June 1956

School was over, and not a second too soon. I’d barely managed to keep one step ahead of a pugilistic priest who had taken his Golden Glove trophy out of his cabinet and vowed to punch my lights out. I also narrowly escaped a posse of snotty rich kids that the principal put up to cutting my prize duck’s ass.

Times weren’t so great for the family, either. Dad had suffered a stroke, and lost his job as CYO director. Mom put her nursing cap on after twenty-five years, and lasted two months, before ending up in a Marin General Hospital bed for two weeks with a bleeding ulcer and heart problems.

Our little house on Brookdale was not a fun place to hang around. Dad seemed befuddled. Mom was often drunk and nasty. “Where the hell we gonna live?” Family fights spilled out to the streets. “The phone’s turned off.” Mom’s wails and screams serenaded the neighborhood. “The kids need shoes.”

Bud and I escaped the bedlam as much as possible, hanging out with Tony Lugot, Mike Ramsey and Bob Butts; older guys, high school drop outs with cars. We cruised to all the hang outs King Cotton Drive-In, Zips, George’s Pool Room, and The Bowling Alley, drinking, looking for girls we never found, dodging brawls, and sidestepping cops.

One wild night, Bud and I got separated. I snuck in around midnight and passed out in my bed. I woke up a few hours later, and still no Bud. To be safe, I piled pillows and clothes under the blankets to look like a body, just in case Dad checked in.

The next morning, Dad came rushing in, “Mike, what happened to Bud?”

“Oh, Dad, he’s sleeping.” I looked over at the lump in his bed.

“Your brother’s in jail. For Christ’s sake, that’s all we need.”

Dad and I went to pick him up. The cops weren’t laughing.

“Mr. Smith, we found your boy passed out, laying in a puddle of vomit on D Street. Your kid almost bit the dust. We had to pump his stomach. He’s a tough guy, won’t answer any questions about where he got the booze, or who he was hanging out with.”

Dad, embarrassed, tried to look tough. “Bud, get in the car. You’re going to be sorry. Officers, I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

I whispered, “Bud, I told Dad we went to a party where the punch was spiked. Stick to it, nothing’s going to happen.” Nothing did.

Every day seemed grayer. Mom’s drinking matched the pressure of the mounting financial problems. There were more fights, kids crying, and Bud and I kept running out the door.

One morning it started early. Poor Dad was crestfallen and beaten. He couldn’t find a job. Mom was freaking out and using him as a verbal punching bag.

I just had it. “Mom, shut up!”

“Why, you little shit ass!” She grabbed a serving spoon and lit after me. The chase went from the kitchen through the dining room, into the living room and back to the kitchen. I was laughing to keep from exploding. Mom couldn’t keep up with me. I sailed through the kitchen.

“Mike, watch out!” Bud yelled.

Cunning old Mom was standing behind the dining room door with a huge glass punch bowl over her head. Too late, I got nailed. Glass flew everywhere. I staggered, reached up and touched a small trickle of blood dribbling down the back of my head.

“Shit, Mom, are you nuts?”

Suddenly, my old Mom, the loving caring nurse, my best buddy, appeared.

“Oh, Mikie, Mikie, my Little Mikie, I’m so sorry! Let me wash it. Let me fix it”.

I shook my head and flew out the front door shouting, “Sorry, my ass. You’re crazy.”

August 1956

Summer was almost over and I wasn’t looking forward to starting my junior year at Marin Catholic.

Dad was back in the hospital after another stroke and Mom had just been released, with a combination of heart and liver problems. They were both too sick to work and the family was broke.

“Boys, I’m taking you out for a treat, lunch at Marin Joe’s,” Mom announced one morning before Bud and I could vanish for the day.

This is odd, I thought. Taking the family out and spending the last pennies on food was Dad’s trip. For Mom, restaurants were more of an excuse to hang out at a bar and get loaded.

Marin Joe’s was one of Dad’s favorites. I remembered the good old days when the family would drive from Grandpa Collins’ ranch in Inverness Park to Joe’s in San Rafael for dinner and a movie.

When we got there, the waitress recognized our family and seated us at a nice table in the window.

“Boys, order whatever you want,” Mom said.

Our fridge was always too empty for our ravenous appetites. We ordered full steak dinners with sides of ravioli, and chocolate sundaes for dessert. When the food arrived, we dug in. Whatever Mom had to tell us, it was not likely to be good news. I wondered which it would be, another eviction notice, a welfare visit, or PG&E pulling the plug again.

Mom belted gin and tonics while we wolfed down the food. She looked tired. Her bad health, the worries of being poor and taking care of a sick husband were wearing her down.

“Boys, Dad’s not going to make it,” she blurted out.

“Oh, come on Mom,” I said. “He’s a survivor. Dad always pulls through.”

