a red haired boy, Linda, an Asian girl, and Sheryl, a black girl.

“These three and Lisa are non-verbal” she said. Further down the ward a larger group of younger kids were playing. We skipped introductions there.

Almost immediately Steve, Jon, myself and one of the nurses headed to the swimming pool across Parnassus. In the Pool Steve raised his arms and moved stiff legged. “Master” he called out, “I have meant no wrong” in a perfect rendition of Borus Carloff’s Frankenstein.

“Yes friend” I replied. “But the peasants are angry”.

“Ah, the feckless hordes…” He jumped on me and we wrestled in the water. He was a big kid. “Wow Mr. Branch. That was really fun.” Steve was overly animated. The other kids played or just paddled around, at once agile and awkward.

Back on the ward Robbie was “hexing” a grate in the floor. Robbie would hold his hands next to his face, palms facing out and lock his fingers together, pointer wrapped around middle finger, ring finger wrapped around pinky, so all eight fingers are wrapped up like springs. He would then snap them apart with a clicking sound and squeal. He liked to hex grates in the floor, holes in walls, storm drains and occasionally people who made him angry.

Lisa withdrew into a rocking trance on her bed. She closed her eyes and looked down, inside her shell of long black hair and moved back and forth on her ankles. She stopped occasionally to sort gum wrappers, pieces of paper or any group of objects she found according to color, size or shape. The pace gradually built over an hour or so toward a frenzy. When interrupted she screamed, kicked at whoever interrupted her and began tearing at her own hair, banging her head on the table and scratching at her face and body. Two nurses could forcefully restrain her to the best of their ability but she was strong and frequently bore self inflicted wounds.

Steve and Jon and I are on a morning walk in Sutro Forest behind the hospital. We follow a road, then a path and then head up the hill off the path. We come to an open ridge where a rudimentary structure has been constructed out of scraps of wood. The place is an unoccupied encampment, vacant with no sign that anyone has been there for some time.

Tall eucalyptus trees block out any sight or sound of the city. One of these grows out over the edge of the ridge. Facing the valley we notice what looks like a ladder set upright and supported with an elaborate framework. Then we notice a rope suspended from high up in the eucalyptus tree.

“Guys. It’s a rope swing.”

The rope looks like new. The tree is strong and stout. The boys and I manage to get the end of the rope and carry it up the ladder a couple of steps. I hold on and jump and swing high over the valley and back. Next time I go a little higher up the framework. The boys are lighter than myself and I see no risk to them. Jon tries it. Then Steve. Soon we are on the top rung swinging high out over the valley.

As luck would have it, in Sausalito I hit a nail in the road. Paul was on the back. The front tire tipped the nail up, a big 12 penny job, and it stuck into the back rim. The back tire blew and the wheel jumped straight up, then to the left, then to the right and I was airborne head first over the handlebars at 50 miles per hour.

Thinking back to judo classes, I could picture a shoulder roll landing, which is what ended up happening. But whereas normally a person might roll once in one second, I rolled five times in one second. And whereas in judo one does it on a padded mat, this was on asphalt. I was cut and bruised over most of my body and could hardly sit nor lie down for days. Paul had gone off the back and lost a half square foot of epidermis off his butt.

I purchased an Austin Healy Sprite, a lightweight sports car, equipped it with radial tires and obtained a book by Sir John Arthur “Jack” Brabham. The book explained among other things how to heel and toe, a process of double clutching and breaking simultaneously. If it’s done right the car slides and powers through the turn. Every day driving from Stinson Beach to the city and back I worked on the technique. Every turn became a practiced maneuver.

One could drive either over the top of Mount Tamalpais or along the coast. The road over the mountain was a little shorter but the road bed was in worse shape. The pavement along the coast was smooth. Either way there was some exposure, steep drop-offs over the edge.

A group of resident sports car enthusiasts in Stinson Beach made the drive regularly. I recognized and had met some of them but it was really the daily routine of racing that formed whatever bond existed.

While driving in to San Francisco, the Sprite seemed to lack a little kick. I pulled over and raised the hood. A Volvo P1800, instantly recognizable, pulled up behind the Sprite. Jerry Garcia turned off the engine and stepped out. “Having trouble?”

“Nah, just tuning up my carbs.”

Jerry looked at the engine. “Tuning?”

Jerry Garcia had been a neighbor in San Francisco and now in Stinson Beach. We shared a common sense of geography, a nod of recognition but we had never actually spoken. “I put one end of this piece of surgical tubing in my ear and the other end in the opening of the carb and listen. Then I adjust them so they’re synchronized, you know, same note.”

“Well perhaps. Synchronized refers more to time signature. Tuning refers to the note. It’s very confusing”. We popped the hood on the Volvo. He started the engine and we tuned his SU carbs.

Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane lived up the road in Bolinas. He drove a Volkswagen bus. As much as I admired Marty Balin, I didn’t understand his choice of vehicles. A Volkswagen bus will roll over in a strong wind. These winding roads were ideally suited for sports cars.

Next door lived Lisa Kindred and John Bessarion, a singer and guitarist of some renown. Their house was a respite for touring musicians. It wasn’t unusual to recognize someone.

John would often show up at the door after work around dawn, carrying his fishing rod. We’d head south of town out onto the rocks and gather mussels at low tide. As the tide came in we’d cast beyond the surf for perch. John had perfected the practice over years. He preferred a short rod attached to a long handle and a spool type reel as opposed to the popular long rod and spinning reel. “It’s just like golf” John said. “It’s all about club head speed. Which is all about a stiff rod and strong backswing.”

