Blackberrying CNN on the ride in to work, I learned that next week marks the 30th anniversary of the mass murder-suicide of 909 Americans who’d followed Jim Jones from California into the jungles of Guyana.
It got me thinking (again) that there was a lot of really horrible stuff happening when most of us were in secondary school — much of it in California in general or San Diego in particular.
- We’ve talked a lot about PSA 182 smashing into San Diego.
- We’ve talked a bit about Brenda Spencer shooting up Cleveland Elementary School a few months later.
- We’ve tiptoed past a spate of really horrific serial killings in California.
- Jonestown devastated San Francisco on Nov. 18, 1978; nine days later, SF Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated.
- I’m going to throw in John Lennon’s murder — not a California occurrence, but a personal low point to round out the ’70s.
That’s right off the top of my head.
Bottom line: By the time I was 16, I was pretty sure that completely insane stuff could happen just about any ol’ time to me or my neighbors … And I was distinctly distrustful of the sunnier, postcard representations of California. Prime psychological territory for matriculating from white-denim bell bottoms to boots and feedback.
Anybody else feel their mellow start harshing around ’76-’78?
I’d throw in the Cold War and the vague threat of nuclear disaster, at least in terms of the paranoid feeling I shared with all my friends as far back as I can remember. When I transferred from Poway Unified to San Diego City Schools at age 11, I remember being struck by how everything (tables, chairs, books, even teachers) looked left-over from old 50s and 60s movies and TV shows. And then they had periodic duck-and-cover drills--you know, to practice hiding from radiation, fallout, and debris under a couple layers of plywood. The teachers were never pleased when I tried to offer the comforting notion that San Diego would probably be #2 or #3 on our enemies’ target list and so we could count on a pleasantly instant demise…
The numbers would not have it so, but I agree with Matthew that there was definitely a millennial or fin-de-siecle feeling back then…
But earthquakes are a perennial issue in California, and their chaotic and unpredictable nature (in comparison with hurricanes or tornados, say) also added something to our jumpiness, I’d guess--especially those of us who were born elsewhere…
Brenda Spencer and PSA flight 187 stick in my mind, Brenda Spencer just being a prelude to the many Columbine type incidents I have seen over the course of my life (each time the press marketing it as something new). Ayatollah Khomeini and the hostages were also a little peek into the future.
Oh yeah- the Hillside strangler, Son of Sam, Symbionese Liberation Army and Patty Hearse, Squeaky Fromme and John Hinkley Junior (edit: Oops! 1981!), and while not particularly heinous (especially in light of today’s accepted political practices) Watergate (my first memory of politics was a graffiti on an abandoned gas station near my house that read, “IMPEACH NIXON”). Spahn Ranch and the Manson Clan were a little early but weighed heavily on my mind whenever I hitchhiked.
Let’s not forget the massacre at the San Ysidro McDonald’s in 1984. It seemed like almost everyone knew someone who knew someone who was a victim or a survivor.
One person in our Che scene (who shall remain anonymous) was attending school at Cleveland Elementary School when Brenda Spencer had her bad day. She witnessed people getting shot but escaped unhurt.
I remember a flier for a show at the North Park Lions Club right after Lennon was shot that had a picture of him crossed out and said “One down, three to go”! I didn’t worship the guy like some but I thought that was going a bit too far. I guess the anti-Lennon sentiment was a reaction to that godawful Double Fantasy schlock!
The Lennon shooting had a profound effect on me -- it represented an extinguishing of a flame of ideas and beliefs -- maybe this is when the 60’s jumped the shark and then was eaten. peace & love? chomp chomp!
In the mid to late 70’s I used to have nightmares i was being chased by an old van, ya know one of those flat nosed vans. Around that time there was a guy kid napping and killing little blond haired boys around southern cal. I would wake up in a cold sweat just as the van was closing in on me in drive way.
When Lennon was killed it seemed my whole world changed, or maybe the whole world did change around me in 1980, everything seemed more negative. I grew up believing all that love stuff as a kid.