“No, they just told me,” she sobbed. “He’s not going to make it. How can I live without him? He’s the love of my life.”

“Don’t worry.” I hugged her.

“What am I going to do? I’m too sick to work.”

I didn’t want to go back to Marin Catholic. “We’ll dropout and get jobs,” I offered whole-heartedly.

Bud was less enthusiastic but he went along with me.

August 1956

The next day, the three of us met with Father Ryan, the principle of Marin Catholic High School. I didn’t like him, and the feeling was mutual.

At our last encounter, a few days before school let out, he pulled me into his office to chastise me for indecent behavior. The good father was so troubled by the dangers of co-educational recess, our only chance to socialize with the opposite sex, that he spent the time scrutinizing us through his window.

“Mike, I saw you touching a girl impurely. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Father, I don’t know what you are talking about.” I had patted a freshman’s curvaceous bottom.

“This is going to stop,” he’d roared. “You spend too much time playing around with the girls. I will deal with you when school starts again.”

I could tell he hadn’t forgotten that meeting. He greeted us with an insincere smile.

“Mrs. Smith, what brings you and the boys to my office during summer vacation?” He looked at us accusingly. “Are they causing you problems?”

“No. Their father is dying. I have to pull them out of school to help me.”

He smiled like mom just handed him a bottle of Irish whiskey and then quickly shifted into a consoling posture.

“Oh, Mrs. Smith, I’m so sorry. I’ll pray for him. Bud is an outstanding member of our community.” Dad had been the county’s Catholic Youth Organization Director and the organizer of a highly successful countywide high school basketball tournament in Marin Catholic’s gym.

“Of course, we’ll let the boys go. This will make men of them. Our doors will always be open.”

What a laugh.

A year later, when Bud went to the coach and told him he wanted to go back to school and play football with his buddies, the coach gave him a funny look.

“You need to talk to Father Ryan.”

Bud freaked out.

Dad winced when he heard the news, but said, “Don’t worry, boys. It’s going to be okay. We’ll talk to Ryan tonight.

Father Dullea, a former Golden Glove boxer who had frequently threatened to kick my ass if he got the chance, met us at the door of the Priests’ House. He smirked.

“What do you want?”

“The boys are looking forward to playing football for Marin Catholic this fall,” my father replied graciously. “The coach said we should talk with father Ryan.”

Dullea stared at me menacingly and then replied, “The faculty already met and voted overwhelmingly to deny your boys re-admittance. Why should we let two of the worst troublemakers back in?” He slammed the door in our faces.

Dad wilted. His face paled. He seemed unsteady on his feet. His voice cracked as he said, “I’m sorry.”

July 1956

A few days after the Punch Bowl Incident, just before dinner, Dad made an announcement.

“Kids, I have a special surprise.”

Shit, I thought, here we go again. The last surprise, a new life in Marin, flopped. What now?

“Kids, we’re moving to a ranch, a big house, lots of room on hundreds of acres.” Shit, I thought, we’re going to end up living with the hicks in Point Reyes.

“Dad,” Bud said, “we don’t want to live way out in the sticks, we’re city boys.”

“No, it’s just outside San Rafael. It even has a pool.”

He’s getting wackier, I thought. Maybe he’s had another stroke. “Dad, come on, we don’t have a pot to piss in. How the hell are we gonna pull this off?”

Mom must have been in on it. She just sat there smiling. Dad, beaming, brushed aside my concerns. “No problem, Louie Frietas is going to let us live there till I get things together. You know, it’s the family ranch just outside San Rafael. Louie uses the cottage, and no one uses the house.”

Louie was a dark-skinned, crafty-eyed bachelor, beloved CYO coach at St. Rafael’s Catholic School and a member of the prominent, wealthy, land-rich, Portuguese milk-farming clan. He was also an uncle of Spike Frietas, one of our snobby Marin Catholic classmates. It sounded to me like Dad hit Louie up for money and we ended up with a mansion and a pool.

I looked at Bud. He seemed to buy it. Maybe things were gonna get better.  The words, “a swimming pool” echoed through my head. Shit. Not bad. The Smiths with a pool. I was already planning parties, barbecues.

“Hey, let’s take a look before it gets dark,” Dad said.

The ranch was bordered on one side by Tierra Linda, the Eichler subdivision, the first suburban development west of San Rafael. It lined one side of the valley north of Frietas Boulevard.

Rolling, oak-filled hills and open fields surrounded the ranch. The house, down a long eucalyptus-lined driveway, was barely visible from the 101 Freeway frontage road. The three-story Victorian with a wraparound porch and French doors, vines clinging to old posts, was badly in need of a paint job. It sat in neglected regal splendor. To me, it was a country mansion.

