As "Diana, the Chaste Huntress," in the Great Dickens Christmas Fair's Naughty French Postcard Tableaux Vivants; early 1970s.

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Welcome to my past.

I was born the year before WWII ended, and have since led what many people seem to consider a varied and colorful life.

I can’t remember when friends first started telling me that I should write my memoirs, but in 2015, I began posting brief chapters of reminiscence each week as “Throwback Thursday” essays on Facebook.

Before long, readers started telling me that I should compile these essays into a book. While a nice idea, this was impractical because of the sheer number of photos, many in color, involved in over 200 (and counting) essays.

I next considered a website, but upon inquiry, discovered that setting one up would be a very expensive proposition, and I’d still have to do most of the work anyway.

Since I’ve long been familiar with the elements of the free online tool Blogger™, I decided to turn the memoir essays into linked sections, each containing 20 stories. (Apologies for any disparity in type size as a result of importing material from other sources)

These tales are not in any kind of autobiographical order. Many of them are about fascinating people I’ve known, including members of my family. Some are based on my own artwork. They're all just the tiniest bit outrageous.

Welcome to my past.

Photo by Laura Goldman

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COLOR KEY

Red = Tales of the 1960s and 1970s/San Francisco Stories

Pink = Encounters with Remarkable people

Green = Family and Personal Stories

Blue = Sonoma County Stories/Pennsylvania Stories

Black = Renaissance and Dickens Fair(e)s and Other Theater

Purple = Interlocken Center for Experiential Education Stories

Orange = Artwork and Art-Related stories

1. AN ODD LITTLE FISH, OR, SHE'S A KEEPER

2. OAK, ASH & THORN—FOR A GOOD TIME...

3. FOR THE BOYS

4. HAVING A CHEW; A FAMILY TALE

5. MY FAVORITE MOUSEKETEER

6. NEEDLING THE TIGHTS; SECRET PANTYHOSE STRATEGIES REVEALED

7. ART IS WHERE YOU FIND IT; SOME THOUGHTS ON PLYWOOD

8. ANOTHER WAY TO FLY, OR, THE SINGLE GIRL'S GUIDE TO JAPANESE MAPLES

9. TURN, TURN, TURN; DAD DOES RETIREMENT, PART 3.

10. MR. HINES MAKES A DEAL

11. UP FOR THE COUNT; OWLS, PEACOCKS, PASSIONFLOWERS AND VERY SMALL FISH

13. HIGHWAY OBSTETRICS, OR, A SONG BEFORE BREAKFAST

14. A TIMELY ADJUSTMENT

15. BLUE BOOK BLUES; MISS SMARTY-PANTS SQUEAKS BY

16. FAITH AND MAUDIE, Or
OF WAR, WIT, WISDOM, AND WILD WANDERING WOMEN

17. KNITTING A FRIENDSHIP

18. A FIFTIES TIME CAPSULE: BOBBIE'S WEDDING

19. STALKING THE WILD HYPHEN; THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF BEN FONG-TORRES

20. JOHN ENCOUNTERS THE ANGEL OF TERPSICHORE, OR, ROMANCING THE WALTZ

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1. THROWBACK THURSDAY: South Woodstock, VT, 1992

SHE’S A KEEPER

Morgan's birth announcement

My brother David has always had a charmingly idiosyncratic sense of humor, which is why, when little Morgan Fuller Hill was born to him and his wife Susan Fuller in September of 1992, he posed for this somewhat unusual birth announcement.

As an expert in restoration and reconstruction of rural Colonial architecture, David had made numerous friends in Japan while consulting on a project there. Those who received this humorous take on parenthood were somewhat aghast. Most relatives and immediate family members, after an initial wide-eyed double-take, just laughed.

Infant fashionista with mom Susan Fuller.

Morgan inherited a sense of style and humor, not to mention a love of the outdoors and an eye for design, from both parents, and has since applied it to first appearing in Teen Vogue; then becoming a star in fashion design at the Massachusetts Institute of Art; then graduating to a position at the Diane von Fürstenberg fashion empire in New York City; designing shoes for Sam Edelman, and creating all the jewelry shown with fashions by up-and-comer Christopher John Rogers.

A number of her designs appeared in somewhat august company in the German fashion glossy SCHÖN:

Morgan struts her stuff during New York City's Fashion Week in 2020.

Morgan models some of her original designs at Mass Art.

Like her dad (and her auntie), she’s a bit of an odd fish, but, hmm, yes, definitely a keeper.

For more of Morgan's designs:

https://www.instagram.com/morganfhill/?hl=en

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2. THROWBACK THURSDAY, Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire and California in General; 1970s-Present

FOR A GOOD TIME...

Once upon a time, at the Northern California version of the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, there was a group of half-a-dozen or so lusty young bachelors who roistered about the Fairesite, usually occupying unscheduled stages, bellowing centuries-old songs of drink, adventure and sneakily-implied fornication, mostly on-key and often in some kind of harmony.

Over the next year or so, by a kind of natural attrition, singers in the group fell away, until there were three: Doug Olsen (bass), Dale Hill (baritone) and Tom Wagner (tenor). The more they sang together, the more they liked singing together, and the tighter grew their harmonies.

Miss Dolly Muffins, parlourmaid, with the OAT originals (from top to bottom): Tom Wagner, Dale Hill, and Doug Olsen at an early Dickens Christmas Fair, 1970s.

I liked these guys a lot, and happened to be hanging out with them in 1973 when they were searching for a name to accompany their first official Dickens Fair season as a threesome. Remembering the catchy title of a song they’d recently learned (based on a Rudyard Kipling poem), I spoke up:

“Oak, Ash and Thorn?” I suggested. Yowza, said they.

Tom, Dale and Doug performing as Oak, Ash & Thorn at a Dickens Fair.

Later that year, I found myself marooned for a month in a 200-year-old farmhouse in the snowy wastes of rural Vermont in the dreadful dregs of winter. Fortunately for us all, I was also marooned with legendary British folksingers John Roberts and Tony Barrand, their primo collection of traditional-music tapes, and a fancy tape-dubber.

Here are John and Tony performing Rudyard Kipling's "Oak and Ash and Thorn."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjX05HVdK8Y

Going through that great music collection, cherry-picking songs for Oak, Ash and Thorn, then dubbing them onto a single tape kept me from head-dumping into a snowbank out of near-terminal boredom. When the cassette was full, I mailed it off to Dale and pretty much forgot about it.

Until, that is, the next RenFaire, when I suddenly caught, in the contents of OAT’s new act, songs from that tape brilliantly brought to life and wonderfully performed.

Not only could they really sing; they had also acquired a collective personality and bon-vivant-je-ne-sais-quoi that charmed and attracted audiences. In their own words:

“At one point, we sat down and tried to understand what we wanted to give an audience. We were proud of our performance and vocal skills, but we knew those were not world-class caliber—much better than average, but neither operatic nor pop-music-superstar quality. We finally concluded that what we did have to offer was A Good Time.”

And the Good Times continued, through changes in personnel, family and marital status, location, and jobs, for over 40 years. These were the guys:

Dale, Doug and Mitchell

1973 - 1979: Dale Hill, Doug Olsen, and Tom Wagner

1980 - 1992: Dale Hill, Doug Olsen, Dave Swan, and Mitchell Sandler. After about 1986, Tom Wagner would occasionally join in again.

From L: Mitchell Sandler, Dale Hill, Doug Olsen, Dave Swan.

1999 – ?: Doug Olsen, Tom Wagner, Dave Swan

Doug, Tom and Dave

(Dale moved to Maine, where he works as a journalist; Mitchell went totally pro as a bass-baritone and lives in Holland)

The group, in all of its configurations, performed at Renaissance Faires and Dickens Fairs, parties, festivals, coffee houses, house concerts, weddings, bar mitzvahs, wineries, braühauses, and other convivial venues (mostly in the Greater Bay Area), leaving great good cheer and numerous hangovers in their wake.

They made audiences laugh, cry, whistle, and cheer. And most importantly, they made us all sing along. Lustily and willingly.

Today, the group is a bit more grizzled, and a lot more ad hoc. According to their website, shift-changes at work and shifting family commitments make rehearsal opportunities ever more difficult. As their demographic ages, they find themselves singing more frequently at funerals and memorials.

Doug, Tom and Dave in later years.

Still, it’s been quite a run. Forty years ago, they promised us a Good Time.

Did they deliver? Yowza.

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3. THROWBACK THURSDAY, Bangor, Pennsylvania; Early 1940s

FOR THE BOYS

This is what I was told about these photos: during the years of WWII, a number of my mother’s eight sisters were married to servicemen stationed in exotic ports, where, it was presumed, they were likely to encounter many attractive women.

One summer day, at least four of them decided to remind the boys about what they were missing at home; the result was this delightful series of photos.

Jean Arnts Wixon

Betty Arnts Shanahan

Virginia Arnts Gillespie

Janet Arnts Jones

All of their men returned.

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4. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Booneville, Arkansas, c. 1822

HAVING A CHEW (A Family Tale)

My grandfather C.J. (for Carlton Judson) Hill had enjoyed somewhat of a wild and crazy hillbilly youth in Arkansas before marrying my schoolmarm grandmother and settling down to raise three sons.

Granddad

Handsome redheaded C.J. was a kind man who turned out to be a loving father; he was also a restless spirit who seemed to have some difficulty holding down a steady job.

At the time of this story, He was in his early forties, the father of two boys, and supporting his family as a traveling sales rep for a cookie and cracker distributor.

My dad, Howard, still in his first decade, thought that this was just about the ideal job, and, feeling the lure of the open road, repeatedly begged his father to take him along on a sales trip.

When my dad turned ten, C.J. gave in and agreed to take him along on his next trip. Howard was ecstatic and excited, and on the appointed day climbed into his dad’s Model A Ford as if boarding a freighter for the East Indies, then goggled for miles at the unfamiliar sights unrolling at 20 mph.

C.J.’s first stop was at a general store, and to my dad’s delight, he was given an entire nickel to spend while waiting around. Feeling himself to be quite grown up now, and no doubt influenced by the habits of many of the men and older boys he knew, he made a single purchase—a nickel plug of chewing tobacco.

Dad at left, with big brother Horace.

