"Summer of Love"
In 1967 mom my sisters and I returned to Monterey sans my Dad. I'm not sure but I think they weren't getting along very well. My mom and Dad's relationship was volatile to say the least. Both being mostly Irish add some alcohol to the mix my mother's growing mental state and my Dad's pandering and it's "duck and cover" time. It was a common occurrence in our home for pots,pans,dishes and ketchup bottles to be tossed at each other. Not to mention out and out physical fights. This absolutely played hell on all of us kids. Mom and Dad put the capital D in dysfunction.
How can you study for a test at school when you got to dodge flying crockery at home. It would be years before I was exposed to a "normal" family. And this period of our family was the worst. By this time Ellen had long since left home and married. She had a daughter ,Alicia and was married to a stiff named Ted. While he was stationed aboard a ship in Viet Nam she had come to Anchorage for a time. But at this time was living stateside. Prior to Mom coming back to Monterey my brother had quit school. Now my Dad being the hard ass he was took my brother down to the local recruiter and forced him to sign up. Not wanting my brother just"lounge around and eating all our food". He decided to "Make a man out of him".
It was at the height of the Viet Nam war and my Dad would rather see my brother dodge bullets than "lounge around" What was he thinking? I mean my Dad was a member of the union,he could have signed Glenn up for an apprenticeship,or sent him to trade school...the military?During a WAR....it's amazing any of us survived growing up. I'll discuss the effects my childhood would have on both my relationships and career later and how music would play a redeeming role in that drama.
Let me paint a broader picture of the other characters in my family. My Dad came from a family of 13. He grew up in the depression and with all those mouths to feed he rarely had enough to eat. Dad often said he never had a "square"meal till he went off to world war two. My Dad was third wave at Omaha beach and a crack rifleman who could shoot the ass out of a monkey at 500 yards away. He was also constantly getting busted for one infraction or another(those being the usual suspects,french women and German snapps or cognac)My Dad has out lived all of them not a small feat considering the amount of bad habits he had.
I had an aunt named Susie and an uncle,Loyd(there were more but these two stood out the most in my family) These two were absolute characters. Susie was my mom's sister. The youngest of 4 sisters. And the only one that never got my mothers disease.
Uncle Lloyd was the youngest of my Dad's family. Aunt Susie was married a few times but never had any children of her own so she dotted on us. Whenever she showed up it was party time. She had been a life long waitress and was always tossing money at us kids. She loved to drink, party and had the most hardy infectious laugh. I loved her dearly. Uncle Lloyd like Susie was the quintessential party guy. Always laughing ,singing , dancing and drink in. Lloyd had been married 5 times. Once to a gypsy. He said she was pretty nice but every time he turned around he was feeding someone he had never seen before and was always at a loss how these guys always had a ton of cash and no visible means of support.
I have very vague memories of my Grandfather. Glenn was a lot closer to him having spent more time with him. he died when I was quite young. I remember he ran a trout farm and had a couple of real horses. My Dad and Moms families came from the Oklahoma area prior to the depression. Settling in Monterey. Monterey had a very large cross section of ethnicity. Irish,Latinos Italians and Orientals. Monterey was the foremost producer and caner of seafood(sardines) during the depression(hence the Cannery row) whose native son John Steinbeck immortalized both the time and town in several classic novels. My Dad and most of my uncles worked the canneries during their heyday. My grandfather was a plasterer by trade and my dad and uncles took up the same trade as they came of age.I once saw a picture of my Dad and two of my uncles in army and navy uniforms ready for shore leave.My Dad told me two stories from his time in the war that stand out about his family. First he never got any letters,notes or cards from home while he was in Europe except once he got a box of gum and a note from his sister. He was aboard a ship at the time and said he stepped outside and wept like a baby over the simple gift from home. The second was after returning home Dad was walking up the driveway to Grandpa's house when he saw him Dad said Ben got up and came running down the drive way tackled my Dad knocking him to the ground, he then proceeded to yank on each of my Dad's legs...once satisfied that my Dad's extremities were all original picked him up gave him a hug and said"Welcome home son good to see ya let's eat.." Some welcome home!
My mom's side of the family comes from the Oklahoma area as well. It is her side of the family where we get the Italians. My mom's sister Dolores married the Italian fella named Sam. Uncle Sammy was a sweet heart who was a businessman and a part time accordion player. My two favorite cousins were his two daughters...Rosalind(Roe) and Sandra. Roe was close to Ellen's age so they were always close along with Glenn. Roe married a cook named Pete who went on to become a very successful businessman in his own right. What I remember was just how much I loved them and what great cooks they were. To this day every time I think pasta sauce I think of my mom and them.