The pool was just across the circular drive, in front of wide stairs leading to an enormous, oak front door. Surrounded by palm trees and green lawn, its water glistened and shimmered in the sunset, beckoning to me to jump in.

The kids looked wide-eyed.

“Whoopi,” Jane yelled. “It’s so big!”

The house was filled with Oriental rugs, rich mahogany tables and antiques. The kids ran from room to room through the first floor checking out the living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, parlor, den, and a bathroom. They ran up the long stairway to the second floor, which had a long hallway connecting with six bedrooms and two bathrooms. The third story was a high-ceilinged, unfinished attic piled with boxes, furniture, cabinets, chests, and who knew what treasures.

That night, in bed, my mind raced with plans. Happy days were here again. I couldn’t wait to call my old buddies from the city and invite them to a first weekend barbecue and dip in the pool. What a great come on.

“Say, how would you girls like to go for a midnight swim at our ranch?” I pictured nubile bodies, gliding through the moonlit waters, hugging, kissing and dry-humping through the night. On a sultry summer afternoon, I could say, “It’s kinda hot today. How’d you like to cool off in our pool?” Visions of thighs glistening with suntan oil, bottoms wiggling and shaking on the diving board filled my sleepy head.

First thing, the next day, I called Don and Mike, my best buddies from St. Cecilia’s. “Hey, can you come up for a little swim and barbecue at our ranch?”

“Sounds fantastic. A pool? I’ll be there. I can borrow my brother’s car,” Mike replied.

Don, a fast mover with the girls, jumped at the chance to score some points. “I just met a couple of girls from Lincoln at a party last night. Can I invite them?”

My mouth watered, “Sure, the more the merrier.”

Dad wasn’t around that morning. He was checking out a job lead and then had a get-together with Louie Frietas to nail down the exact move-in date.

A few hours later, Dad came home somewhat subdued.

“Hey, Dad, we’re so excited! Don Leonardini and Mike Gaffney and a few girls are coming for a swim and a barbecue to celebrate the first weekend in our ranch.”

He grimaced. “Kids, I’m sorry about this, but we can’t use the pool that weekend. It’s the Frietas family pool day.”

“Ah, hell,” I said, “what a drag. Well, I’ll call them and say we have to postpone it. Wish I knew sooner.”

“Well, it’s more than that. We can’t use the pool at all. Period.”

“You gotta be kidding. Why? There must be some times they aren’t using it.”

“Don’t make it hard on me. We need a place to stay, with or without the pool. We just can’t use it. It’s off-limits.

“Fuck them. Fuck their pool. Fuck their house.” I shouted.

September 1956

It was mid-morning and sweat poured down my back. An acre of waist-high weeds anchored in rocky soil taunted me in the boiling sun. I swung my hoe at a slow, steady pace, battling a nasty hangover. All I could think about was survival as Johnny Cash belted Sixteen Tons from my transistor radio. I was earning a grand $1.25 an hour, working for the printing mogul Arthur Dettner on his five-acre hillside estate in Ross.

There was no bathroom or water nearby, so at lunchtime, I trudged up the hill, past Arthur and his buddy who were devouring fried chicken and sipping cocktails by the pool. They didn’t invite me to join them. Free lunch and a swim were not perks of the job.

A half an hour later, feeling better after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cooling off in the shade, I picked up my pace. Arthur suddenly interrupted my daydream about my new girlfriend. His friend was in tow, perspiring profusely. “Son, you’ll never finish at that rate,” Arthur said in a gruff, imperious voice and grabbed the hoe. “Here’s how I worked when I was a kid.”

He swung at a killing pace for a minute. I watched his potbelly jiggle and his distinguished, fluffy, white hair catch air. He pointed at his work and stared me down with his penetrating, steely eyes. That’s what I expect for the money I’m paying you. And shut off that goddamn music.” Turning abruptly, he waddled up the hill.

He didn’t see me salute him with my middle finger.

“Screw you fat ass.” I swung my hoe viciously and hit the dirt as hard as I could.

July 1956

It was another hot summer night for the Smith family, living an impoverished life in the Freitas’ luxuriously furnished mansion. There was no chance of a dip in the pool since it was off-limits to us. We’d finished dinner and the little kids played around the mahogany dining table in what had become the unofficial family room. The chandelier’s reflection sparkled in the built-in glass China cupboards and the French doors that opened to the porch.

Mom was in the kitchen, loading up on wine. Dad lay on the living room couch, overweight and perspiring in his sloppy clothes, still showing signs of his last stroke, which had left him with a slipping vocabulary and slow on the uptake.

Bud and I were upstairs in our shared bedroom plotting how to get our hands on the Plymouth and sneak down the back roads to George’s Pool Hall in San Rafael. Suddenly, there was pounding at the door.