Che truth or dare: In 28 years, I don’t think I’ve ever articulated how completely John Lennon’s death devastated me.
At the time, I was terrified of being lumped in with all those dumpy ’70s Beatlemaniacs (many of whom bore a close resemblance to Mark David Chapman) … And my musical interests were in a much different place from anything the guy had released since his first solo albums.
But Lennon was my very first culture hero — like, from nursery school on. I can remember exactly where I was when I heard he’d been shot … I can remember everything from the following days … I never cried, I squirmed and sneered about all the mawkish memorial gestures … It just seemed so mundane to grieve for someone who’d become so commoditized by the market of popular culture. (What’s a snobby little boy to do when the superhero he claims to have outgrown gets shot dead?)
But I can still feel exactly how heavy my chest was for months afterwards. And you know, there’s hardly a day that’s gone by since that I haven’t thought about it.
I actually don’t know how to express this one. It was bad.
>>>I grew up believing all that love stuff as a kid.
In the 80’s it went from being: “all you need is love” to “all you need is money”.
I still believe all that mushy love stuff.
But I had to find a new home for them when I moved.
And that melodic cerebral treat “the Meatmen” didn’t make it any easier!! (they wrote the song for the album “We’re the Meatmen and You Suck!” and made the T-shirt.)
And out of all this traumatic shit what do we get? Hunter S Thompson! 🙂
Did Ian Curtis die around the same time as Darby and John?
1980 was a strange year for me. We had moved away from the beach to Mission Hills/Hillcrest to a little apartment on Flacon St., My mom wanted to get us away from the bad beach influences(kids on drugs) and put us in a better school(grant).
I was walking with some friends to Comic Kingdom the day Lennon was shot, we kept passing people on the street crying. We a stopped to look at a chopper in front of a bar, the bike was covered in air brushed paintings of the beatles, the biker whom the bike belong to came out of the bar and we told him that we thought his chopper was cool and that we loved the beatles, he said ” have you heard?” no. “some one murdered John Lennon”. Sad day for me, I was still just a kid so I was not really bitter about music(yet). I still get sad when I think of this day.
Around the same time I was riding my bike from Balboa Park back to Falcon St. I was taking art classes in the park, anyways as I was riding up 5th ave home when I noticed all these people marching down the street dressed in white sheets with hoods. Wow, a Klan march threw Hillcrest! I rode my huffy bike threw the Klans men zig zagging……..
We ended up moving back to the beach.
Ian Kevin Curtis (15 July 1956 – 18 May 1980)
I second Ray’s sentiments about a more positive seventies thread. While my dark, apocalyptic views of the seventies (and my gritty black and white memories) seem negative, I wish I could go back for so many things that are gone now, and to get away from so many things that are just WAY worse.
Running away from the corporate, glammy Framptonesque seventies I didn’t have the vision or foresight to see how absolutely lame things would become (like the co-opting and crass commercialization and ready acceptance of the new “punk” of the late eighties, early nineties). I’d say it was like Frampton on steroids with fangs, but that would be too complimentary. By the time the homogenization of everything that followed in Rap’s wake got up to speed, I was kind of harkening back to the days of Partridge Family and Courtship of Eddie’s Father first runs.
No- the seventies incited so much creative backlash musically, but really it was a naive, dark but pleasant time for me.
Dylan,
I was a Mission Hills/Hillcrest kid myself, albeit a few years older than you. (My little boy just started kindergarten at Grant!) Anyway, that very same evening John Lennon was murdered, I walked home from my job at the Food Basket on Washington Street to find my entire family staring at me at 9:00 pm when I walked in. I wasn’t about to give anyone the satisfaction of a reaction, so I just shrugged my shoulders and left the room.
A Klan rally in Hillcrest in 1980? I can’t even believe it. This would have been a couple of years after the Nazis tried to march in Skokie IL, right?