These were, it must be said, the early 1920s, long before selling tobacco products to minors had become an issue, especially not in Arkansas, where boys often started to dip snuff or chew tobacco before they were out of short pants. My grandmother, it should be said, had banned the use of tobacco products in their immediate family, a dictate that my grandfather followed, at least when he was at home.

C.J saw my dad buying the tobacco, but never said a word, even when they were back in the car and Dad ostentatiously pulled the nickel plug from his pocket and declared: “Well, I think I’ll have a chew.” My grandfather appeared to be concentrating on his driving as his son took a large chaw of tobacco, his first ever.

The natural effect of tobacco on human salivary glands is well known to anyone who has ever watched baseball players spitting streams of disgusting brown liquid onto the ground or discreetly into containers. My dad’s mouth filled up with the nauseous stuff, and soon he was sitting there in misery, with no place to spit, swallowing impossible, and asking his dad for help a terrible humiliation to all his manly aspirations.

Eventually, my grandfather, still without a word, pulled the car over to the side of the road; my dad erupted out of it into the woods, and let us draw a discreet veil over what he did there. White-faced and nauseated, he climbed back into the car. His dad started up the engine and resumed driving.

A few minutes later, C.J. glanced over at his son and remarked casually, man-to-man, “You know, Howard, I’ve been thinkin'; you got such pretty teeth, maybe you didn’t oughta chew.”

Relieved beyond measure, my dad pretended to consider this for about two seconds, and then announced with equal sangfroid, “Guess I won’t chew, then,” and flung the tobacco plug out of the car, never to get within spitting distance of one again.

Dad

My granddad passed on in 1943 (I never got to meet him but wish I had.) My dad died in 2010. At the age of 96, he still had remarkably pretty teeth.

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5. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Los Angeles, California, 1955-57; Northern Renaissance Pleasure Faires and Dickens Christmas Fairs, Early 1970s-1990s

MY FAVORITE MOUSEKETEER

If you were middle-class, near-pubescent and American in 1955-59, you were probably one of the millions of kids who watched Walt Disney’s original “Mickey Mouse Club” on TV and wanted desperately to be a Mouseketeer.

Dennis is in back row, center

The hour-long show aired every weekday just before dinnertime; its bright-eyed little stars, the Mouseketeers (aged 8-14) sang-and-danced their way through production numbers; acted in skits; appeared in movies, serialized adventure stories, and Disneyland shows; and even managed to make those stupid mouse-ear hats look somehow…cool.

OK, I confess, I was one of the wannabes; I had the hat, the T-shirt, the membership card. I knew every name in the “Mouseketeer Roll Call”— Cubby! Karen! Bobby! Sharon! Lonnie! Annette! Tommy!, etc., etc…including “Dennis!”—aka Dennis Day, the skinny whiz-kid dancer with the cocky grin.

One of the first Mouseketeers cast, Dennis modeled a prototype outfit with outsized ears.

Dennis (at left) with Bobby Burgess

..and in a skit with Doreen Tracey

The first time I met Dennis in person, however, he was dressed in rags, weeds, and facial prosthetics, threatening me with a pitchfork. This was in the 1970 Northern version of the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, and a new wrinkle had been added to the big noon pageant in the interests of liveliness and authenticity.

Dennis captivates a Faire audience in a pageant known to performers as"The Boat Show."

I was the Harvest Maid, and whereas I had formerly jumped from my processional hay-cart onto the stage, danced a merry little jig, received three cheers and exited, this year I was to be threatened mid-dance by “The Hag of the Harvest” (Dennis), then rescued by “Hermes, Son of Zeus” (the unforgettable Carl Arena).

Harvest Maid.

One day, after we’d gotten our routine down, Dennis approached me before the show in a panic because he’d forgotten the four lines of authentic but dull Harvest-Hag verse that accompanied his entrance. We put our heads together and re-invented the lines into a form so easily memorized that they spontaneously became traditional at the Faires for many years—apparently nobody ever noticed the change.

"The Hag of the Harvest am I,

Wither and blight are my trade,

This harvest I'll send a-rust and a-wry,

And ravish the bloom from this maid!"

Dennis in Faire character.

That was our first collaboration. The second had more far-reaching consequences. I was then writing for Rolling Stone, and the subject of the Mouseketeers came up in an office discussion of nostalgia.

I mentioned that I actually knew one, and before I knew it, Dennis (who loved the idea) and I were spending a rather surreal weekend in Los Angeles visiting with some of his old castmates to produce an article called “The Confessions of an Ex-Mouseketeer.”

The 1973 Rolling Stone article.

Like Dennis, said former Disney “mice” were happy to dish about life behind the scenes in Uncle Walt’s mousetrap, where a system of “teams” and limited contracts was used to keep kids and stage mothers in line, and occasional budget woes had the growing kiddies dancing in too-tight-tap-shoes and boob-binding T-shirts (and even the Disney-perfect Mouseketeers did stuff you couldn’t show on TV). Still by current standards, it was a cheery and not-that-scandalous write-up.

Photos from the Rolling Stone article. On the left is a very stoned Dennis at the 1968 Mouseketeer reunion show, on the right as a dance instructor.

Except, perhaps, for the contributions of Dennis himself, who had no objection to my outing him in print as bisexual, and who provided a hilarious narration of what it was like to film the first Mouseketeer reunion (for Mickey’s 40th birthday) in 1968 while thoroughly stoned.

I only learned years later from a Mouseketeer website that the contents of my article were banned from Disney-sanctioned books on the MMC and had “sent shock waves through the Disney publicity department.”

For years Dennis was a brilliant, energetic, original and crowd-pleasing performer in the Renaissance Faires, Dickens Christmas Fairs and other events produced by the Living History Center in Novato, CA. One of the workshops he taught concerned the creation of believable Faire characters for first-time actor wannabes, out of which came this anecdote:

Teaching a workshop.

On one beginners'-workshop day, Dennis had just finished outlining the necessity for environmental-theater actors to have a backstory and a realistic persona that guided their actions and interactions throughout the Faire day.

He listed a series of acceptable stock characters for first-timers (hawker, farmhand, parade participant, laundrywoman, ale-server, etc.), then asked if anyone already knew what kind of character they wanted to portray.

One sweet young thing, clearly unclear on the concept, piped up: "I want to be a fairy!"

"Right," said Dennis, without missing a beat, "Here's your audition: go up to the top level of the main stage (indicating a hulking structure several hundred yards away), and fly your little ass back down here to me. Then you can be a fairy."


The onstage brilliance of Dennis Day as Victorian music-hall entertainer Dan Leno.

In between Faires, Dennis taught drama and dance, produced live events for public- and private-sector institutions, did commercials, wrote a dance manual, directed stage musicals, and managed a head shop.

In the 1980s, with his partner-now-husband, fellow Faire performer Ernie Caswell, he started a company called “Creature Comfits,” producing jams, jellies and other treats, and serving refreshing teas and drinks at Faires.

Dennis (L) and Ernie at their 2009 wedding. They'd been together since the early 1970s.

Of the 39 kids who wore the mouse-ears at one time or another, a few went on to solid show-business careers. Many went “civilian.” As of this writing, at least ten have died, and others, sadly, crashed and burned. But except for appearing on another televised reunion show in 1980, Dennis seems to have pretty much outgrown his Disney Mousehood.

Dennis at on the 1980 Mouseketeer Reunion show.

He and Ernie now live happily withdrawn from the public eye, and Dennis wears silly hats only when he feels like it.

2020 Postscript: Dennis died tragically in 2018, and Ernie passed on in 2019. May they be together.

The MickeyMouseClubYouTube Channel assembled this lovely short tribute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtTP5Jyl3Cw&t=2s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Day_(Mouseketeer)

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6. THROWBACK THURSDAY: San Francisco, California, 1971

NEEDLING THE TIGHTS: ORIGINAL PANTYHOSE STRATEGIES REVEALED

OK, so it was 1971, and skirt/dress fashions were all about the mini. In those days, I enjoyed playing with fashion as much as I liked living in sometimes-chilly/foggy San Francisco.

Warm tights were an obvious solution, but I was on a budget (my monthly rent had just gone up to $50, and bus/streetcar rides to a quarter). I had, however, discovered the art of embroidery-as-repair some time before, so one day, when my favorite pair of tights snagged, I thought, “Why not?”

The results were a hit with the women at the Rolling Stone office, one of whom mentioned my unusual pantyhose solution to San Francisco Chronicle feature writer Bev Stephen, who was either charmed by the concept or unusually pressed to fill column space that week.

I have to admit that I was a bit nonplussed by the slightly cheesecake effect of the accompanying photos, especially that nearly intrusive center shot, but primed by years of figure skating in teensy skirts, I was probably wearing a pair of sturdy stretchy scarlet skating panties underneath that mini.

Flashing my red panties in an early-1960s skating scene. My mother, at left, is also wearing red panties, but with more modesty.

(I had discovered that these nethergarments added an extra measure of warmth, not to mention modesty, to the fashions of the day, while also—no small deal—keeping my tights from sagging.)

Shortly after that article appeared, I received a call from the Needlework Editor (I am not making this up) from Woman’s Day, a sweetly bland and housewifely magazine founded in 1931 (and still going strong; my mom subscribed to it for years). Here’s a quote from one of their ads in the mid-1960s:

“Woman’s Day doesn't tell a lot of funny stories, and it doesn't run pictures of fashions its readers could never afford… Woman’s Day more than any other magazine— is a trusted advisor in the day-in-day-out work that's a housewife's chosen profession. That's our profession. And we're proud of it.”

Having seen the Chron article, the Needlework Editor commissioned me to custom-embroider a pair of pantyhose and write an article about how to do it.

They paid me, but I would have done it just for the unlikely private giggle of being published in Rolling Stone and Woman’s Day at the same time.

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7. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Graton, California, c. 2001

ART IS WHERE YOU FIND IT; SOME THOUGHTS ON PLYWOOD

The Joe Rodota Trail. Mr. Rodota was the architect of the Sonoma County parks system.

The piece of found art below was photographed during a walk on the Joe Rodota Trail, former right-of-way of the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Electric Railway (aka the “Chicken and Cow Line”), and a brilliant piece of land repurposing that runs through a lovely swath of Western Sonoma County, providing never-ending changes of vista.

This green-framed image graces a window space on the trail-facing side of a woodworking shop located in a former apple-storage shed. Do you see two mystical golden horses? Or standing/seated/kneeling robed-and-cowled figures? Or maybe just a sheet of plywood?