“Open up. San Rafael police.”

We looked at each other. Had someone snitched on us for lifting the four cases of beer from that careless warehouse?

We flew down the stairs to hear the loud crack of splintering wood and see the shattered glass falling around our younger siblings. Four cops, shotguns drawn, burst through the dining room’s French doors. The kids were screaming as Mom arrived from the kitchen.

“What the hell’s going on?” She yelled.

“Ma’am, shut up. We’ve got a warrant for John C. Smith.”

This can’t be happening, I thought. Why would they want Dad? He’d been Marin County’s Catholic Youth Organization Director and a G-man in WWII. He was so honest he squeaked.

Disheveled, Dad appeared, shaking his head.

“Officer, can’t we talk this over?”

“Shit, there ain’t nothing to talk about,” a potbellied cop snarled.

Mom lunged forward.

“I’m a nurse. He’s a sick man. Please don’t arrest him.”

“Get out of the way, or you’re coming too.”

“Don’t take Daddy,” Jane yelled, and Ginny joined in. Bobby was speechless, frozen by the kitchen door. Bud’s eyes were wide and I was hot with rage. A part of me wanted to pick up a chair and bust it over the cop’s head.

They surged toward Dad, his face beet red and his body shaky.

“Officers hold on. Let me call someone,” Dad stammered. “I’m sure we can straighten this out.”

“You should have thought of that before you papered the town with bad checks.”

Two cops grabbed Dad, slammed him against the wall, cuffed him and then pulled him out the door.

“Oh, no. Please,” Mom screamed.

That was the moment things got real.

Robin Hood’s Merry Men didn’t swing from the trees to thwart the Sheriff’s lackeys plundering the poor. Glinda the Good Witch of OZ didn’t wave her magic wand to turn the evil, blue-clad monkeys into guests bearing gifts.
Instead, Mom, with her tenacious, fiery spunk had challenged the cops with the same fearlessness she showed in her job as head nurse at SF General’s locked wards. She shook off the booze and sprung into action calling Dad’s influential West County friends to help defend her husband.

The charges against Dad were dropped and he was home the next day. It was nothing big, nothing worth a police raid. Dad had just postdated a couple of checks to the grocery store on Lincoln for food to feed his family.

My dream world ended. Any illusion I’d had about the affluent life we’d lived coming back vanished. We’d become white trash, living in someone else’s mansion, in a world where we didn’t belong. It was about more than the house and the stuff we’d lost.

My father had been confident, well known in San Francisco. He’d been a well-dressed, articulate man about town, the writer of a popular college fight song and famous for organizing St. Mary’s and San Francisco University parties. He’d worked for the Department of Agriculture chasing down war racketeers, and had managed my grandmother’s vast holdings. His heart attack, several strokes, and our rapid descent into poverty after we moved to Marin had a profound effect on his personality.

My storybook heroes and my dreams of returning to our privileged life disappeared. That’s when mom showed me what real life heroes did.

November 1956

Christmas was coming. There were no toys on layaway and we had an empty larder. Bud and I had had no luck finding jobs.

The newspapers were full of positions, all listed under employment agencies that charged a hefty twenty percent fee for the first three months. They also required screening before they would send anyone out on an interview. We didn’t want to do those things, but we had no other choice

The first two meetings were quick. One look at a teenager with no experience brought the same response. “Sorry. We can’t help you.”

We scored at the third agency. An attractive woman took pity and listened to our tale of woe.

“Well, how old are you”?

“Sixteen and seventeen,” I said before Bud could spill the beans. To be employed full-time you had to be sixteen. I was only fifteen.

“Well, I have several seasonal jobs.”

She sent Bud to Penny’s Department store on Market. He was hired as a Santa Claus and fired two weeks later for playing too little Santa and too much Ping-Pong. That turned out to be his only job that year.

My first interview took me back to my old neighborhood. Spiegel’s Department Store, was on 18th and Mission, just blocks from where I’d been raised. I guess my enthusiasm and energy carried the day. It didn’t hurt when I made sure the manager, Mr. O’Brien knew I was baptized and had received first Communion in his parish church, St. James.

He walked me over to the empty hardware section of the store. “This will be your department. Stock and sell the toys. Can you assemble bikes?”

“Oh, sure. No problem,” I lied. I was a mechanical moron. Dad, who could barely screw in a light bulb, thought manual projects were below his boys’ dignity.

What a great job. I managed to get the simpler things put together by myself, and a friendly janitor stepped in to help when I got stumped.

Spiegel’s was a far cry from Mom’s old stomping grounds like The City of Paris, White House or The Emporium. There were no beautifully illustrated OZ books, fancy made in Britain, sets of shiny lead soldiers, or Lincoln Logs, but there were plenty of cheap games, dolls, trucks, guns and off-brand bikes.