The Nazis marched (with a permit) in Balboa Park in late 82, early 83. At some point there was a small riot, the Klan’s dogs (doberman, I believe) got loose and a cop shot at least one.
I found this in the San Diego Journal of History:
“Not much was heard about the Klan until the 1970s. People believed that the Klan in San Diego County was dead. Nevertheless, San Diego’s Police Chief Bill Kolender was aware that strong Klan groups had resurrected in San Diego and in Oceanside. A state of California report declared in 1980 that the Klan was stockpiling weapons, “allegedly preparing for the race war its members believed to be inevitable.” The United Klans of America put up posters that declared, “Don’t be half a man: Join the Klan.” Several Klan demonstrations took place in San Diego in this period.”
I worked at a restaurant in Grossmont Center during high school in the 70s called Berkeley’s. They had a disco and this was before I discovered punk. My friends all said “disco sucks” but I liked some of it more than the mainstream rock being forced down our throats on the radio, and still do. Not all of it, but some of it. I remember going in the disco as a busboy after work and knocking back kamikazes and strawberry daiquiris with the waitresses after work.
When I read in the recent biography on The Fleshtones about the New York Studio 54 scene of the early to mid 70s it sounded like a blast, and I wish I had been a little older and got to experience that.
I would never admit this until the late 80s when the Pink Panther and Casbah started having disco nights, haha!
Mud Club?
“Snow White and The Seven Sailors”
Plato’s Retreat.
Gee Whiz I could go on a bit on this thread.
My big intro to SD (besides my first couple of days at Roosevelt Jr. High on a previous thread) was the almost immediate adoption of a paper route on Golden Hill.
First week was Jim Jones and Guyana…then the plane crash in North Park which I witnessed during PE at Roosevelt.
I got my paper route from a kid who’d been the last to see his neighbor alive…a little 9 year old boy who was found in a canyon mutilated a few days later.
So I was kinda in the middle of some of the worst, and definitely at the mercy of the media like everyone. My parents generation were horrified by Gomer Pyle being broadcast in the middle of Vietnam…I was kinda equally horrified by the Brady Bunch a little later. I was not in a war, but life is not soo groovy some times.
In my neighborhood we had a for real communist cell who tried to blow up the NASSCO shipyards down the hill in Logan Heights (another previous thread) They lived on my block and there was a pretty major bust. Lots of explosives that I was evidently walking past each day to and from my Number 2/7 bus ride to Roosevelt.
But lest we all dwell on the freaky…remember…well…the freaky…
I was the altar boy at the ordination of a gay priest…not a pedophile just a nice guy who wanted to do mass and liked other nice guys. Later in the early 80s he was made a bishop and I was called to serve that mass too…for old times sake. So lots of queer folks have a lot to look back on during that time and be thankful for.
I am thankful for Jimmy Carter, for in his first HOUR as president he pardoned the draft dodgers and thus I got to hear the voice of my uncle (who’d been on the lam for a long time) for the first time.
“It’s a TRAP!” he joked…and then came to visit. Turns out he’d moved to Santa Cruz (!) and changed his name to Moss G. Freely. The G. stood for “Grows”(!!!)
I personally had some winning moments amidst all this…got laid in 1978, made my first darkroom print in 1979, cut off all my long hair in 1980…gawd I couldn’t list all the fun I had.
So…yeah there were bummers, bummers leading to trends of bummers, and then there were just days and nights and weeks and months of life.
“Hard times…Ah’ll tell ya! Eatin’ wheat cheapies out of a cracked plastic bowl!”
We were poor, we were young, life was a lot rougher than any of us would like our parents to have known (or they would not have let us out of the house) but hell…aren’t we celebrating what we managed to pull out of all that right here?
So to Father Tom (cleric mentor), Cleve Backster (mad scientist mentor), Richard Allen Morris (art mentor), all the guys at Wahrenbrock’s, and a girl who shall remain nameless…thanks for the 70s.