On seeing this image, I started to wonder who invented plywood, and how it was made. The answer:

This invaluable building material was thought up around 3500 B.C. by the Egyptians, who stuck several thinner layers of wood together to make one thick layer. They originally did this during a shortage of quality wood, gluing very thin layers of finer wood over lesser stuff.

What we now know as plywood was invented by Immanuel Nobel, father of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize. Like the Egyptians, the elder Nobel realized that several thinner layers of wood bonded together are stronger than one single thick layer.

On a winter hike on the JR Trail

Plywood production requires a good log, called a "peeler," which is generally straighter and larger in diameter than those processed into regular lumber by a sawmill.

The log is laid horizontally and rotated about its long axis while a long blade is pressed into it, causing a thin layer of wood to peel off into sheets of veneer, which are then cut to the desired dimensions, dried, patched, glued together and baked in a press at 140 °C (280 °F) and 1.9 MPa (2800 psi) to form a panel that can then be patched, re-sized, sanded or otherwise refinished, depending on the market for which it is intended.

Painted/worn plywood panel with chain-link overlay, found as part of a fence surrounding the Sebastopol Little League playing field.

So now you know; the “ply” in plywood, by the way, comes from the Latin word for “to fold,” as in “pleat” or “pliable."

My brother David is a down-to-earth kind of guy with a picturesque turn of speech. He also happens to be a recognized authority on rural American Colonial architecture.

David with Roxylepup.

I once heard him say to someone who was gushing romantically over 18th-century building techniques: “Yeah, but I bet there were times when those old builders would have given their left nut for a decent piece of plywood.”

Useful, and it can even be art.

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8. THROWBACK THURSDAY: New York, New York to San Francisco, California, 1973-74

THE SINGLE GIRL’S GUIDE TO JAPANESE MAPLES

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO FLY

In the summer of 1973, I flew from New York to California on an airline called Freelandia.

If that sounds a bit mythical, that’s because it practically was: Freelandia was in business for less than a year. It was started by Ken Moss, a Syracuse classmate who dropped out, made a bundle in the stock market, and bought an ex-United Airlines DC-8-21 and a Convair 880, both of which he had painted a bright yellow.

Freelandia founder Ken Moss with an admiring friend in 1973.

In order to get around Civil Aeronautics Board fees and limitations, the venture was founded as a non-profit private travel club, with members voting on where the company's planes would fly.

A yearly membership of $25 got you cross-country flights or San Francisco-to-Honolulu for $69, and NY-to-Brussels for $100. Income in excess of operating costs was to be donated to free clinics, free schools, and artists.

As I recall from my Freelandia experience, there were a few conventional airline seats in the front and back of the plane; the rest of the cabin space was devoted to a lushly carpeted lounge furnished with a waterbed, cushy chairs, pillows and beanbags—all with correctly attached seatbelts.

The in-flight service included homemade soups, organic sandwiches, salads, snacks, wines and beers, and complete vegetarian meals. As for entertainment, options included books, chess, video games, rock music, and a pinball machine. One passenger (unnamed) was quoted in an online article:

A Freelandia plane with organic-salad insert.

“It’s an incredible party. I always arrive knowing everyone on the flight, and the last time I flew east, a couple of people started in with guitars and bongos, and everybody danced all over the plane…Once in L.A., I waited a week to get a flight on Freelandia ’cause once you fly this way, it’s really hard to put up with the bullshit of other airlines.”

And what a trip it was while it lasted. The folks on my flight were mostly under 30 and a very interesting bunch. About a half-dozen of us really bonded, and when we reached our destination, we all—pre-Internet—exchanged addresses and phone numbers.

A few weeks later, I answered the door of the house where I lived (885 Clayton Street in San Francisco), and there was Ed, a very sweet guy from the flight, holding a coffee can that had been painted sky blue with white clouds and a rainbow. It contained what looked like a small tree.

“I was in the neighborhood,” said Ed, “And I thought you might like to have one of my special plants.”

As it happened, I had recently moved to a room with a large west-facing bay window, and was actively looking for vegetation to sop up and filter all that abundant afternoon sunlight. “Does it like sun?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” said Ed, and went on to his next errand.

I put the plant on a table by the window, and watered it regularly.

And it grew.

And grew.

And grew, almost faster than I could re-pot it, until it reached the eight-foot ceiling from a floor-level container.

I was delighted with its shading properties, and so, when it ran out of headroom, not knowing any better, I snipped off the top, dipped the stem into a rooting compound, and found a pot for the new little plant.

Which grew.

And grew.

And grew. I repeated this process a few more times until I had a healthy stand of plants that screened the light beautifully and imparted to the room a pleasantly sylvan aspect.

One day, Faith, my landlady, happened to come to my door, and did a double-take. “My,” said she, after a moment, “Those sure are healthy-looking…Japanese maples.”

When it became necessary to trim the Japanese maples to avoid crowding or overgrowth, certain of my housemates were very considerate about helping to dispose of the trimmings.

In one of my favorite Roger Steffens photos from 1974 ("Clare Helping Amie With Her Outfit"), two bushy Japanese maples have either been rendered translucent by the strong light from the window or are glowing all on their own.

At one point, someone decided to use them to season a panful of brownies, which they left in the free-to-take area of the kitchen. That evening, on my way out to a party in Oakland, I ate one.

As the BART train pulled into the nearly deserted and echoing Oakland station, it suddenly seemed like a truly creepy space, and the thought of walking the dim streets I had to navigate to get to the party became kind of scary. I was about to panic, when into my mind popped a collective little green voice.

“Hey,” it said, “It’s OK; it’s just us. We live with you, remember?”

With that, a misty golden haze fell over the evening, and my friends and I had a lovely time.

The plants and I cohabited happily for quite a while, but eventually my leafy roommates contracted a nasty case of spider mites. I fought the good non-toxic fight for some time, but when a friend offered to take them off my hands, containers, spider mites and all, I agreed with some relief.

Before they left, however, I placed several where they could cast shadows on the wall above my futon. I then traced the outlines lightly in pencil, filled them in with paint of the same basic color but just a shade or two darker than that already on the wall.

Henceforth I slept soundly, watched over by the shades of Japanese maples past.

Sadly, Freelandia Airways had to end operations in May of 1974 as a result of the 1973 oil crisis, though the concept did take root dirtside in the form of the Grey Rabbit and Green Tortoise alternative cross-country bus lines.

A Green Tortoise stop in the 1970s; unlike Freelandia, the company is still going strong.

Ed Rosenthal with less hair and more authority.

The next time I saw Ed Rosenthal, he was on the cover of High Times magazine, happily advocating for the legalization of special plants everywhere.

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9. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Mammy Morgan’s Hill, Pennsylvania, 1975-1990s

TURN, TURN, TURN

DAD DOES RETIREMENT (#3)

When my dad Howard retired from his job as a marketing executive in 1975, it was with an extensive things-to-do-now list.

JUST RETIRED: Howard and Barbara, happy to be back on the farm after about nine years of corporate-chess-enforced absence.

One project that he eventually got around to was establishing a woodshop inside a little cabin-like building known as a “brooder house,” used by previous owners of our 25-acre farm property as a heated shelter for young animals.

This Google Earth photo of the farmhouse (taken during a drought in 2018) shows the Brooder House at lower right

He had picked up an antique lathe somewhere, probably at a farm auction, and had a grand time restoring it to working order. Having done so, he kind of felt obligated to put it to use in manufacturing hand-turned wooden objects.

After a short learning curve that produced a bunch of odd spool-y objects and a salad bowl for my mother, he very typically decided to get creative—a wooden teapot lid after his favorite got broken; elegant turned handles for humble garden tools (Exhibit A);

Exhibit A: Me posing with a unique tool that is one of the best I’ve ever encountered for precision weeding: a bent file mounted on a hand-turned handle. My dad copied it from one owned by his 101-year-old Italian gardening friend, the Reverend Caravetta.

I take no credit for the lush tomato plants in the background, which were grown by my neighbor Karen Felker, who also took the photo.

A close-up of the weeding tool.

...and a charming series of small pears made of very special pearwood (Exhibit B).

Exhibit B: This sweet little object was one of my dad's earliest projects made from wood culled from a butt-ugly pear tree below our house. This tree was ancient, gnarled, bent, broken and stunted. At least once ever few years it would fall down and need to be hoisted upright and held with guywires. But every summer, without fail, it produced a bumper crop of the most delicious pears I’ve ever tasted.

The note in the photo reads: “This piece is from the tired old pear tree below the house that taught us how good pears could be.” For some reason, I love the tiny flecks of red tractor paint that managed to get flicked onto the wood.

Then he decided to get really inventive, and as a result produced a series of artifacts unique in the annals of wood-turning.

For instance, when I asked for a darning egg (a round wooden object placed in, say, the heel of a sock to keep it from bunching while being darned/rewoven). I received an elegant long-handled tool made from a mulberry branch (C).

Exhibit C: Darning egg

Next Howard presented me with an odd little footed cup in elegantly grained wood (D). I used to have great fun challenging woodworkers to figure out what it was made of; they never did (answer below). This is probably the only object of its kind on the planet.

D. This cup, believe it or not, was turned from a thick chunk of aged poison-ivy vine that my dad had lying around. Although the toxic oils had probably long since evaporated, he gave it a couple of coats of verithane to be sure. Only Howard.

Ditto for the prime piece in my collection, a finial-lidded box (E) that's surprisingly lovely, considering the material out of which it was crafted.

This lidded box was crafted from a piece of poison-sumac tree, similarly aged and treated.

Dad’s latheing period eventually dwindled into the next learning curve, which could have been upholstering, skate-sailing, memoir-writing, civic improvement, or any one of a few dozen other pursuits.

But still, whenever I see a nicely hand-turned object, I smile in memory of Howard, who, like all of his creations, was absolutely one of a kind.

####################

10. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Boston, Massachusetts, and Interlocken Center for Experiential Education, 1960-73

MR. HINES MAKES A DEAL

Interlocken co-founder and director Richard Herman is one of the most intensely affable people you’d ever want to meet, a sweet combination of charm, charisma, and chutzpah, rocking a hint of daredevil, and more than a touch of rascal.

With Richard at the Bar Mitzvah of his son Tom, named for Thomas Hines.