I was a natural salesman. I loved kids and had been a CYO basketball coach and a recreation director. Plus, I felt at home with working-class Mission District folks.

Along with the job, came an automatic employee charge account.

One week before Christmas, Mom strode into the store. My younger siblings were expecting Santa Claus to show up. It was my job was to make sure his bag was full.
I worked fast, stuffing the cart with the best toys the store had to offer. Then the clothes and home furnishings caught Mom’s eye.

Within an hour, Mom triumphantly exited Spiegel’s with over $ 500 in charged merchandise – a real haul in 1956.

Two weeks after Christmas, I was busy dismantling my toy department when I received a frantic call from the store manager.

“Mike, get in my office.”

He stood at his desk with my bill in his hand “Mike, for Christ’s sake, you’re a great worker and a good kid, but your job’s almost over. How the hell you gonna’ pay these charges?”

“Wow, Mr. O’Brien.” I opened my eyes wide. “I guess Mom got carried away.”

He shook his head helplessly.

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.”

I felt bad about lying to the guy, but my family’s happiness came first.

1967

School was out at Berkwood. No more sleepy-eyed kids to greet at seven in the morning. Margie had taken the letter from Leslie as a big deal. Fed up with my antics, she declared a time out from our relationship, dropped out for the semester and went back to Ojai with her parents to think things out. We gave up our treasured pink palace apartment overlooking Telegraph Avenue. Everything was up in the air. Part of me panicked. Part of me relished the freedom.

A few weeks later, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I hitchhiked from a Peace and Freedom party convention in Santa Barbara to her house in Ojai to patch things up. Her parents were cold. She was distant. We had separate rooms. I convinced her to sleep in the apple orchard with me, hoping to rekindle the fires of love. We didn’t.

I grabbed my funky Montgomery Ward sleeping bag with grizzly bears printed on the inside, my army-issue duffle bag and headed out the door, dressed in my finest movement version of hippie attire.

I wore my trusty blue denim shirt, blue jeans and scruffy cowboy boots. For flare, I replaced my worn-out World War II brown leather bomber jacket with a treasure Margie had found in a second hand store: an antique, yellowed buckskin jacket with fringe fit for wild Bill Hickok. I perched my battered straw Mississippi freedom hat on my head. It had been a gift from my jailhouse buddy, Ben Brown. It was adorned with the iconic SNCC button with its clasped black and white hands and a United Farm Workers button with Mexican Revolution hero, Pancho Villa, sporting a ten-gallon hat and crossed bandoliers. I wore a necklace I’d made on my last trip to the beach with Margie: a leather throng with shiny blue-green abalone shards and exquisite, tiny seashells. A “Free Huey” button, the Black Panther leader sitting in a chair, holding a rifle, was its centerpiece. My final touch was a leather belt with silver conchos.  A worn scabbard hung on my hip holding a hunting knife. I wasn’t exactly subtle.

As the sun rose, I stood on the freeway, my thumb out, waving a cardboard “Big Sur” sign.

By noon, I was crossing private land on a faint trail headed for my secret beach; a hidden paradise with a bubbling stream and a waterfall, tons of driftwood for fires or sculptures, and a dugout to sleep in, which we had built on our last trip there.

In a flash, I was naked smoking a joint and mesmerized by the power and beauty of my mighty mistress, the Pacific. I went into a trance, lost in the sun’s golden rays bouncing off of the emerald-green, pulsing waves that exploded into sparkling rainbows of colors. Lulled by sea birds dancing minuets across the shimmering blue sky, I relaxed and let Mother Earth wrap her sensuous arms around me. I drifted off to sleep in a cloud of collective consciousness, memories and longings.

I awoke at sunset, salty, sandy and sunburned, dreams lingering. Images, swirled with fragments of voices: “Sweetie, politics give me a headache. I’m scared your gonna’ get hurt. Can’t you quit?” Margie, the gentle deer woman, with a hurt look on her face, melted into Leslie, my elegant, intellectual enchantress, her eyes possessing me. She seemed enraptured with my bittersweet life. “Michael, I so admire your passion, your love of the people your ability to channel your pain and anger into to action.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. It was time to look for some warm company.

I headed for Nepenthe, the happening restaurant and bar, perched on a bluff that stretched out over the Pacific. It was a cross between a moneymaking tourist trap and a hippie hangout that had good vibes. It also had, spacious grounds with plenty of bushes and trees to get high behind, spectacular views of the ocean, and a primo juke box loaded with ass-kicking tunes, from old 50s hits to the best of Motown and the latest Beatles. The management was hang lose. You could start at noon, nurse a beer and close the place down. It was definitely the place to meet my kind of folks.

