Synopsis - Chapter 13
March 1968 to August 1968 - Jax Beach, Atlantic Beach
I rode my 305 Honda Dream motorcycle from Atlanta to the beach in the spring of 1968. I was about to cap off my year or so of reckless, irresponsible behavior. George was living with Harry Morris, aka H-Bomb, in an upstairs 1 bedroom apartment on the corner of 2nd Avenue South and 2nd Street in Jacksonville Beach. Mike Holtsinger, aka Fox, was also living there. He was the only one of us who had a job, working at Maryland Fried Chicken a block or so away across 3rd Street. Mike used to bring home bags of chicken that were left over, and helped to feed us all. I invited myself in too, and being the hippy days, Harry grudgingly agreed. The Little Bookstore was downstairs. It was a little crowded, but we all got along pretty good. Some of our friends, some of which were still in high school, would come by and hang out too. Harry was supporting himself by selling pot, so we had lots of company. I had smoked a few times, but never got high. It takes a while for some people. Living with a dealer and smoking daily, I started getting a buzz after about a month. We used to clean pot and roll the seeds off the roof of the room below us. Kids who lived at home kept their stash there, in wall panels, in sofa upholstery, wherever. Somebody got busted at Fletcher, and told on somebody, who told on Harry. Ricky Perry was involved in there somewhere. The Jacksonville Beach cops (Richard Pike, Eddie Russell, R. B. Perritte) busted us on April 10, and broke down our front door @ 4 AM. I tried to flush a bag of pot down the toilet , but forgot to stuff it in the hole first. It didn't matter, there was pot everywhere. They found 2 kilos and several of the miscellaneous stashes that were everywhere. They would find someone's bag behind the couch or wherever, and ask, "Is this all?" We'd say yes, and they'd poke around some more and find someone else's stash, and ask again. They kept this up for an hour or so. They trashed the apartment, throwing the contents of drawers on the floor and overturning furniture. Mike remembers telling one of the cops,"You're treating us like murderers!" and the cop replying, " In my eyes, you are!" When they got tired of whatever it was they were doing, they drove us to the Jacksonville Beach Jail, and locked us in individual cells. It was a small cell, and I had to try not to be claustrophobic. When they drove us back to the station, Richard Pike was driving, and he drove like a maniac. He sped, slid corners, and ran stop signs and lights. I don't know what that was all about. It was 5 something AM and we were in an unmarked car.
The next day, the Jax Beach cops took us to Justice of the Peace William S. Gufford for arraignment. One of the cops, a reserve officer, "Tiny" Rutherford, told us as he put us in the back of a car, that he wasn't going to handcuff us, he'd been to the range practicing, and he hoped we'd run. What was that all about? We were just kids, with no criminal background. I was the oldest at 20. Luckily for me, the age of majority was 21 then, and I was a juvenile. We had an attorney present who tried to get the charges dismissed. That was a no go. Maybe Mike Holtsinger's dad hired him. George and my parents were in Georgia, and Harry was on his own. JOP Gufford kept calling marijuana, cannabis sativa L, pronouncing the L every time. I remember thinking that he didn't know that the L was an annotation and not actually part of the name. Who have I let get a hold of me? After the arraignment we were taken downtown to the Duval County jail, where George and I spent the next two days until Dad bailed us out. Everyone should have to go to jail once, just to experience it. I'm happy to say, I've never been back. The inmates treated us good. They had their own culture and rules, and no one was mean or a bully. The older inmates kind of looked out for us, knowing we weren't hard core criminals, we just got caught doing something illegal. We took down some phone numbers and called friends and relatives of the inmates when we were released. Jack McMann and John Joca, 2 of our friends' fathers, came to see us the day before Dad got there. They weren't mad or judgemental, they just smiled and shook their heads. They came to show us support until Dad could get there. They were both stand up guys. We learned a few jailhouse tricks, one of which was to light a roll of toilet paper on the back of the stainless steel commode to heat up coffee in a tin cup. There were no seats on the commode, and there was one in each cell. During the day, all the cell doors were open and you could mingle in a common area between the cell rows. We would read the newspaper, play cards, smoke cigarettes, and hang out. I don't remember there being a television. It got boring fast. We were on the 3rd floor. One night one of the older inmates had a heart attack. We yelled and beat tin cups on the bars, but the guards never came until morning, when they brought breakfast. They took him to a doctor then, I think he was OK. Of course most of the inmates had cigarette rolling down to an art form. Dad got us out after 2 days and we went back to the apartment at 2nd Street. It was a disaster, belongings everywhere and furniture overturned. I think Dad lost a little faith in policemen, although he had definitely been around the block himself. If he ever was in jail, I don't know about it. Dad had rented an apartment on 6th Street and the ocean in Atlantic Beach, from Alan Glenn (who was a story in himself) and we took our things there. Mother and Rosemary were there and nobody was very happy. We stayed there until our trial was over in August. One other thing about our old apartment. Harry was in the same cell block with George and me. He read in the paper on Thursday that the police had found 10 pounds of marijuana. That would have been 2 bricks and several other separate bags. Harry did some figuring and told us to look in the rafters of the garage downstairs, knowing we would get out before him. George kept Dad busy upstairs and I found a compressed kilo of pot in a brown paper grocery bag resting on the rafters of the wooden garage. It was clearly visible. I snagged it and took it to 6th Street and hid it in the attic. I wondered if the cops had just been sloppy and missed it or if they were trying to set up Harry for another bust.