Although he’s considered by many to be one of the great educators of his time, in 1960 Richard was merely a callow youth with a big idea.

That spring, he had graduated at age 20 from the University of Massachusetts with a liberal arts degree, little money, and no business training whatsoever. He was, however, powerfully focused on a personal dream—the creation of a summer camp based on his own ideas and educational experiences.

In addition to public school and day camp, his youthful resumé then included eleven years as a Boy Scout, four summers of working in international and humanist-influenced summer camps, and a year of studies with the Scandinavian Seminar at the International People’s College in Elsinore, Denmark.

That fall, while attending grad school in education, Richard was introduced to a remarkable man named Thomas H. Hines, who was just on the cusp of retiring from half a century as a director of physical education in the Boston school system and 35 years as director of the Windsor Mountain Boys Camp, at the edge of Boulder Lake (also known as Black Pond), in the vanished town of Windsor, NH.

Photos of Mr. Hines are scarce, but I was able to find an obituary...

...and a gravestone. He, his wife Elydia (1892-1989), and his eldest son Tom Jr. (1931-2012) are the only 20th-century entries among the Revolutionary- and Civil-War veterans and early pioneers in the lovely little Black Pond Cemetery.

As Richard recalls that meeting: “I told Mr. Hines about my past activities, and my dream of starting a summer camp with a completely new approach to education, and also that I had no money, but that I was going to do it somehow.

‘I went on at great length, and when I finally ran out of steam, he sized me up in that direct way of his, and said ten words I’ll never forget: ‘Young man, you’re just the person I’ve been looking for.’”

Thomas Hines proceeded to take Richard under his wing, and became his valued mentor. In his heart, Mr. H. probably would have liked to simply give Richard the large parcel that adjoined his own summer camp, but in order to instill in his eager young friend some of the practical sense needed for such a venture, he drew up a contract, setting a price and a timetable of quarterly payments.

Richard took a teaching job, but spent a great deal of time designing and creating the physical layout of his new camp. He managed to scrape up the first payment, possibly out of personal savings and family loans, but, as the second deadline loomed, he was fresh out of money and further sources of income.

Except…

Mr. Hines, hoping to attract some of the parents of his own campers for rustic weekends, had built six sturdy cabins on the land that would become Interlocken. To be more attractive to city folks, the cabins were equipped with indoor toilets and prefab kitchen units.

Two of the cabins in question.

Knowing that his campers would have no use for kitchens—a new dining hall was even then under construction—Richard concocted a plan. He visited local motel owners to determine if any of them would be interested in upgrading with kitchen units, and found a taker.

He then went to Mr. Hines, and, as Richard remembers it, something like the following dialogue took place:

THOMAS HINES: “So let me get this straight, Richard: what you’re saying is that you want to sell the kitchen units (which I own) from the cabins (which I own) to make your payment on the property (which I own).”

RICHARD HERMAN: “That’s right, sir.”

THOMAS HINES (after thinking it over for a minute or two): “I have to admire your ingenuity, Richard; it’s a deal.”

Richard Herman as a canny New Hampshire State Legislator in later years.

Like his first meeting with Richard, this was a conversation that would affect thousands of people over many years.

From that point on, Richard never missed a payment. In 1961, he married 19-year-old Susan Jane Goldsmith, who was to become a brilliant administrator.

Richard (at left) and Susan (second from right) Herman participate in an instrumental workshop with legendary bluegrass player Bill Keith (R.) in the 1960s.

That summer the Interlocken International Camp for Boys opened on a shoestring and a prayer, and never looked back, initiating travel programs in 1967; going co-ed in 1970; expanding into job-training and sailing programs; adding school-year and family programs; overseeing international friendship camps in China, Israel and the then USSR; and setting educational precedents for years and decades to come.

Richard and Susan Herman (at right) in 1967 with participants in Interlocken's first travel program.

Mr. Hines retired with his wife Elydia to a brick house just down the road from Interlocken, and continued to be a valued and beloved guide and mentor until his passing in 1973.

Now, there was a man who obviously knew a good deal when he saw one.

Tom and Elydia's graves are behind the bushes. The Hines family has taken care of the cemetery for generations.

################

11. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Northampton and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania, late 1950s-early 1960s; Tennessee and Boston, Massachusetts, 1970s-2019

UP FOR THE COUNT

PEACOCKS, PASSIONFLOWERS, OWLS, AND VERY SMALL FISH

When I was in my mid-teens, I had a friend named Peter who was a born naturalist and outdoorsman. He was apparently much more interested in the natural world than in the social whirl, a fact that began to concern his mom and dad (good friends of my parents) when he turned sixteen and showed little inclination to ask girls out on dates.

Peter, from his school yearbook.

He wasn’t otherwise inclined; he just preferred to spend his time rock-climbing, canoeing, or studying, say, the breeding habits of wolves or the migratory patterns of kestrels.

Then 15 years old, I was still a bit of a tomboy, so our ‘rents got together and fixed us up. On our first date, Peter was immensely relieved to discover that I was, as he put it, “a girl, but not, you know, a girl girl.”

We made a kind of pact to spend time together, not only to keep his parents from fretting, but because we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.

As a result, I would find myself willy-nilly dangling from rock faces with buzzards circling overhead (true); nearly peeing my pants while whitewater-canoeing down a stretch of the Delaware River accurately known as Foul Rift; and adopting and raising a baby owl (Peter already had one).

Me and Wol

With all this, it was somehow logical that when Peter needed someone to clean up and impersonate a girl for a big spring weekend at his tony all-boys prep school, he turned to me.

The event was a fascinating look at an entirely different social stratum.

As Peter and I box-stepped staidly at the Saturday-night formal dance, another couple swept stylishly by. The boy was tall, angularly handsome, and a fine dancer. I recognized his partner as a girl with whom I’d attempted to have a pleasant conversation earlier, only to be snubbed when I turned out not to know any of her Main-Line Philadelphia socialite friends.

As they turned in a tight circle, I gleefully noted two things: the expression of exaggerated innocence on the boy’s face, and the long skinny orange-and-black-striped Princeton tiger-tail stocking-cap that trailed out from under the back of his formal jacket like an actual caudal appendage.

“Who is that?” I asked Peter. “Oh,” he replied, “That’s Zigi.” (He pronounced it “Ziggy.”) “He’s a Polish Count.”

I had been introduced during the weekend to the sons of minor movie stars and celebrities, but come on, a genuine Count?

The boy walked by, sans girl (she wasn’t his date), and Peter waved him over and introduced us. The tiger-tail was nowhere in evidence, and, as the three of us conversed, Zigi turned out to be a delightful fellow.

Not long afterwards, I received a letter from the delightful fellow, inviting me to tea with his family—as it turned out, they lived about 13 miles away from mine. Peter, happily preparing for a summer out west working with a pair of famed naturalists, thought it was a fine idea.

Tea with the Broel-Platers made me feel as if I’d been dropped into the pages of some lovely eccentric novel. Zigi’s dad, Count Konstanty Ignace Edward Maria Broel-Plater, was tall, distinguished, and every inch the polite aristocrat. (His Polish rank was the equivalent of an English earl’s.)

Mum was a tweedy and ebullient Englishwoman named Griselda (“Call me Grizel!”), every bit as charming and amusing as her son. Zigi’s younger siblings, Marek and Stenya, were sweet and funny.

They all lived in a lovely old rambling farmhouse, with actual peacocks stalking around the lawn, and passionflowers climbing everywhere.

The place was full of fascinating antiques, including a set of venerable documents tracing the family’s noble origins back to medieval times (we’re talking 1100s), and a big silver soup ladle with a twisted hole, punctured during a German plane's strafing attack as the elder Count’s family’s escaped from Poland carrying a few household goods. (The family insisted it was the perfect tool for straining oysters out of stew.)

Zigi and I proceeded to have a delightful summer, punctuated with daylong road trips in his grandfather’s 1953 Cadillac. I don’t remember much boyfriend/girlfriend action, just a deep mutual appreciation of each other’s conversation, humor and sense of adventure.

Zigi's granddad, another Count Zygmunt

Over the next months, I helped Peter through another mandatory formal weekend, and introduced Zigi to ice-skating (it was not a good match). That was also the Year of the Owl.

In the fall of 1961, after spending the summer traveling with my family, I left for Germany as an exchange student. Zigi left for his freshman year at Princeton.

And Peter was killed in a senseless road accident.

There were no words.

Zigi and I lost touch. For 46 years.

Then, in 2017, I was scrolling through a list of TED talks when a familiar name popped up. I decided to see what my charming friend had been up to all this time.

This is what:

*********************************

ZYGMUNT JAN BROEL-PLATER

American Law educator, consultant. Bar: Tennessee 1974, District of Columbia 1976, Supreme Court of the United States Court 1978. Named Conservationist of Year National Wildlife Federation, Tennessee Cons. League,1978. Member American Bar Association, Society American Law Teachers, National Reserve Defense Council, Sierra Club.

Zigi as a young firebrand. His talk on the snail-darter imbroglio can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55nVQWiC2bw

EDUCATION
AB, Princeton University, 1965; Juris Doctor, Yale University, 1968; Master of Laws, University of Michigan, 1973; Doctor of Juridical Science, University of Michigan, 1982

CAREER
Lecturer, Haile Selassie Law Faculty, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1968-1971; assistant professor, U. Tennessee Law School, Knoxville, 1973-1976; Attorney Little Tennessee River Alliance, 1974-1980; professor, Wayne State Law School, Detroit, 1976-1981; professor, Boston College Law School, Newton, Massachusetts, since 1981. Visiting professor University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1980, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987, 90; Japanese National Council on Water Resource Protection, 1981-1988, Alaska Oil Spill Commission/Alaska Sea Grant, 1989-1990.

Zygmunt Plater teaches and researches in the areas of environmental, property, land use, and administrative agency law. Over the past 30 years he has been involved with a number of issues of environmental protection and land use regulation, including service as petitioner and lead counsel in the extended endangered species litigation over the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico Dam, representing the endangered snail darter, farmers, Cherokee Indians, and environmentalists in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal agencies, and congressional hearings.

His book The Snail Darter and the Dam—The Story of a Small Endangered Fish’s Travels Through the Corridors of American Power, is published by Yale University Press and being made into a documentary film series.

A later edition of the book with subtitle slightly altered.