Patrick
Hello Dean,
Remember when we met up in NYC for Mods night? Was that in 79 or 80?
I was 15 dancing,drinking and VIPing at Dancatria(sp) BRILLIANT!!!
Oh! We haven’t mentioned Robert Alton Harris: July 5, 1978, kidnapped those two boys from the Jack in the Box parking lot, shot them and ate their hamburgers.
(Extra fuel for youthful nightmares: He told one of them to “stop crying and die like a man.”)
PS: Ray, we should have a useless-Beatles-trivia battle in May! A ridiculous percentage of my brain is still dedicated to Beatles minutiae. I picture advanced Alzheimer’s as a time when I can’t remember my family but I can still tell you about Pete Best’s mom (Mona).
Danceteria
My family lived in the Philippines in the late sixties/early seventies during the Vietnam war.
I remember so clearly my mother and father’s discussions on the vastly different and scary America they returned to after the war.
We returned to the states and settled in Mira Mesa.
I have such vivid memories of my mother being gluded to our neighbors
tv watching the Patty Hearst hostage situation. It really freaked me out.
Also, remember the gas shortage and only being able to fuel up on even/odd license plate days?
This era was also the begining of tainted Halloween candy and razor blades in apples.
Speaking of Mira Mesa and one Robert Alton Harris.These murders had a significant impact on my life because both of the murdered boys went to school with me,John Baker and Steve Mayeski.I really did’nt hang out with them cause they were a couple years older but The girl that Steve Mayeski liked I think had a little crush on me so this guy would constantly torment me in the halls.Remember how guys would make one of their fingers go limp and flick you in the head with it?I believe it was called a Huey or a Deadfinger? Just another 70’s pastime.Anyway Steve Mayeski had these super long fingers and every time he passed me in the hall he’d leave a lump on my melon.About two weeks before he got murdered he was inexplicably cool to me,no more Huey just a friendly,” hey little Phipps what’s up” For those who don’t remember, Robert Alton Harris was this notoriously unsavory person who decides he wants to rob a bank but he needs a getaway car at which time he sees John and Steve sitting in the parking lot of Jack in the Box in one of their parents’ Cadillac.He kidnaps them at gunpoint,drives em up to Miramar lake and murders them.It does’nt go so smoothly though cause one of them gets shot but is able to break and run and actually gets a pretty good distance from Harris and is hiding in some sorta culvert. He’s bleeding though so Harris just follows the blood trail and hunts him down and he’s obviously scared outta his mind and crying at which point Harris tells him to shut up and die like a man. There was also something in the paper about this guy being so callous that eats the boys’ unfinished burgers.That’s not all and here’s where the story gets interesting.The teller that Harris ends up robbing is actually John Bakers older sister who has no idea that this guy has just killed her brother.Someone also follows him home from the bank and reports the address to the cops so after SDPD rushes the house and they’ve got Harris sitting at his kitchen table cuffed and interrogating him the detective interviewing him finds a picture of his own son in Harris’s wallet he asks him who this boy is and Harris casually replies,”oh that boy? That boy is dead’.
Jack Lallane and Evelyn Wood’s school of speed reading dynamics. Devastating.
Oh- good one- complete random non sequitur. I hadn’t read all the good stuff prior to that.
There was a pretty good feature on kpbs this morning about the Jonestown massacre,complete with former members and relatives of survivors as guests.I know they repeat in the afternoon,so some of you might be able to hear it if interested.
Wow Dean. I forgot about the dittos. You know, in my last comment I babbled on about the 70’s Humbert Humbert obscenely stalking my adolescence but my part in that phenomenon was a wardrobe full of dittos, dolphin shorts and tube tops!
I think that limpy’s, wedgie’s, brastrap snaps and getting “pansted” were rite of passage for us girls. Does the term “hazing” have an origin in Nabokov’s Dolores Haze?
I still have some Star Wars bubble gum cards and whacky packages. Remember Dynamite magazine?