My waitress, attractive in a rawboned, horsey way, with a wide mouth, square jaw, almond-shaped inquisitive, liquid brown eyes, high cheekbones and a nose a shade too big gave me a warm smile and said, “My name is Wanda. What can I do for you?”

I liked her long, sun-bleached and sandy mane, but kept my thoughts to myself.

“My name is Mike. I have a bad case of the munchies. How about a hamburger and French fries?”

Her eyes took me in. “That’s some outfit. Where you from?”

“I’m on rest and recreation. I just got a 60-day sentence for an anti-draft bust in Berkeley.  I need to mellow out.”

“Right on. I hate the fucking war. My kid brother just got drafted.”

“Have you ever been to the Esalen Hot Springs?” she asked, later that night, just before closing. “Some of us are going down after work. You want to come along? We get in free, no hassles, because we know the folks that work there.”

In the old days, when Henry Miller and the beats hung out in Big Sur, the hot pools were nature’s gift to everyone. Now it was a hip scene for rich liberals. A touchy-feely place: nude gatherings, a splash of free love. Wandering hippies were not welcome.

A little after two in the morning, five of us packed into a beat up, green Volkswagen and whizzed past the gate guard who recognized the car. As we pulled up to a large stucco building with lots of windows, I could hear Aretha Franklin blasting out her latest hit, “Respect.” My hips started moving. I was up to get down on some Motown sounds.

The room was crowded with happy folks dancing and carrying on. All ages, all shapes, a mix of staff made up of trim young dudes and delicious, longhaired beauties and an assortment of older paying guests. l just couldn’t hold back. The beat ran up and down my spine. I jumped in and joined the swinging and wiggling butts on the dance floor. My style, sharpened by months hanging out in Mississippi juke joints, stood out and I was soon dancing in and out and around a couple of sensuous women.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Caught up in the music I just ignored it. A more insistent tap and I turned around. A guy with a smile said, “Sorry to interrupt your fun, brother, we got to talk.”

“Hey man. What’s up?”

“I don’t think you belong in here. You’re not a guest and you don’t work here.”

“Look man, I’m with Wanda. She invited me.” He looked over at Wanda who was watching the scene come down. She smiled at him and yelled, “Tony he’s okay. He’s my friend. He’s with me.”

My adrenaline was running. I asked the dude, “Where’s the bar? I need a drink”

“In the next room, brother. I’m sorry I had to hassle you, but that’s my job.”

I hit the bar just as Aretha Franklin finished her last number. A surly looking dude, a cross between a biker and a hippie, with a street-hardened face and jailhouse muscles was pouring drinks and playing the music, “Give me a double whiskey and can you play Aretha again.” He looked me over and shook his head. “Hey man, how in the hell did you get in here?”

Fuck this, I thought. “I’ve already been checked out once, so lighten up and pour me a drink.”

His jaw tightened.

“That’s it, buddy. You’re eighty-sixed.” He rushed around the bar grabbed my arm. “Out of here.”

“Cool down man. Get your fucking hands off me. Check it out before you do something stupid.”

He turned red in the face and yanked my arm roughly. His mistake. My left hook knocked him on his ass. All of a sudden, the dancing, peace-loving people turned into a lynch mob. Screams drowned out the music. “He hit the bartender!” “Get him!” “Get him out of here!” People were all over me, both the guests and the hired hands, like chickens seeing blood and pecking some poor bird to death. Outnumbered, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. No more left hooks or combinations.

But if they were going to throw me out, they were going to have to drag me out. The whole place was a bedlam.

“This is bull shit,” I yelled. “What we get for free, you’re paying for. What happened to all your love? I’m a freedom fighter. The real revolution isn’t happening here. It’s happening in the streets.” That just pissed them off more. I was spoiling their party.

As they pulled me towards the door my fist shot in the air and I shouted, “Free Huey.” A punch hit me in the eye. Someone grabbed my free arm and wrenched it behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder. A boot smashed down on my instep.

I heard Wanda’s voice screaming, ” Are you guys crazy? Leave the poor guy alone. He’s with me.”

It was at least 100 yards up the hill. I felt like Christ carrying the cross. I wasn’t going to go down. I wasn’t going to give up. They were going to have to earn their silver pieces.

One of the kinder stooges said, “Bill, let’s not hurt this guy. He’s one of us”.

Shit, I thought. Bill. That’s Pam’s friend. Pam, who aided and abetted me when I was Berkeley’s most wanted radical, had filled me in about her on-again-off-again boyfriend, who worked there, just before I left. “Mike, look him up. He knows his way around Big Sur.” I had hoped to bump into him and maybe work my way in.

Luck of the Irish, I thought.

“Bill, I know your girlfriend, Pam. Calm your buddies down.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, ass hole.” He punched me in the ribs.