[Plater] was chairman of the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission’s Legal Task Force over a two-year period after the wreck of the M/V Exxon-Valdez. He was a consultant to plaintiffs in the Woburn toxic litigation, Anderson et al. v. W.R. Grace et al., the subject of the book and movie A Civil Action. Drawing upon his work for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Commission, he researched and consulted on responses to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

**********************************

Peter would have been so damn proud.

Zigi and I are now re-connected online. We’ve exchanged missing life histories and long-ago memories, and keep very lightly in touch.

He doesn’t enjoy the bureaucracy of a college law department, but does take pleasure in teaching the next generations of environmental-law warriors (though none of them probably have a clue that their dedicated and celebrated professor moonlights as Polish nobility).

This September (2019), Zigi will be presented with the American Bar Association’s SEER Award for Excellence in Environmental Energy and Resources Stewardship.

He probably won’t be sporting a tiger-tail to lighten the occasion, but then again, with Zigi, you never know.

##################

12. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Mammy Morgan’s Hill, Pennsylvania; 1940s-1960s

HOWARD AND THE SYCAMORE

When I was a child in the late 1940s, it was simply a fact of life that my dad couldn’t hear very well. He wore a big clunky hearing aid in his pocket, with a button-on-a-wire that he stuck in his ear. This contraption seemed to have a mind of its own, occasionally fading out or erupting in annoying feedback squeals.

Me and my dad in 1945. His hearing aid never appeared in any family photos.

He bore all of this so matter-of-factly that we kids just thought of it as how things were in our family, and talked louder. We know now that he was suffering from otosclerosis, one of the most common causes of progressive hearing loss in young adults.

Otosclerosis is caused by an abnormal growth of bone on the stapes (Latin for stirrup), one of the three small bones in the middle ear named for their hammer, anvil, and stirrup-like shapes.

These tiny bones are vital for transmitting sound waves from the outer ear into the inner ear. In otosclerosis, slow bone growth on the stapes eventually prevents it from vibrating normally in response to sound.

The condition is most often inherited; if left untreated, hearing loss typically worsens until late middle age, when complete deafness occurs. (Probably the most well-known otosclerosis victim was Beethoven.)

This was the future my dad faced squarely, as he did most obstacles. In college, he had had enough hearing left to do well in his studies, play team sports, and even, incredibly, rid himself of the Arkansas accent that he thought made him sound like a hick to his Yankee classmates. (When I first met my grandmother and uncles, I was surprised that they all spoke with a pronounced southern drawl.)

They called him the "Silent Son of the Southwest" because he spent all of his time listening.

When Howard took a post-college job, he worked his way up through company ranks from soda-jerk to marketing research executive, probably combining the use of his hearing aid with residual hearing, lip-reading and his strong intuition.

Then, in the late 1960s, as Dad approached his fifties, ear specialists perfected a procedure called a stapendectomy, in which the ossified bone was removed and replaced with a tiny wire connected to the other two bones.

Dad signed up immediately. After surgery on one ear, if he aimed it in the right direction, he no longer needed the hearing aid. (I remember that he had to take niacin tablets to promote blood flow to his head; he and my mother joked that they “were both taking hot-flash pills.”)

The executive, not long before surgery.

For a while, whenever a sound seemed too loud to him, he would grab for his missing hearing aid to turn it down. Some months later, he had the second surgery; this time the bone was replaced by a tiny stapes-shaped bit of plastic.

And, utterly miraculously, he could now hear as well as anyone. It was remarkable how little time it took before most people forgot that he’d ever been deaf at all.

Some years later, during a picnic reunion of my mother’s large family at our place, I drifted over to where a bunch of adults, including my dad, were comfortably ensconced on lawn chairs in the shade.

They were talking about favorite sounds, in tropes (“rain on the roof”) and anecdotes (“I was watching the sunset one evening, and this mockingbird started singing…”

I noticed that my dad had gotten kind of a faraway look on his face, just as one of the aunts said: “What about you, Howard?”

This is how he responded:

“When I walked out of the hospital after my second ear surgery, it was an absolutely perfect late-October day. I was just standing there, enjoying the sun on my face, when the most amazing thing happened.

“One of the dried leaves of a big old sycamore next to the path detached itself from the top of the tree, and I actually heard it hit half-a-dozen branches on the way down.

“It was one of the most beautiful moments of my entire life.”

He looked away, a little embarrassed that his eyes were welling up a little. That was OK; the rest of us were busy blinking back our own tears.

Such a simple thing; such a complex little miracle.

##################

13. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Marlboro, Vermont, and On the Road; November, 1972

HIGHWAY OBSTETRICS
Or
A SONG BEFORE BREAKFAST

As I’ve written here before, I spent my summers in the early 1970s traveling the east-coast folk festival circuit with British singers/instrumentalists John Roberts and Tony Barrand. I was, however, only peripherally involved in this wonderful tale.

On November 14th, 1972, Tom and Mary Toleno were in a real fix. An early blizzard had just hit southern Vermont and was belting down hard when Mary went into serious labor with their second child, and, on heading for the hospital in their car, the expectant parents found themselves trapped on their property by a tree that had fallen across the road.

Mary and Tom Toleno at a class reunion some years after this event.

In a panic, Tom called friends/neighbors John and Tony, asking the lads to meet them on the other side of the tree with their car and take them to the hospital.

John and Tony singing at Fox Hollow.

The gallant Brits came to the rescue, helped Mary clamber gingerly over the obstacle, and, unable to turn around, backed down the mile-long hill and began driving hell-for-leather through the blinding snow toward Brattleboro.

Picture the scene: Tom, no doubt pale, frantic and sweating, propping Mary up in the backseat of the car; John and Tony (probably equally frantic and sweating) driving gamely at top speed, cursing the traffic and the snow and the road conditions on the way to the hospital.

Well, they didn’t make it; by the time they pulled up to the hospital, little Robban Toleno had already made an appearance. Mother and child were fine; the three guys? A shaky combination of exhilarated and gobsmacked.

The next weekend, John and Tony were performing at a tribute festival for folk bard Malvina Reynolds at Cafe Lena in upstate New York. Still riding a wave of euphoria about Robban’s birth, they told everyone the story.

Tony Barrand (L) and John Roberts as magazine cover boys. Besides being a fine singer, John is an accomplished concertina player.

Subsequently, Michael Cooney, the Master of Ceremonies for the event, joked at an evening concert that Malvina was in the habit of writing a song before breakfast every morning, and bet her that she couldn't complete a new one in time for her performance the next day.

The wonderful Malvina Reynolds.

The next morning before breakfast, she wrote a new song.

Fast-forward about ten months to the Fox Hollow Folk Festival, in the woods near Petersburg, NY. Lovely singer Margaret MacArthur, in whose cabin Tom and Mary had been living at the time of Robban’s birth, sang Malvina’s composition, “The Ballad of Robban's First Ride.” (At that point it was called “The Baby Was Born In the Car;" the name was changed to avoid giving away the main event, and Margaret would record it in 1975.)

Margaret MacArthur, with the unique lap harp she'd found hanging on the wall of a barn. Coincidentally, at the same festival in which she sang the Robban song, she confided that her old harp would soon become unplayable. Shortly afterwards that same day, an admirer presented her with a perfect reproduction he'd crafted.

It was a great hit, not least because all of the dramatis personae of the song were present at the festival.

Later, as I was toting Robban around the crowded crafts area to give Tom and Mary some free time, a friend came up to us. “Why, who’s this?” she asked.

“This is Robban,” I replied.

“Robban? Robban Toleno? The Baby That Was Born in the Car?!” Within seconds, we were surrounded by people wanting to make nice and take photos with the little celebrity. Luckily, Robban was a gregarious kid who treated the attention as only his due. I felt like his entourage.

I'm in line (second from right) onstage at Fox Hollow with John (5th from left),Tony (in top hat), Michael Cooney (R), and seven other fine concertina players (including Riggy Rackin and Barry O'Neill).

Having been born, as it were, en route, it’s hardly surprising that Robban Anthony John Toleno became a travelin’ man. (His older brother Tristan stayed closer to home and became a Vermont State Legislator)

In Robban’s own words: “In junior high school, I determined that I would go to Japan, and began studying Japanese. Since high school, I have come and gone from East Asia, spending time in Japan, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China.

“I earned an MA in Ecological Anthropology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and a PhD in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia for work on food and nourishment in the history of pre-modern Chinese Buddhism. An advocate for healthy lifestyle choices, I write about human-environment interactions and opportunities to achieve a better balance than the current status quo.”

In 2016, Robban Toleno was named Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, and taught courses there through 2018. He has also acted as a Research Fellow and Managing Editor of the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Robban Anthony John Toleno. What a sweetheart.

Robban is currently translating a 450-page Chinese book of scholarship on Buddhist disciplinary institutions in China.

Whoa.

Oh yes, the song.

**************************

THE BALLAD OF ROBBAN'S FIRST RIDE

(Note: According to Tony, the car, despite Malvina's lyrics was not second-hand.)

The winter came early in seventy two,
With a hell of a storm coming down,
And Mary and Tom bundled into the car,
'Cause Mary was hospital bound.

They didn't get far till the telephone rang,
It was Tony and John on the line.
"You'd better get over," said Tommy to John,
"'Cause Mary has come to her time.

A tree it has fallen athwart of the road,
And we're stuck here and cannot get by."
So our two British stalwarts start driving again
Right into the hurricane's eye.

They drove till they came to the Marlboro hill
And they helped Mary over the log,
They couldn't turn round so they had to back down,
It was nearly a mile to the road.

They leaned on the horn and they drove like the wind.
"You bastards get out of the way!
Cause the Toleno baby of Mary and Tom
Is due to be borning this day."

Said Mary, "I tell you, the baby is here."
Said Tony, "Hold on for a bit.
Brattleboro is some two miles away
And the hospital's farther on yet."

But the head of the baby emerged into view,
And Tom took the shoulders in hand,
And Tony and John are as white as a sheet
And driving as fast as they can.

They wrapped the young creature in John's woolly coat
From his feet to his little round head,
And the baby said, "Ma, what you doing out here?
You ought to be home in your bed!"

They pulled up the car at the hospital door
And Tony he hardly could speak.
"There's a baby was born in the back of our car!"
Said the nurse, "That's the third one this week."