The 70’s had many scary elements but for the most part, I had a lot of fun.
Dean: If you liked Dazed and Confused, check out The Stoned Age. And it’s set in Southern California!
>>the detective interviewing him finds a picture of his own son in Harris’s wallet he asks him who this boy is and Harris casually replies,”oh that boy? That boy is dead’.
This thread has recharged every nightmare I had between the ages of 11 and 17. And given me some new ones as a parent. Woof!
Funny as I read back through these episodes it seems alot of people shared my same fear of a windowless 70’s van murdering kids and dumping bodies way,way,way out in places like Poway. Strange how much smaller S.D. seems as we get older.Growing up in Mission and P.B. I thought Clairemont was inland,now I’d love to own a home in Clmnt.!!!
The dude killing little blond boys was “The Freeway Killer”. Right?
Limpy’s, my older brother perfected them on me while we watched “Benny Hill “on PBS, 1980 what a year.
>>As I read these posts, I wonder if it isn’t so much the decades as it was our ages.
Megan: It’s a crucial question I ask myself a lot.
As a parent, it’s easy to get smug about how much better attention I’m paying to scary, treacherous stuff than our parents seemed to have.
If a plane crashed into your neighborhood in 2008, wouldn’t the school district do something a little more … ummmm … systematic to assess and treat trauma than send all the kids home for a few days while the body parts were cleared away?
If a kid submitted a film on the shooting of a beloved cultural icon — even if it were irreverant — would they really get an “F” for tastelessness? I’d like to think it would more likely occasion a conversation about the kinds of issues that might have created it.
That white van haunted all our dreams — I’m with the rest of you on that one. Parents and schools today talk nonstop about how to stay away from bad guys and bad situations. Public schools can’t do everything, but my kids have been helped by the counselors and other support teams at ours.
Now, you may or may not buy all this touchy-feely stuff. And pound for pound, you’re right that this stuff could happen during any era.
But I think we really do have more tools for recognizing and dealing with traumatic stuff than our own parents had in the ’70s.
>>But I think we really do have more tools for recognizing and dealing with traumatic stuff than our own parents had in the ’70s.
True--thirty years of learning from mistakes.
The van of my fears was also white.
O.K. I have thought of bringing this up before but I learned that if you’re about to say something and your inner voice warns against it then maybe you should’nt. I have known Cathy Bozzo since I was 12 years old and I don’t wanna be in bad taste but this thread is about the fears that shaped our younger lives. Does anyone remember what her brother Robert did who was actually my brothers best friend and a part of my entire family as well. Maybe I should say what he was convicted of and alledged to have done. Ray sorry to put you on the spot but since Hokeness never comes on this site did Cathy ever open up to you about what happened? I know she did with Alena somewhat. If you don’t want to expound on this I”ll take your silence as a hint that it might be in bad taste. I think Kristi Maddocks was close with Cathy also and I have told her what happened as well.I’m just wondering if she has ever spoken to Cathy about it, It was actually worse than almost anything that has been previously brought up on this site. When Cathy was going out with Paul her brother was convicted of three counts of capital murder. All very close friends of ours and totally uncharacteristic of Robert. Basically it blew our minds. One of the people was the fiance of Tim Ortiz’s girlfriends sister. I was on my way to the Headquarters one nite when I was pulled over by S.D.P.D. for an out of date reg. and the cop that pulled me over happened to get the call of the three bodies being found, as he was running back to his cruiser he yelled,”get that thing registered!”. When I arrived at the HQ’s Tim told me what went down.
…oops
Paul,
I would have gotten back to you sooner, but I was trying to remember something . . .anything. I didn’t know anything about this, and I am surprised it wasn’t talked about more, considering how many kids from Mira Mesa used to hang out. What exactly happened?
Hey Ray, Paul is on his way to LA driving and he doesnt have access to his computer. He asked me to explain, as I was writing I realized it may be a little too revealing. Check your Myspace.