A little while later, I found myself in Wanda’s nest, a one room cabin snuggled in the pines. With a fire going, candles burning and Ravi Shankar’s gentle tones playing, two naked bodies linked in a soothing embrace. My wounds were licked with love. We blended gently. I sunk into her sweet-smelling honeypot, and we exploded together, a celebration of love and caring. We fell asleep two strangers linked by our shared dreams, touching briefly in the tapestry of life.

Wanda woke me up the next morning coming back from the store with breakfast.

“Mike you sure shook this little town up. The word’s out about last night’s Battle of Esalen. The community is buzzing. You’re either a wounded peace warrior or an aggressive troublemaker. Depends on who you talk to.”

We ate, talked about the night and a bit about ourselves. It turned out she was a UCLA drop-out, an art major, following in the footsteps of generations of artists, seeking serenity and creative stimulation in the rugged beauty of Big Sur. With a little prodding she opened up and shared her work. I was struck by her vivid surrealistic paintings, which had a touch of my favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh.

We sat on her bed and watched a deer and two fawns quench their thirst in a fern-lined, rippling creek. Our eyes met. Our bodies followed.

Later, we headed for Nepenthe.  I decided to head for home. Wanda asked around to see if anyone was headed for Berkeley.

There was no secret about who I was. Besides my garish get up, I sported a black eye and I had a slight limp where the foot had ground into my instep.

Gradually, people came over to the table with comments like, “Brother, what a bum deal. They shouldn’t have done you like that”. “Keep on trucking. We’re with you.” Maybe they were all Wanda’s friends trying to make me feel better. I felt a deep sense of community, and fought back tears.

Wanda, God bless her, found me a ride. We hugged. Two strangers: suddenly brother and sister, lovers who touched each other’s souls and then moved on.

I didn’t have a permanent pad in Berkeley. Since Margie and I had separated, I’d been moving around with my sleeping bag from couch to couch. I ended up staying at Percy’s house. He was an energetic, fast-talking black guy, who always had good pot, never missed a demonstration, had the best Motown collection in Berkeley and threw parties at the drop of the hat.

I felt a burning need to tell the story of my Esalen experience. I sat down to write an account of two communities clashing, of conflicting ideals and of pain and love. I sent my ramblings to Max Baer, the publisher of the Berkeley Barb. He said he’d think it over.

The next morning, thoughts of Esalen had vanished.  A story in the back pages of the San Francisco Chronicle broke my heart. “Ben Brown a 19-year-old civil rights worker, had been killed by the Jackson police the day before, during a demonstration. Grief overwhelmed me. Anger exploded in my brain. “No. No!” I burst into sobs. “Not Ben.’’

A few hours later, a poem poured out of me.

The Berkley Barb published my poem, “Who was Ben Brown?”

March 1969

The peace movement that had begun in the spring of 1965, with teach-ins aimed at the institutions supporting the Vietnam war, had spilled onto the streets, moving from symbolic to concrete resistance. People protested with more militant tactics at the Oakland Induction Center in 1967, and in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention. The war waged on. By 1969 the anti-war efforts had taken firm roots in a tenacious and rebellious GI movement.

In the spring of 1966, the first glimmers of a GI movement began in Fort Hood, Texas, where three privates refused to obey orders to go to Vietnam. The Fort Hood Three, a working-class, rainbow coalition, made history by being the first GIs to publicly and collectively refuse to participate in killing Vietnamese people.

The Army moved quickly to squash the troublemakers and make an example of them. However, instead of deterring further resistance, the protesters’ courage lit a spark of resistance in other GIs who were secretly opposed to the war.

By 1969, individual GI resistance became organized revolt. In Vietnam, whole units refused orders to go to Cambodia, and instances of “fragging,” tossing fragmentation grenades into unpopular officers’ tents, increased. Closer to home, GI coffeehouses sprang up next to military bases and GI newspapers flourished.

Twenty-seven GIs in the San Francisco Presidio protested with a spontaneous sit-down. A GI suffering from shell shock had wandered too close to the fence, and a trigger-happy guard shot him to death. The protestors demanded justice for their slain jail-mate and improvements in the atrocious stockade’s living conditions. The Army responded with mutiny charges for the men who became known as the “Presidio 27.”

In the spring of 1969, the Presidio 27 were being tried. So were we. The Oakland Seven had been indicted for Felony Conspiracy to Commit Misdemeanors for organizing Stop the Draft Week in 1967.

The day before the Presidio trial kicked off, we decided to get involved. We held a quick meeting and decided to throw our weight behind our brothers, now facing death penalty charges for engaging in a non-violent protest. We issued a press release calling our supporters to join us in a rally at the Presidio. We would present the base commander with our demands: Drop the mutiny charges, investigate the murder, and bring the officers responsible for the Presidio stockade to justice.