The doctor he was the philosopher type,
And his thinking was easy and large.
"There's many a kid gets his first start in life
In the back of a second-hand Dodge."

They rolled out the gurney and brought in the two,
Both mother and child doing fine,
When the nurse asked the question, "Whose baby is this?"
All three of the men answered, "Mine!"

Then Tony and John went on down to the pub
To get them a jug of the brew,
And they told all the folks who were drinking around
The story I'm telling to you.

They told all the folks that were drinking around
Of the babe that was born on the road,
And they all drank a toast to the health of the child
And the heroes who carried the load.

Robban Anthony John who was born in the Dodge,
That was the new baby's name,
And the bartender set up the drinks on the house,
And I hope you'll be doing the same.

********************************

Apparently numerous babies are born in cars, but not all of them become instant folk heroes, much less distinguished scholars.

Well done.

A BIT ABOUT MALVINA REYNOLDS

Though she played violin in a dance band in her twenties, Malvina Reynolds began her songwriting career late in life. She was in her late forties when she met Earl Robinson, Pete Seeger, and other folk singers and songwriters. She returned to school at UC Berkeley, where she studied music theory. Reynolds went on to write several popular songs, including "Little Boxes" (1962), recorded by Seeger and others, "What Have They Done to the Rain" (1962), recorded by The Searchers, The Seekers, Marianne Faithfull, Melanie Safka and Joan Baez (about nuclear fallout), "It Isn't Nice" (a civil rights anthem), "Turn Around" (1959) (about children growing up, later sung by Harry Belafonte), and "There's a Bottom Below" (about depression). Reynolds was also a noted composer of children's songs, including "Magic Penny" and "Morningtown Ride" (1957), a top-5 UK single (December 1966) recorded by The Seekers.

####################

14. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Graton, California, 2011

A TIMELY ADJUSTMENT

When I was living within the orbit of my dear friend and former housemate Judith, I observed that she seemed to have at least two distinct approaches to time.

Judith in Garden Time.

She could be pretty punctual when it came to “real world” matters like dental appointments, client visits to her thriving holistic health practice, and the legalities and paperwork involved in her practice as a counselor to those in the final passage of life.

Otherwise, she tended to operate in what I privately thought of as “Judith Time”— hours lost in her beloved garden, travels out and about on errands that turned into unscheduled adventures, spontaneous side excursions, and unanticipated opportunities for conversation, making friends wherever she went.

I enjoy the challenge of repairing broken objects, and one day, when the sober timepiece in Judith’s treatment room fell and flew into pieces, she brought it to me to see if I could fix it.

Well, I couldn’t, so I did the next best thing; I simply converted it permanently to Judith Time.

###################

15. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Syracuse, New York; 1963

BLUE BOOK BLUES
Or
MISS SMARTY-PANTS SQUEAKS BY; HARNESSING THE POWER OF POETRY

In the first semester of my sophomore year at Syracuse University, I eagerly signed up for English 323: Introduction to Linguistics. Being a dedicated word person and amateur etymologist, I thought I would find it fascinating.

Which I did. I also sucked at it.

In his introductory speech, the bright young professor informed us that in the near future, any serious student of linguistics would need to earn a B.A. in English and a combined M. A. and Ph.D. in computer science and mathematics (computers can now analyze thousands of word patterns and reduce them to algorithms), and that we jolly well had our work cut out for us.

He wasn’t kidding. I was absolutely not prepared for the near-incomprehensible tangle of Old and Middle English/Old Norse/Frisian/Old High German, conjugations, declensions, mutations, ablauts, umlauts, vowel shifts, plosives, fricatives, glottals, strong verbs, weak verbs, irregular roots, dipthongization, runic alphabets and homo-organic consonant clusters that awaited me.

In spite of this, I loved the class, but struggled along, my quiz grades swinging wildly from As to Ds, depending on whether or not I somehow understood the mysteries involved.

Came the final, and I realized that I absolutely had to score a B on it for even a bare hope of staying on the Dean’s List.

Fortunately, it was a take-home exam. We had recently been studying the effects of vowel shifts on poetry of different eras, and as the prof passed out the little blue booklets that were standard for most classes, he said something rather jokily unusual:

“Good luck—and if you write a correct answer in verse, I’ll bump you up a grade.”

Now, if you examine the scanned blue-book pages above, you may come to the conclusion that poetry on this subject would be near-impossible to hatch out. As did I, struggling along with the exam questions (as it turned out) at about C level.

But then I came to question #18; the phrasing of it was irresistible: Where Did All The Strong Verbs Go? It was practically a song title. And I knew the answer!

So I wrote (reproduced here so you don’t have to decipher my affected back-slanting script, which I thought at the time was the height of sophistication):

Where did all the strong verbs go?
General carelessness, you know,
Lack of stress and of completion,
Confusion, and, at last, deletion

We get, you see, the tongue plebian,
Attacking, each successive eon
The ablaut (Indo-European),
And robbing it, now and again
Of ending, suffering to remain,
The elements of its old gradation
In sad and tail-less degradation.

Long and confusing is the past,
So in enlightened times at last
We get a drooping of inflection
Symbolic of the scribe’s dejection
With scholarly intent misspent
And that’s where all the strong verbs went.

Sophomoric, yes, but I somehow squeaked through with a B.

(And if you’re wondering, some strong verbs are still around. Today they're defined as those that change their stem vowel in order to form the past tense or past participle, e.g. sing, sang, sung. Weak verbs are the ones that still add a “-d” or a “-t” ending to form the past tense or past participle. An ablaut is the shift of vowel in a strong verb. I think.)

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16. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Orofino, Idaho, 1915; Madison Wisconsin, 1919; San Francisco, California, 1967-2003; Occidental, Graton and Sebastopol, California, 1980-2013; Europe and Hoboken, New Jersey During WWII; All Over the World

FAITH AND MAUDIE; OF WAR, WIT, WISDOM, AND WILD WANDERING WOMEN

Dorothea Faith Craig Petric and Margery Bridgman “Maudie” Sell only met twice in their long lives, but I was lucky enough to be in the middle both times.

With Maudie (left) and Faith in the 1980s...

...and in Graton in 2003

They were not exactly mentors, not precisely role models, but more like living, breathing illustrations to a girl raised in the conventional 1950s that older women did not necessarily have to dwindle into placid grannyhood.

Faith, whom I met in 1967 when I rented a room in her San Francisco house, was of Scottish and American Indian (possibly Nez Perce) ancestry, and was actually born in a log cabin in Idaho, in 1915.

A record album cover featured photos of Faith and her mother.

Her strict minister father forbade most secular forms of entertainment, so little Faith’s only form of artistic expression was hymn-singing. “I wasn’t good,” she would say later, “but I was loud.”

She escaped out into the world, learned to play the guitar, worked her way through Whitman College, moved in with Northwestern School painters Morris Graves and Lubin Petric, married the latter briefly, and wound up in San Francisco in 1939.

Faith as a fledgling folkie at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

When WWII broke out, she headed east to work as a shipfitter in Hoboken, NJ, and spend nights in Greenwich Village hobnobbing with activists/musicians like Paul Robeson, Josh White, Odetta, and Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter.

After the war, she returned to San Francisco “a little bit pregnant,” gave birth to a daughter, Carole, and somehow combined motherhood with activism, serving on anti-fascism committees, joining the IWW, working with Spanish Civil War refugees, and featuring as a “person of interest” to the FBI during the McCarthy era for her radical activities. The following is from her obituary in Sing Out! Magazine, for which she wrote a monthly column called “The Folk Process:”

Faith's daughter, writer Carole Craig.

“[Faith] worked in the San Joaquin Valley with the Farm Security Administration helping migrant workers, marched with the Civil Rights movement in Selma, visited Russia as part of a peace delegation, floated down the Amazon, and solo-backpacked around Europe. She performed throughout the U.S. at folk clubs and festivals, has been the life of British pub gatherings, and was godmother to several generations of musicians that passed through the San Francisco Folk Music Club.”

In the 1950s, Faith took a job as a disability rehabilitation counselor for the state of California, and bought the upper-Haight-Ashbury house where meetings of the San Francisco Folk Music Club began to take place in 1962.

When she retired at 55, she kicked over the traces but good.

Leaving a stable group of renters (that included me, Ken Thorland, Hoyle Osborne and Ray Bierl) to take care of her house and pets, she became a true “Geritol Gypsy”(one of her favorite songs), setting off on the first of two trips around the world with guitar and backpack. This was in addition to appearing in folk clubs, coffeehouses and festivals throughout the US.

In 1970, she assembled the “Portable Folk Festival” that toured around the country by school bus, and for many years was a beloved member of “The New Age Traveling Chautauqua,” a group that toured and performed each summer in small towns and rural areas where live entertainment seldom showed up.

Faith performing with the New Age Traveling Chautauqua.

Unlike her good friend Malvina Reynolds, Faith didn’t write songs. She collected them from all kinds of sources, sang them, taught them, and recorded them. Utah Phillips called her “The Fort Knox of Folk Music” for her encyclopedic repertoire.

She continued performing through her 90s, never stopped embracing her ideals of peace and freedom, and passed away in 2013 of natural causes. She was 98.

I was introduced to Maudie Sell around 1980 by my friend Melinda Marble, who sat next to her at some event and quite rightly divined that the two of us were kindred spirits.

Born in 1919, the “pigheaded” (her description) second daughter in a somewhat conservative Midwestern family, Maudie grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in English and training in social work not long before WWII broke out.

Maudie as an Army wife during WWII.

In 1942, she married Arthur Sell, an Army lieutenant, whom she accompanied around the country, doing volunteer work in each city in which he was stationed, until he was shipped out to England in 1943.

Quickly fed up with the life of a left-behind Army wife, Maudie flung herself across the Atlantic and into the thick of the war effort, joining the American Red Cross's "clubmobile" field units. At a tiny five-foot-nothing, she found herself driving huge truck/vans stocked with doughnut-making supplies, a wind-up Victrola, and the latest dance records, through the European theater of war, occasionally even under fire on the front lines.

Her Section 10, Group E followed the troops for a year, making and serving actual millions of cups of coffee and doughnuts, and giving jitterbug demonstrations for war-weary soldiers desperate for a touch of home. As she wrote in her astounding memoir, Wherever You Are:

"We were the women who were the most mobile, the most far out, the greasiest and most beat-up and possibly the most beloved of creatures on the continent, living in ruins and jitterbugging in the mud."