>>Mmrothenburg says:That white van haunted all our dreams — I’m with the rest of you on that one.
It definitely haunted mine!!!
We had a large house in Bonita two acres of land. Well I was about 6 yrs old and my sister Denise was 7, Terrese 9 and Monica 13. Not mentioning my brother who was 11.
All our neighbors had girls our age and our dads were all doctors and protective.
Well there was one neighbor that lived on Hilltop Road and they had 1 son,not only did this freak hide in the bushes and call out “hey girls come heeeeeeeere” but he also dug this HUGE hole, super big about 12 feet deep (size of a large jacuzzi only deeper). He put two of the neighbor girls in there (8 and 10yrs.) after he did some stuff and left them there. I am not sure what he did to them but he tried to lure many girls over to his house. He was 17 yrs.old. I remember the day my mom asked me questions regarding this boy, it was so scary to me cause he hid in the bushes and to get to our friend Nancys’ house we would have to run super fast past this bush cause he was scary!!! My parents finally got the family to move. The Police were NO HELP at the time.
In retrospect the length of time it would take to dig a 12 ft. hole in the ground obviously lends itself to some severe pre-meditated freakism!!!!!
The killer CHP officer was in the 1980s, right?
Yeah, Ray, litigation does hasten the learning curve.
And weren’t there guys dressing up as CHP officers and pulling women over and killing them?
Megan: There was an ACTUAL CHP officer pulling over women and killing them!
yikes! betcha that resulted in one of the aforementioned lawsuits. I hope.
Yes, Craig Peyer use to pull over girls and killed one. He actually pulled me over once and let me go.
Waxing a wee bit political: Prop 13 was no cyanide Kool-Aid picnic or windowless white van, but IMHO, ol’ Howard Jarvis really inflicted some lasting damage to California public schools in 1978.
Watching your Prop 8 drama reminded me how little I miss California’s whole proposition system.
Howard Jarvis, the human mudslide.
Alena--that is too too freaky!
Yes, Craig Peyer: To serve and protect. Peyer was denied parole this year, for the killing of Cara Knott, whose body was found beneath an overpass near Poway on 15. Her father died years later, of a heart attack while picking up trash near his daughter’s murder site. I found this information while searching for the case Alena and Paul refer to above. Strangely, it is not to be found anywhere on the web . . .
When I was a student at USD, Ann Swanke, the daughter of one of the Philosophy professors was kidnapped and killed by local serial killer David Allen Lucas. This would have been about 1984, and was very traumatic for the entire campus. My sister Laura knew both her and her father.
That was super freaky, I had a light blue VW. He pulled hundreds of girls over.
Hey Ray, I also looked it up and everything from that time, unless it was more famous (like they should get their 15 minutes) are archived. The County Court House has any records and I think his would be downtown Courthouse. Basically even death row inmates are hard to find online if it has been over 10 years.
There is this woman on death row (one of the few) Kerry Dalton. Convicted of Captial murdr, torture and laying in wait and she was hard to find. However there was a little paragraph. EWE…
Just a quick note on the PSA flight 187: I lived in Mission Hills and went to a small school Grace Lutheran (on Park Blvd by the Grace Towers). The crash was SO loud, we got to run outside and look at all the smoke. A HUGE billowing black cloud. Does anyone remember how that was handled on the news? We did get a few days of school off, and local news listed the names of people who died all day and night,that was so traumatic and the live wreckage was disgusting. We now live about 200 yards from the point of impact. My friend Stanley (he is in his late 80’s and so sweet) their house was the only one on the block untouched. One of his great testimonies of Gods mighty hand!
Well…the mayhem chronicles…
Yeah Ray, I was hitch-hiking to work in Mission Valley from my place at 6th/University (upstairs from a bar across the street from Quel Fromage) and got picked up by a guy in a big white Lincoln. I mentioned we’d missed my exit. He said “that’s not where we’re going”.