The Presidio brass freaked out.

The day before our march on the Presidio, two federal marshals disguised as civilians suddenly appeared at our trial. They were serving us injunctions to ban us from entering the Presidio, and threatening to prosecute us for disrupting military operations if we held a rally outside its gates.

The bailiffs smelled a rat and stopped the marshals at the courtroom door. Judge Phillips was pissed off at their attempted intrusion into his kingdom and banned their entrance.

One of the bailiffs tipped us off during the morning break.

I decided to scout out the situation. Two burly crew-cut guys stood ready, not entirely blocking the door, but poised to spring forward when we approached. I had an idea.

We huddled together in an empty corner of the courtroom when the proceedings ended for lunch. I opened up the meeting.

“Brothers, I have an idea.” In high school, at 150 pounds, I played middle linebacker and fullback. I was no great running back, but I knew how to punch a hole in the line and make a few yards.

“Let’s not make it easy for these clowns,” I said. “I have a plan. We walk up to the courtroom door, slowly like we don’t know what’ s coming down, and when I raise my hand, I’ll put my head down and punch a hole in their line.”

Only Frank Bardacke, athletic, imaginative, and a little wild volunteered to join me.

“Mike, I played quarterback in high school. I’ll be right behind you. Let’s go for it.”

The marshals saw us coming and immediately closed ranks. One held the injunctions in his outstretched hand.

We charged.

I knocked one aside, and we plowed through. The marshals never knew what hit them. Frank and I got away without being served.

That evening, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Chuck Findley’s article, Oakland Seven Outwits The Feds helped spread the word of the Presidio rally throughout the Bay Area.

Since I was the only Oakland Seven member with the distinction of serving in the Army, I had become the unanimous choice to chair the rally.

I was taking a significant risk. I was AWOL and would be drafted for two years of active duty if caught.

I decided I’d sock it to the military brass by wearing my army boxing team jacket to the rally. It was embellished with gold gloves and read, “Boxing Fort Ord ‘62.” My attitude was, “Bring it on, Baby.”

The rally was small, two hundred people, at most, but we made up for our low turnout with our pugnacious spirit.

We gathered on the street corner nearest to the base for the rally, I turned on the bullhorn and threw down the gauntlet.

“Just to set the record straight,” I yelled, “I want to let the Army know, I did fight in the ring at Fort Ord in 1962, but I won’t fight in Viet Nam. I’m AWOL from the medical reserve unit stationed a few blocks away at Letterman Hospital.  So, come and get me if you want. I’m more than happy to raise hell from the inside and join my brothers in the Presidio 27, and thousands of other GIs fighting against this immoral, illegal, and unjust war.”

Someone yelled, “Fuck the Army!”

“Right on!” I responded.

“Alameda County singled out The Oakland Seven for conspiracy charges because the district attorney believes cutting the head off of the movement will kill it. It didn’t. We are all still here.

“Yesterday, the Army sent two of their goons to serve us with injunctions promising we would be prosecuted on federal charges if we showed up today. Well, here we are.

“The mutiny charges against the Presidio 27 for organizing a non-violent, spontaneous demonstration against the cold-blooded murder of a shell-shocked GI will not silence their voices! Will not break their spirits! Their repressive tactics have backfired and unleashed a wave of support. This rally is only the beginning.”

We marched to the gates chanting, “One, two, three, four, Jail the Generals. Stop the War.”

The action awakened the press; TV cameras rolled, radio stations recorded, and newspaper reporters scribbled away.

A line of MPs stretched across the road just in front of the closed gate. We crowded up to them, chanting,  “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Let the Presidio Twenty Seven go!”

On the other side of the fence, clusters of officers and guys in civilian suits watched us. We were on Army property and subject to arrest. Someone must have sized up the situation and decided it was best to ignore us. Maybe the brass had second thoughts about enforcing their injunctions to avoid the spectacle of MPs dragging civilians away in front of TV cameras.

The MP detachment’s ranking officer, a lanky captain, stoically ignored my demands to meet the base commander.  He ignored my subsequent requests to present our demands to the closest officer of the day, and finally, my attempts to hand them to him. This made for good street theatre and kept the drama going, but I wanted to deliver our demands directly. Throwing them over the fence would not be good enough.

A grey sedan with Army plates inched its way through the crowd to the gate., breaking the stalemate. An Army colonel rolled down the rear window and motioned to the MP captain. I seized the moment and shoved the demands in his face. For some reason, he grabbed them and tossed them onto the seat beside him.

That was good enough for me to declare a victory. We’d served our demands. The growing support for the Presidio 27 was going to make the evening news and the morning papers.