There is two others I'll mention here. My Grandmother Helen and my step-grandad Richard. I grew up being quite close to Grandma. She took a shine to me early on and her and I were best buds. So many memories of her. I could see where Aunt Susie and my mom got their hearty laugh. I remember licking green stamps,going to the lake and always finding some weird dish frozen in tupperware in her fridge. Uncle Richard(what we called Grand pa) was a retired longshoreman. When I lived in Monterey in the late 60's he used to bring his boat there and he and I would spend the weekend deep sea fishing.When I would come up to visit Grandma we would pile into their Lincoln and drive thru the Haight Ashbury District in the heyday of hippie heaven.I still have strong memories of people walking around with painted faces,selling flowers,playing music on the street and panhandling, It was a day at the Zoo for us.There was this cool part of the beach I remember where the Haight Hippies would go and fish surf wood off the sand and build really cool sculptures from them. I have family that stretches from San Francisco to Carmel valley. Aunts,uncles cousins,1st,2nd and 3rd. There is a part of me that is sad over not being involved with such a lively bunch of relatives but Alaska was were we grew up.
Now the odd thing is my Dad didn't really like any of these people. He never liked Grandma,thought Uncle Richard was a stiff,certainly could not stand aunt Susie,didn't like Sammy, barely tolerated Lloyd kinda liked Pete but for the most part I think Dad couldn't wait to get the hell out of Monterey......which brings us back to the summer of love.
We moved back to Monterey and stayed with an old friend of the family. Lou Lang. Lou was the strangest old guy I had ever met. He had known my Dad his whole life and was just plain ODD.
Story was that most of New Monterey was built on land he had once homesteaded. He owned a homestead just south of Big Sur had a stake in several other businesses and was fairly well off.To look at him you couldn't tell. His normal attire were army/navy cast offs from the Presidio and he carried what little cash on hand in a worn leather pouch around his neck. Long grey hair and a big bushy beard filled out the picture. He lived in this house that looked more like a bomb shelter than home,surrounded by junk of all sorts. In his back yard stood a former chicken coop that had been converted to a home of sorts where dwelt another friend of my Dads and his family rent free. Inside the house was more junk and in the attic even more odd stuff,Including this..Lou had a mason jar where he would catch a live poisonous snake fill the jar with what ever rot gut he could felander off the neighbors and put the snake in there.The snake would bite the lid injecting venom and in time die. The idea being that if you drink enough of this you could build up a tolerance for snake bite,my theory was he was just to tight to buy his own alcohol and this was his way of getting it free. Lou never bothered to remove the dead reptile from the liquor so he'd drink the stuff with bits of decomposing snake swirling the bottom of the mason jar! He had been a mule Sargent in WW1 and just had a habit of collecting. He never married and had no kids. He was also one of the first "health nuts" long before it was fashionable. It was said at some point after the war he had contracted TB and was given only a year to live. He climbed back into the woods and lived off the land drinking only river water and what ever he could trap,catch or forage..came out 5 years later healthy as an ox. One thing I do remember. He had a pristine 1955 Cadi parked in his garage,less than 10,000 miles on it. The coolest.
Looking back I wonder what Mom was thinking. Sure staying and fighting with Dad was going no where but to my knowledge my mom had never had a job,and had never learned to drive a car. I'm sure she could have found something. But there we were Mom and 3 kids in tow. But not long afterward Dad showed up. And we moved into our own place. Dad rented this house that was right across the street from my aunt Susie's(much to his consternation) i think this was good for Mom because as much as I'd like to say things had mellowed they had in fact gotten worse. And Mom would retreat to her sisters house for refuge. If was frankly unmitigated hell at home. Dad continued to drink to excess they continued to fight with me and my kid sisters caught in the middle. One side note, every time my dad came home from the bar and passed out we would go thru his pants for loose change.....we visited the candy store a lot those days.
At a very early age I had discovered that I had artistic talent. I could draw,paint sculpt and just about anything else I wanted.It just came as natural to me as my brothers gift with mechanical things.It was also a way to escape the turmoil of home.