I got a job working for Terry McKendree in the Californian Surf Shop, on the NW corner of Beach Boulevard and 3rd Street. Surfside Pools is in that building now. I was the manager of the used boards shop, which was in a separate room from the new boards, to the east. I also fixed dings for the shop. I sold my 305 Honda Dream and bought a Vespa scooter with surfboard trailer, from Red Danner, and later bought a 1958 VW Panel bus, no side windows, from a man who was using it as a work vehicle. Before I sold my Dream, Tim Swanson, who had been Terry's bodyguard in California, and was a psuedo biker (big and tough, but I don't think he was in a gang) asked if he could ride it one afternoon. I said sure, and he took off down Beach Boulevard dogging it through the gears. I was so mad when he brought it back, I railed at him for abusing my bike. It was my only wheels and I didn't want it torn up. He was actually sincerely apologetic. What was I thinking? Reportedly, at Terry's request, Tim once walked up to a rival drug dealer's (Bobby Lonardo) girlfriend's cherry 1957 Chevrolet convertible, poured a couple of gallons of gasoline on the upholstery and tossed in a match. In broad daylight, in downtown Huntington Beach.
Add on Story: Terry McKendree owned the Californian shop. He had recently been asked to leave Huntington Beach for dealing (Leave or go to jail, I believe was the choice he was given). He drove back in a very cool metallic blue 1956 Chevy Nomad station wagon. He was originally from Fernandina. I worked at the shop selling used boards and fixing dings. Mike the narc and I got into a fistfight in the used board shop once. He had been fixing dings for Terry, and wasn't happy I took away his business. We knocked over most of the boards in the shop, they were in vertical racks, resting on the floor. No one could break up the fight for dodging the falling surfboards. I think I got the best of Mike. Mike was a little older than us and not from around here. We strongly suspected he was narcing on us. I had been busted for possesion of marijuana in April and was grateful to Terry for giving me a job.
I dated our next door neighbor, Anita Edstrom, who was an attractive, frisky, 40 year old blonde hairdresser. She is passed on now, God bless her. I fixed dings in the front yard at 6th Street, placing surfboards on lawn chairs, tables, whatever I could find. I used Red's aluminum frame, bicycle wheel, trailer that I pulled behind the Vespa to haul surfboards back and forth from the shop. His Dad had welded it up from square frame aluminum. It was very sturdy and sometimes carried as many as 8 or more surfboards. When I went to get the tag for the Vespa, the clerk asked me how many horsepower it had. Thinking on my feet, I said 5. It really only had 3 or so, but with 5 hp you got a different tag, and could drive on the expressways, which I did once or twice. An interesting thing about our 2nd story apartment on 6th Street was the only way in or out was via a steel step spiral staircase through a trap door.