John wanted to teach me how to play the guitar but I wasn’t interested in lessons. I figured I had it all figured out. I spent weeks over the previous year mastering the song Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt by recording it on a quarter inch tape deck and playing it back at half speed. It was an impressive, esoteric effort of no interest to anyone but me.

Jan and I followed a somewhat macrobiotic diet consisting of brown rice, beans, vegetables and Mu Tea and lots of fresh fish, which meant it wasn’t a macrobiotic diet but the thought was there. The cost of rent and food totaled next to nothing.

I met Paul Z in High School. Paul was a runaway from Michigan. He showed up at school needing a place to live and I brought him home where he stayed for a year. Paul had somehow managed to learn some of James Brown’s dance moves and became a subject of fascination.

Paul only dated one girl in high school. Barbara presented herself outwardly as a Japanese American leather clad gangster. Her real demeanor was shy and smart. Barbara’s family had been incarcerated in a concentration camp during World War II. They owned a motel on the edge of town where they lived and earned a livelihood.

Her mother was never seen. She lived in a room upstairs. Barbara never explained why exactly but the assumption was some kind of mental collapse. Some catatonia the result of never knowing what your captives had in store for you.

Paul barely passed high school. Having few options after graduation he was convinced to join the Coast Guard. Two months later he arrived back in San Jose claiming to be on leave. As days turned into weeks this became increasingly doubtful.

I was home for the weekend. My father and two men were having an animated conversation in the living room. One man was black and the other white, something not uncommon in Harry Sr’s political activities. They were engaged in an animated conversation about the Vietnam War.

“I’m going to pick up Cynthia” I said walking toward the front door.

“Hold on” one of the men said. They directed me to the kitchen and backed me up against the refrigerator.

They both showed badges. “Treasury Department. We understand that Paul Zemke has been staying here.”

“I don’t know anything about that”

“We believe it to be a good source. We want you to stay here”.

“I have to pick up my date”.

“Why don’t you call her”.

“I’m supposed to pick her up downtown. She’s probably standing on the corner right now. I hope she’s OK”.

Ultimately the government men decided that they couldn’t force me to stay and I drove off. As luck would have it that was when Paul pulled up from the other direction and walked in the front door.

Paul was taken to a military prison in Alameda and thrown, handcuffed, into a concrete windowless cell. Two men entered. One stood behind him and twisted his ears until they bled while the other punched and kicked him.

Paul returned to duty. After a few weeks he was in trouble again. One thing led to another and he found himself backed into the bow of a ship with a wrench threatening to kill anyone who got near. Nobody was going to put handcuffs on him again as long as he was conscious. After a protracted negotiation the event was peacefully resolved, Paul being discharged as “unfit for service”. As bad as the whole experience was, it was his ticket out of Vietnam.

Paul and Barbara married and bonded like pieces of a puzzle, Barbara the rock, Paul the paper. Paul had a difficult time finding work, partly because he wasn’t really looking for work. As luck would have it a job found him. He would be driving an ice cream truck.

Paul ingested psychedelics twice in his life. The first time was when he dropped LSD his first day of work. Driving around, listening to electrically reproduced bells playing the first stanza of Turkey in the Straw 5000 times, Paul gave away all the ice cream.

About this time Paul and I were doing some work in Barbara’s family’s garage when a young man we didn’t know entered. “Can I help you?” Paul said.

“Yeah. I’m here to kick some ass.”

“How’s that?”

I just came from the bar up the street. Took a pool cue to three guys. You two’ll be easy. I’m on meth. Gives me super human strength.” And so the conversation went. “First I’m gonna take you out” looking at me. “Then you” looking at Paul.

Paul spoke in a cool relaxed tone. “It may not be that easy for you.”

I moved closer to a crescent wrench laying on a counter and stood looking at it. Paul continued talking, smooth as silk and the guy ultimately left. Methedrine. Methamphetamine. Whatever. Why would anyone invent such a drug? There’s only one explanation. The delusional assumption that some truck driver could drive farther and faster and make more money for some company. Money money money.

Now a few years later in Stinson Beach, Paul and a friend of Paul’s and I ate peyote and were nauseated. After a half hour the nausea subsided and the most beautiful glow came over us. Wandering on a beach we were approached by a Krishna Hindu in a white robe who smiled broadly and handed each of us a pill. “Psilocybin”.

From there we made our way up a trail that led to a big rock. After a steep scramble up the slope and around the rock we arrived at the top and sat, dangling our legs over the edge looking straight down its face. The Pacific Ocean spread out before us under blue sky and clouds.

We sat for a while in silence and made our way back down the hill. Paul’s friend walked off down the beach and Paul and I headed in the Sprite to Mill Valley to visit some friends, Ken and Margo. I felt at one with the car, easily and smoothly negotiating the winding road. When we arrived we were invited into the kitchen where people were busy doing what people do. I wandered into the living room and laid down on the couch.

Margo and Jan had grown up together. Margo was outwardly confident in her hipness. Margo and Ken often wore no clothes. Now she was standing over me speaking and I couldn’t understand what she was saying. The words were coming out backwards, like a tape playing in reverse. I arose and walked out, followed by Paul. We got back in the car and started driving. “I’ve never been this high.” I may have said the words or I may have just thought them. The words were there somewhere. The ability to drive was comforting.

“Paul” I said, “That was supposed to be Psilocybin those monks gave us? Which is mushrooms right? How do they get so many mushrooms into such a small capsule?”

“Assuming that’s what we took. The petite was a cactus. Maybe a person should take one or the other but not both”. Or maybe some people should. The experience was perhaps a window into what the kids at Langley Porter hear. A scrambled up overabundance of partial vowels and consonants varying each time according to accent and pronunciation.