Monterey and specifically Carmel were "artists" communities. There were artists everywhere. I used to go down to this little grove of trees where some of the local painters would come and watch them paint the fisherman's wharf. There were art galleries everywhere. I being so young didn't realise what a cool scene I was living in. But on the other hand I was discovering that music would bring up these really intense feelings in me. And music was everywhere. It would be years later when Glenn would tell me he had actually gone to the 67 Monterey Pop fest...that's right he saw Hendrix,Joplin,the Who....his reaction?"nothin but a bunch of hippies"....I fear that my brother may have my Dad's red neck gene.....My Grandma and my teachers at school had recognized my talent and were encouraging me to pursue a life in the arts. My 4th grade teacher had me meet her after school and asked me to draw and paint some stuff for her. She was very supportive of this talent..I only wish Mom and Dad had been. At the same time I had a friend who's older brother worked at the local music store. He would let us hang out in the back and check out the new guitars as they came in. I was so enamured by the new Gretches, Richy's and Fenders...I loved the feel and smell of well made guitars even then(as a side note my brother on his return from boot camp came and presented me with a "Stella" learner guitar while we still lived in Anchorage..I was maybe 10,11 then. Well, while going to school that day to show it off at "Show and Tell" I slipped on some ice ,landed squarely on top of said guitar and turned it into splinters!!the only thing I could show at "show and tell"was the head stock and the keys...I was heart broke and this was a set back to my guitar playing life for many years!)...finally at 12 I wanted to be a guitar player!!!there was a really cheap classical for sale. I remember it was 12.00 I asked my Dad and his reaction was "I got no money for some stinking guitar"...thus it would be 5-6 more years before I could get one and when I did I had to buy it with my own hard earned cash.My memories of this time include the day my Grandma showed up and bought me my first bike(a Shwin with a banana seat) and my brother being in Viet Nam. As I tooled around town on my bike I would on occation visit this Catholic Church. I would go inside light a candle and pray for my brother's safe return home. Mom was always sending him care packages. She would send me down to this corner bar where they sold one of my all time favorite foods....Italian dry salami...it was absolute torture bringing that to mom and not taking a bite out of it....I promised myself once that when I grew up I'd always have some in my fridge(I do)Mom would fill a box with home made cookies,lots of liquor,italian twist bread, salami and send off to my brother..he would write back and say how he and his buddy's always looked forward to her care packages!. My brother would send these tapes from where he was stationed and they scared the hell out of mom. We would hear all these bombs going off guns firing and then my brother would get on the tape and say"arrrgh they got me"""" Dad finally had to tell my brother to lighten up some.
Looking back this period left a lot of memories with me. It was the late 60's in Monterey where a cultural revolution was about to explode and spred across our nation and the world.For me,I was just a kid on the cusp of change.
We had rented another house kiddy corner from Bayview Elementary School where I was enrolled in 6th grade. The house was a strange lay out. My bedroom was up a set of stairs that exited out of the bathroom. What was cool is it had a large bay window that each night I would watch the sun set over Monterey bay...it was beutiful even to a kid of 11. There was a pear tree outside my door so if I ever got the muchies at least there was fruit. I would lay in bed and listen to the sea lions bark all night as they lay at the end of the Coast Guard wharf. I recall watching the California primaries with mom one night. I got up to go to the rest room and when I returned mom was weeping in shock..she had just witnessed Robert Kennedy's assassination. My folks were total Kennedy followers. I had these two friends who were always showing up for some hair brained adventure. The Canneries back then were rusting,dank old hulks that were locked up and abandoned.There was the occational fire that would brake out. Rummer had it that the owners were paying someone to torch them to collect insurance cash.(They have since been renovated and are now some of the priciest real estate in the country). My friends had found a half rotted latter that led to an unlocked hatch. You could access this when the tide went out. So we spent half a day crawling around these dark dank smelly old canneries with flash lights. One other time my same two friends show up again with flash lights and stated they had figured out that in the empty lot down the street was a way to crawl into the rain run off pipes(concrete pipes that ran the length of the city)you could almost stand up in them. So we spent a day walking the pipes. Spooky. Especially when a car would drive over a manhole...it would echo like crazy. We exited after hours on the beach in Pacific Grove..I remember eel fishing after the tides would go out,I would go aboloney fishing on the rocks, tuff molusks but Dad would beat the hell out of the meat with a two-by-four and deep fry them. But what really stays with me about this period was several things..I started noticing that hippie chicks..who didn't wear much clothes,(my friends and I were beginning to notice girls)there was an influx of people comming to Monterey wearing very funky 60's clothes(my taste in style was growing even back then)..and the music..I had discovered Hendrix,the Doors,The Beatles..this music moved me! it brought up feelings I didn't know what to do there with!..That year or so was an interesting time,but finally Dad had borrowed enough money from old Lou and we returned to Alaska(and another chapter in my life)..I would not see Monterey again for 12 years and I would never live there again. Still today I feel privaledged to have lived there at the birth of the Summer of Love. A movement that started in Monterey then to Woodstock and (tragically) ended with the Stones and the Hells Angels at Altamont. Yet for me the Summer of Love was all about adventures in my hometown with family,goofy friends ,odd adventures....and music..next "North to ALASKA"!
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