After the war, Maudie and Arthur (who was blasted out of his tank while serving with Gen. George S. Patton's Fourth Armored Division and received the Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart, plus a Silver Star for carrying three wounded soldiers to safety) moved to California, eventually winding up in Sebastopol.

Maudie and Arthur Sell in 1962.

Maudie gave birth to a daughter, Katie, but soon wearied of being a typical 1950s housewife (“It was such a waste of me,” she mused). She joined the Volunteer Bureau of Marin County and was named its first Volunteer of the Year. During the next 14 years, she helped expand the Bureau and interviewed counseled, and placed thousands of applicants (a job, come to think of it, oddly similar to Faith’s at that time).

Maudie (C.) with her daughter Katie, son-in-law Craig Watts, newborn twin grandsons David and Christopher, and grandson Ricky Watts.

She taught herself horticulture (including a year cataloguing the blooming seasons of plants in San Francisco's Strybing Arboretum), and became one of Sonoma County's first Master Gardeners. A superb self-taught cook, she was in the vanguard of the health and organic food movements.

She also taught memoir-writing classes. From her obituary:

“‘She changed my life,’ wrote one participant. Another said, ‘She gave me courage to be a writer.’ Others commented, ‘She shared her wisdom and wit to all who were privileged to listen.’ and ‘Her writing was so sharp, as was her personality, so on key. And she always tried to tell an accurate truth in her writing.’"

Maudie's lookalike daughter Katie Watts. Many thanks to Katie, who wrote Maudie's obituary, from which I gleaned many of the facts of her life.

Maudie passed away in 2010 at the age of 91.

I think that Faith and Maudie were either too much alike or too different to become bosom friends, but I know that after I introduced them, they kept in touch over the years.

Both were prolific writers; Faith produced The Folknik, a monthly newsletter for the San Francisco Folk Music Club, plus her Sing Out! Column and a yearly report she called “The Condition of Faith.”

Outside of memoir-writing, Maudie kept her hand in with “The Bleat From Scudder’s Ridge" (in which Arthur and she featured as “Mr. and Ms. Bleat”), a “sporadical” newsletter chronicling the antics of her family, pets, neighbors, gardens, and local politics in impish and often hilarious detail, and filled with random tidbits of irresistible commentary.

Faith was married briefly, and was determinedly single ever after. Maudie and Arthur appeared to be soulmates (I loved the wonderful and unflappable Arthur, with his wry humor and seeming ability to construct or fix anything).

Both women had profound and salty senses of humor. Maudie was a natural conversationalist and great listener. Faith was more reserved, but, paradoxically, also more given to performing in public. Neither of them took any guff from anybody, and neither suffered fools gladly.

Both had daughters, Carole Craig and Katie Watts (neé Sell), who became impressive professional wordsmiths.

A Ricky Watts mural.

Both became grandmothers after all: Faith’s granddaughter, Alexandria Craig, is a neuromuscular and physical therapist, Olympic weightlifting coach, and movement & mobility specialist. One of Maudie’s three talented grandsons is the brilliant contemporary artist Ricky Watts.

Faith's granddaughter Alexandria Craig performing on "Britain's got Talent" (she lives in Dublin). According to Faith, she wasn't actually competing, but was invited onto the show to provide variety (and, incidentally, make an ass out of host Piers Morgan when he scoffed that what she was doing looked easy). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKU_Odvg5og

I admired both Faith and Maudie deeply, in different ways, not least for their bravery in busting out of typical roles for women in their time, living on their own terms, and devising creative solutions to making the world a better place while having one hell of a good time.

Hey, “The Greatest Generation” was also composed of women.

################

17. THROWBACK THURSDAY; Interlocken Center for Experiential Education, Windsor, New Hampshire, 1981; Somewhere in China, Winter, 1981 or 1982

KNITTING A FRIENDSHIP

Interlocken co-founder Susan Herman was a brilliant administrator and organizational manager, and a dedicated knitter. She could lead a heated brainstorming session or facilitate a fractious meeting while knitting/purling away, never losing her place in either activity nor dropping a single stitch.

It was both fascinating and soothing to watch her do this, and if Susan loved you, you eventually got a sweater. I’ve always treasured the story behind mine.

In 1981, Interlocken was unexpectedly invited by the People’s Republic to create a “US-China Friendship Camp,” in which American and Chinese teens would live and travel together in the then-newly opened China, with an Interlocken-style program in which the two groups and their leaders would teach and participate in activities typical of their respective countries.

Although Interlocken had an extremely full docket of programs at the time, this invitation was impossible to pass up. Thus it was that later that year, Susan and her husband, Interlocken co-founder Richard Herman, headed to China to scout sites and introduce the Interlocken “Directed Free Choice” concept to Chinese leaders.

Susan and Richard on that first scouting trip, armed with a Polaroid camera.

Easier said than done; they often found themselves attempting to explain their controlled free-form educational concepts to roomfuls of uncomprehending and poker-faced officials in Mao jackets. Ultimately, however, Richard and Susan, both old hands at making friends with with all manner of people, got their points across.

Their travels also included a lengthy cross-country train journey to Mongolia in a crowded railroad car, with few amenities (no “first class” in the People’s Republic), and a constant aural barrage of tinny music and political announcements from a loudspeaker.

Susan, of course, had a knitting project (my sweater) all ready to start, and pulled out her needles and yarn. Within minutes, she was surrounded by knitters from their car and from the adjoining compartments. (Remember, this was at a time when Americans of any kind were few and far between in China.)

There wasn’t always a translator handy, but with very little knowledge of Mandarin or Cantonese, let alone Mongolian, Susan shared pattern books, demonstrated stitches, admired other people’s projects, found out how many children everyone had and how old they were, and described her own family and the New Hampshire countryside, all the while working away at the blue cable-knit V-necked pullover destined for my wardrobe.

Susan knitting with a new friend in Ladakh.

During the long, slow, overnight train ride, it became a popular diversion among the passengers to sit knitting with Susan, or to stroll by and check on the progress of the blue sweater in sign language, minimal English, and/or the universal language of the needles.

Finally, as the train approached the Mongolian border, Susan finished stitching the last pieces of the sweater together, stood up, and slipped it on over her head, at which point, the entire occupancy of the car burst into loud and spontaneous applause.

Susan told me this story when she gave me the sweater, and after that, I could never put it on without hearing an echo of train wheels, tinny Chinese music, and the distant happy pattering of faraway hands.

With Susan in 2007.

Miss you, Susan.

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18. THROWBACK THURSDAY: Bangor or Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, Mid-1950s

FIFTIES TIME CAPSULE; BOBBIE’S WEDDING

Can you find me in this photo?

This is a between-the–formal-shots outtake from the wedding of my Aunt Roberta “Bobbie” Arnts to Gerry Prouty. Aunt Bobbie, of course, is smiling center stage in traditional white, her new bridegroom just behind her. She was the youngest of the nine Arnts sisters and the last to marry.

At left is my sister Susan as an adorable junior bridesmaid at around 14 or 15 years old, looking grownup in tea-length blue, and no doubt conscious of her position as the oldest of the growing tribe of Arnts first cousins, which would eventually top out at 22.

I’m not sure who the other blue bridesmaid is, but the Matron of Honor cracking up in pink is my delightful Aunt Madeleine. The other attendants are probably Gerry’s relatives. No ring-bearers or flower girls (too many candidates), no fancy band or flashy DJ, and nary a bridezilla moment.

Of the guys, I recognize my handsome Uncle Fritz, beaming second from left. His wife, my Aunt Janet, sang a lovely “O Promise Me” (The Fifties wedding-song equivalent of Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect,” or other top nuptial hits of today) during the ceremony.

Two uncles, John Arnts (the only boy in a family of ten) and Madeleine’s husband Chase are the last two on the right.

And where was I? Somewhere behind the photographer, barefoot, aged 11 or so, my hair tangled from romping with the younger cousins, utterly goggle-eyed at the glamor of it all.

Oh yes, and a bit later, having been herded into a scrum of unmarried girls, I wound up catching Bobbie’s tossed bridal bouquet, making me theoretically the next in line to get married.

Well, so much for that myth.

(Thanks to Cousin Bob Arnts for the photo)

The Arnts Family in the late 1930s: in the top row are Grandfather Verne, John, Jean, Virginia, Kathryn, Betty, Grandmother Clara, Janet, and Marjorie. Bobbie is the sweet tot in the center, flanked by Madeleine on the left and my mother Barbara (the eldest) on the right.

#################

19. THROWBACK THURSDAY: San Francisco, 1969-Present

STALKING THE WILD HYPHEN; THE EXCELLENT LIFE OF BEN FONG-TORRES

It’s hard to think of ways in which my friend Ben Fong-Torres isn’t extraordinary.

First off, he’s a multiple-double-triple-über-hyphenate: author (nine books) -journalist (10 years as news editor, interviewer and writer for Rolling Stone; managing editor of The Gavin Report; bylines in Esquire, Parade, Playboy, Travel & Leisure, TV Guide, Harper's Bazaar, Billboard, Sports Illustrated, and many other publications).


Radio Ben

He’s been a columnist (San Francisco Chronicle, Parade, GQ) –deejay and radio/TV host/personality/commentator (KSAN, KFOG, KQED, Evening Magazine, Fog City Radio) –producer (MOONALICE Radio, BOSSBOSS Radio) –award-winner (Deems Taylor Award for Magazine Writing; Billboard Award for Broadcast Excellence; FIVE freakin” Emmys), and all that just scratches the surface of his accomplishments without even taking into consideration his ongoing string of guest appearances, lectures, consultations and emcee gigs.

Narrating the Chinese New Year Parade with Julie Hafner.

He’s interviewed a Who’s Who of music legends, been portrayed as himself in an Oscar-winning film (Almost Famous), and is the subject of an upcoming documentary.

Terry Chen plays Ben in Almost Famous.

He’s so cool, even his name is hyphenated.

(The Fong-Torres moniker adopted by Ben and his four siblings came out of of their dad Fong Kwak Seung’s adoption of the identity of a Philippines native, Ricardo Torres, in order to enter the US at a time when strict exclusion acts limited immigration to 105 Chinese per year.)