I found a 1958 VW cargo van for sale from a workman for $150. It had a 36 HP engine and reduction gears at the rear axles. It had a split front window and a small rear window, sliding driver and passenger windows, and no side windows, no fuel gauge, and a kick bar on the floor for reserve gas. It was very cool. I stripped out the metal bins attached to the left side and put in a bed and a 4 track stereo. The VW was 6 volt so I acquired a 12 volt battery (and 110 volt charger) and ran the tape deck off that. When the tapes started to drag, I would charge the 12 volt battery. I missed 8 tracks altogether, going straight from 4 track to cassette. I painted the formerly faded blue van, with white top, flat black, with a white top, with spray cans one late May afternoon.
On or around June 4, I got up one morning and headed to California in my VW van. I didn't tell anybody, I just left. I'm pretty sure I gave Terry some notice at the surf shop. I was restless, and needed something to be excited about. Our court date had been put off several times and I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. I was pretty sure I was going to be out of the Navy. They found out about our arrest and asked us to write an explanatory letter. George and I each wrote letters saying we didn't think smoking pot was bad, and that it should be legal. George actually wrote his letter on toilet paper. Neither of us wanted to be in the military (obviously). If we had written letters of contrition, the Navy may have let us stay in, I don't know. I was happy to be on the road again. There is a sense of freedom and adventure and unlimited possibilities when you are on the road. It is a whole other reality. You see new things, meet new people, and though you have a goal, anything can happen. I picked up 2 hitchhikers in Louisiana. I was getting tired and sleepy, so I let one of them drive, while I took a nap in the back. They were transients, hobos, whatever you want to call them, in their 30's or so. Hitchhiking was more common in those days, I did my share. I cautioned the driver about staying at 55-60 mph, as the van had a small engine and strained going any faster than that. I woke up an hour or so later and we were doing 65. I told the driver to slow down, and stayed awake til we got where they wanted to go. Later I thought that these guys could have dumped me on the side of the road somewhere and kept going. Most people had more values in that time. I remember fistfighting with hoodlums in high school and never having to fight more than one at a time, when they could have all jumped me. I picked up a newspaper In Texas or New Mexico or maybe Arizona and read that Robert Kennedy had been shot a day or so before (June 6, 1968). I didn't have a radio, only a 4 track tape deck. It made me very sad. Martin Luther King had been slain in April. People who were trying to improve things were being eliminated. Don't tell me there is not a Dark Side. Jeff Cooper, a self defense teacher, used to estimate that 1% of the general population was sociopathic, that they would hurt someone else without feeling bad about it. I made it to Huntington Beach, California, in a day or two, and looked up Steve Cissel, who was living there and working for Greek Surfboards.
Steve had a studio apartment 2 blocks from the Huntington Beach pier. I stayed with him and got a job pumping gas at an Exxon station in Costa Mesa. I remember leaving my emergency brake off when the van was parked on a little hill at the station. One of the guys at the station said, "Hey, isn't that your van?" after spotting it at the bottom of the hill, having clipped off the 4X4 stop sign post at the ground. Luckily there was no other damage. I surfed some on borrowed boards, Steve worked for Greek surfboards, whose shop was close by on the Pacific Coast Highway.
I got a call from Dad around the first of August, saying we had a court date August 14th. I told Steve I was leaving and he decided to go back with me. We moved out of his apartment, said our good byes, packed up the van and headed east. We took I-10, the southern route, and stopped somewhere in the southwest, maybe New Mexico, to go to a drive in movie and see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. There were lots of Mexican/Chicano families there sitting on and in their pick ups. it was quite a social gathering. When the movie was over we resumed driving. We made it back to Florida in time for our trial on August 14th.
Lacy Mahon Jr. represented George and me, for $500. I think that was total, not apiece, although I could be wrong. His father had been an attorney and he was one of the best in Jacksonville. He got us off with 1 year's probation and adjudication of guilt was withheld. It was supposed to be sealed and stricken from our records when we turned 21 and our probation was over. It is still on my FBI record. George and I were both minors at the time of our arrest. Mike Holtsinger had his own lawyer and probably made a similar deal. Harry, however, was sentenced separately to a year at the County Farm, aka the P Farm, since he was selling. George and I reported to our probation officer in Duval County soon thereafter. He had a big caseload and knew we weren't career criminals and told us to call him once a month. I decided to go back to Atlanta and resume studies at DeKalb College. I got permission from our probation officer to leave the county and drove my VW van to Tucker and moved back in with Mother and Dad.
I have no pictures from this time period. If any friends or family has any, I would be grateful if I could copy them.
3/2/2010
