150 years ago......

[Donovan]

that was us. Howdy.

I remember seeing you guys up there, always wondered if it was some kind of hippie commune or something and just never stopped to ask.

Woooo. Freaky cool.

Not exactly hippies, but it was definitely a strange group. I was about 17 then and more of a pothead than a drinker so I don't remember the name of the bar, but we spent a lot of awesome hours wandering those hills. There was drunken Bob and Mexican Bob, two old winos who lived together in a tent like a permanently inebriated Ernie and Bert. They were funny as hell and were our substitute for tv. There were two young guys who were suburban hippie types, Mike and Eric I think were their names, and Eric's sometime girlfriend. They would spend a lot of time down there and wander away, like they had someplace to go. Me, my pop and little brother had the only trailer, pop was working but SF was and is ridiculously expensive just to get INTO a place, like three grand even back then. First, last and deposit. We called the place Harley Rock after the graffiti on that bigass boulder next to the highway, I know you saw it 6footer. It was a landmark.
But the unquestioned best character out there was Stormin Norman, this old hippie wise man who was the deepest and most philosophical dude you could meet, and who only had one hot button which was the Reagan-Bush era politics and the Iran Contra affair. Dude could rant for fucking HOURS on the key players involved, and to this day he is the reason I know who guys like Daniel Inouye and Ollie North were.

When certain people die and I can write some of these adventures down, the adventures at Harley Rock will be told I am sure. Good times and scary shit went down there.