Another extraordinary thing about Ben is that you never know where he’s going to turn up next—on a JFK parody record in the Camelot days; as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, where he repeatedly cracked up host Pat Sajak by matching him quip for quip, and won $99,000 in cash and prizes; on a TV special called Cycling Through China (for which he was also the scriptwriter), featuring a gaggle of celebrities; on a CD called Stranger Than Fiction that features writers performing their own songs; on a TV reality show called Your Big Break, doing a spot-on Dylan impersonation; even channeling Perry Como for senior citizens at Chinese retirement centers.

Ben on Wheel of Fortune.

Did I mention that he sings, too? I tease him that the world lost a great lounge act when he opted for journalism. He loves karaoke and will break into song—Elvis, Sinatra, Dino, Dylan, Chinese-opera parody—at every opportunity.

Ben and I met cute at a hip book-release party in 1969; he had recently been made news editor at Rolling Stone; I was working at ultra-cool KSAN-FM Radio.

Ben n' me (photo by Jim Marshall)

We hit it off immediately; I had honestly never met anyone like him: a paradoxical combination of intense and cuddly, blazingly brilliant, with a wicked sense of humor; tough, but amazingly kind, with just the tiniest hint (now long gone) of what he once described as “dorkiness.”

We came from entirely different backgrounds; I was rural Pennsylvania East-Coast WASP; he had essentially grown up with his siblings in the back room (known as the “rice room”) of his parents’ East Bay restaurant, scribbling away at homework between peeling shrimp and serving patrons (“As soon as you could carry a dish without dropping it, you were a waiter,”) and constantly listening to the radio, beginning Ben’s lifelong love affair with the medium.

Ben was the first Chinese person I ever hugged. Back then, he rocked a Beatleish haircut, a wispy moustache, and granny glasses. He was small and wiry (we could actually wear each other’s clothes, and once attended a Halloween party dressed as each other, with the aid of blonde and black wigs and tacky fairy-princess and Fu Manchu masks).

We became a frequent couple, and had a ball living the hip San Francisco lifestyle attached to our workplaces—free tickets and records, concerts, interviews with celebs, the latest films, the psychedelic clothing, street theater, art, and music—and yes, children, it was as much fun as it sounds.

Hangin' with a Beatle...

...and with the Jackson 5.

With his incisive writing and interviewing style in the hippest magazine around, Ben started to become a kind of mini-celebrity, and people meeting him in person for the first time were often amazed to realize that that deep, rich “radio voice” was coming from this small Chinese man instead of some six-foot Nordic blond guy.

In addition to all the laughs, Ben became my valued mentor in the crafts of writing and editing. (I’d turn in a piece; he’d glance at it—often while simultaneously talking on the phone and typing 120 words per minute—bark: “Too long; cut it by a third,” then graciously relent and show me how to do just that,)

From his 1994 memoir The Rice Room: Growing Up Chinese-American, From Number Two Son to Rock 'n' Roll (an expanded edition with photos appeared in 2011):

“When I first encouraged Amie to write for Rolling Stone, she was uncertain. I assured her that she’d make it—or fail—on her own merit. She proved her worth, but it wasn’t easy. After she’d written two pieces, I suggested to Jann [Wenner, the founder and editor of RS] that we assign her to cover [a more important story].

“No, I don’t want her to do it,” said Jann, “Women can’t write. Get a guy.” Although women had important positions in the advertising and art departments, there were few female bylines at Rolling Stone, whether by choice or coincidence.

“I told Amie to go ahead and write the story. When she submitted it, I took off her byline and passed it along to Jann. At the next editorial meeting, when he praised the article, I leaned over and whispered the bad news to him.”

So in work and play, Ben and I were kind of a couple for awhile, and then we weren’t, but, fortunately, friendship has always been the top note in our relationship.

In the early 1970s, he re-connected with a former San Francisco State classmate, Dianne Sweet, an impressive person in her own right. They were married in 1976, and I had a great time dancing at their wedding. I’m also happy to report that they’re still crazy together after all these years.

Ben and Dianne

When Jann Wenner decided to take Rolling Stone to New York City in the early 1980s, Ben elected to stay in San Francisco, where he had so many close ties to family and community.

There has been more than the usual share of tragedy in Ben’s life (incredibly, he’s now the sole survivor of his entire immediate family), but he’s weathered it impressively, thanks to Dianne, to that strong network of extended family and friends, to his impeccable work ethic, and to his own innate grace and strength.

After Rolling Stone left, he functioned as its west coast editor for a bit, then resigned entirely to continue his growing number of activities as (see first paragraphs)

He’s always been a natural as a writer, speaker, emcee, and elucidator, and over the past decade has come to be viewed, and repeatedly interviewed, as a kind of spokesman for the entire “Summer of Love” 60s-70s hip scene in San Francisco.

Ben cracks up.

In 2018, Ben was signed by a Hollywood-type production company to write a musical based on that fabled summer, and he and I had a blast batting lyrics back and forth for songs with titles like “Hey Man, I’m Not Your Old Lady,” “The Thing About Doing Your Thing,” and “Everybody’s Someone Else’s Weirdo.”

(The project subsequently got bogged down in a welter of lawyers, contracts, and rights, and for a number of reasons Ben was not so secretly relieved when it got canned in 2019.)

But while I was in songwriting mode, I got inspired by a comment Ben made one day about using his impressive “radio voice” to lend him gravitas in certain situations, and proceeded to write a tribute to him and to all of those laid-back silky-voiced 60s-70s radio alternadudes.

RADIO VOICE

Radio Voice,
I love the tunes that you spin,
I dig the way you talk low, kinda sexy and slow
Like acoustical sin,
I listen at night (under the covers) so my parents don’t hear,
And I put myself to sleep with that delectable
Throb in my ear
(And other places),
Radio Voice,
You’re so invisibly cool,
That’s why when I tune you in, I can’t help but grin
Like a fool,
I don’t really care what you look like,
You could be a geek or a troll;
But in my imagination you’re the king of the station
When you sweet-talk-that-sweet-rock-and-roll
(With your)
Radio Voice,
You keep me happy all night,
I just feel like I’m there, in your underground lair
When I turn out the light,
You’re my stairway to heaven, my night in white satin, in
My wildest dreams you’re the grooviest cat, and
I’m totally gone,
Now I’ve got no choice,
I’m forever and ever in love with your Radio Voice.
That’s forever and ever, Ben.

To hear that Voice and enjoy the Fong-Torres Effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmebzhTln8o Maria Hinojosa interviews Ben Fong-Torres/3:44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpswfjYA3I8

California Historical Radio Society presents "THE LIVING HISTORY" series....Ben Fong-Torres/28:34

https://www.youtube.com/user/fongtorres

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20. THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Great Dickens Christmas Fair; San Francisco, California, 1972 or 1973

JOHN MEETS THE ANGEL OF TERPSICHORE
Or
ROMANCING THE WALTZ

One year in the early 1970s, British folksingers John Roberts and Tony Barrand left the snows of Vermont and came west to perform at the Dickens Fair.

They were a hit with audiences and fellow performers alike; so patently the real thing, with real Brit accents and humor, performing authentic music-hall songs, sea shanties and pub sing-alongs of the era with wonderful stage presence and elán,

As for me, in the evenings, after a day of leading the Father Christmas Parade, appearing as an angel on stilts, and performing in the holiday pantomime, I would change into a kind of saucy-young-floozette-in-scarlet getup and see what kind of mischief I could get into.

One evening during the first weekend, John and I were strolling arm-in-arm through the Fair, and passed the entrance to Fezziwig’s Warehouse/ballroom, where The Brass Band tooted irresistably away, and waltzing couples filled the floor.

“Come on,” I said to John, “Let’s dance!!”

He stopped short, and his normally genial face took on a strange stony expression.

"I. Don’t. Dance.” he said.

This was a real surprise to me, because John was innately graceful and light-footed. Moreover, he played a variety of musical instruments (a whiz especially on concertina and banjo, he could even combine whistle and drum simultaneously to play for dancing). He also sang a variety of intricate a cappella songs with Tony—all activities demanding a great sense of rhythm.

However, I recognized his expression as one I’d assumed myself in the past when invited to play softball, concluded that Something Dreadfully Embarrassing had once happened to him on a dance floor, and said no more about it.

Well, I could always find willing partners, but I really wanted to twirl around the floor with my sweetie, so one night, when Fezziwig’s was fairly bursting with gaiety, I asked him again.

This time, however, I met his ultimatum with a proposition.

“Look,” I said, “we can go into that corner where nobody’s dancing. I’ll lead, and we can stay away from the edge of the crowd.” I pulled my reluctant cavalier onto that corner of the floor, just as another rousing waltz began.

At first it was like stirring cement, and John’s face got stonier and stonier.

Then something marvelous happened: we managed a few steps together exactly on the beat, and then a few more, and suddenly the Angel of Terpsichore swooped down to claim John as her own, and we were circling smoothly around with the rest of the crowd.

I’ll never forget the look on John’s face as he realized that he was, by God, dancing, and not only that, but doing it quite beautifully.

After that, John developed a serious case of Happy Feet, and we had many a whirl. He would go on, back in Vermont, to join a Morris team (a group of very precise and rhythmical British traditional dancers), and the next summer John, Tony, and I spent a week at the fabled Pinewoods Dance Camp in Massachusetts, jigging and reeling and contradancing for hours on end, with John the most light-footed of us all.

You know, sometimes the best Christmas presents come without fancy wrappings.

End of Part Nine—More to Come.

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ALL MY BLOGS TO DATE

MEMOIRS (This is not as daunting as it looks. Each section contains 20 short essays, ranging in length from a few paragraphs to a few pages. Great bathroom reading.

They’re not in sequential order, so one can start anywhere.)

My sister Sue's printouts.

NOTE: If you prefer to read these on paper, you can highlight/copy/paste into a Word doc and print them out, (preferably two-sided or on the unused side of standard-sized paper).

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part One

https://amiehillthrowbackthursdays.blogspot.com/

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part Two

https://ahilltbt2.blogspot.com/

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part Three

https://amiehilltbt3.blogspot.com/

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part Four

https://tbt4amie-hill.blogspot.com/

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part Five

https://ami-ehiltbt-5.blogspot.com/

THROWBACK THURSDAYS & OTHER ADVENTURES: Part Six

https://am-iehilltbt6.blogspot.com/