I waited for the first street light after his exit… and used the big wide front seat to good advantage and swung around and kicked him in the face, then ran for it. I think I broke his jaw. Hardest part was having to hitch hike BACK to work. I was late that day. “Can I help you?”
Paul…I remember the killings you mentioned…got the story in some great and graphic detail from Dirk at the time it all went down. I did not know the connection to Cathy though later I understood her brother was inside for a long time.
Later in life I married a former goth chick from Oceanside who’s best friend did a driveby killing the ex of her boyfriend in front of their kid and so became a 40-lifer at Chowchilla. Since she did her killing at 18 life really meant life. Lying in wait, drive by, etc. special circumstances.
So I’ve done a fair bit of time in visiting California prisons. Stupid system. Most folks there for drugs and not much more.
My sister’s husband knew young Mr. Mayeski pretty well and was really glad that I could remember his name, when R.A. Harris’ name is all we ever hear about. The bit about the hamburgers after the killing kept getting repeated. It’s as though you could not hear about this guy without hearing about the stupid hamburgers. After they killed him in prison I read a long bit by a shrink who pointed out that particular behavior as being clearly symptomatic of a particular psychosis…so detached from what he’d just done he just at the freakin’ burgers instead of…well…getting away.
Zo…Is Cathy’s brother still inside?
Pat
The Van of my nightmares was a blue flat nose mid to late sixties ford falcon or econoline, these nightmares started around 77-78.
A couple of years later my brother, some friends and myself were walking down
a road below balboa park and the zoo, ya know the road thats heads downtown and to gloden hills, it’s in a canyon.
Anyways we were down there looking for cigarette buts to smoke, when a blue or maybe green and white dodge van pulls up to me, I was alittle ahead of my friends, the door swings open and this man maybe in his 50’s or 60’s with glasses and a baseball starts yelling at me “get in right now, get in right now kid!”. This guy was scary, he was angry, spit was flying out of his month while he yelling at me.
I was so scared I almost got in the van, I reach for the door to pull myself in, my brother and friends(tim and chris) started yelling “don’t get in, don’t get in Dylan”. The guy took off down the road.
What the hell were doing down there smoking cigarette buts we found on the side of the road????
Almost cost me my life as I know it.
Kids don’t smoke!!!
There was a girl who was kidnapped and dragged into the woods by the highway. Her arms were cut off and she was left for dead, she made her way back to the highway and nobody would stop to help her, they were all horrified. Who was that? Where was that?
Lou: Lawrence Singleton was the charmer you’re thinking of. … That particularly ghastly crime took place in … wait for it! … September 1978.
And after Lawrence Singleton was convicted in San Diego of this heinous crime, he only had to serve seven years before he was paroled. Scumbag….
So, fall 1978 I was a high-school freshman. Here’s a partial time line of fun headlines from California around my first semester:
July 5: Robert Alton Harris kills Mayeski and Baker
Sept. 25: PSA Flight 182 crashes
Sept. 29: Lawrence Singleton chops off Mary Vincent’s arms
Nov. 18: Jonestown
Nov. 27: Milk/Moscone killings
Jan. 29, 1979: Brenda Spencer shoots up Cleveland Elementary School
Gnarly!!
PSA Flight 182 Crash: the school year had just started up and it was my first year of high school at Crawford. The plane crash happened during school hours. I remember we all scrambled to the 2nd floor buildings to see what the ruckus was about. You could see the smoke filling the air and we heard a “boom.” The gym at nearby St. Augustine High School (or Saints, as it was called) served as the morgue.
“I Don’t Like Mondays.” It was later in my sophomore year — one of my good friends lived next door to Brenda Spencer. He said he wasn’t surprised at all by what she did. Cleveland Elementary is now a charter school, operating under a different name.
Jim Jones’ San Francisco days: The Peoples Temple was located on Geary Blvd. & Fillmore. After they vacated, they tore down the building. For years it was nothing but a vacant lot with a U.S. Government sign. As I live out in the “Avenues” I would pass this lot all the time when going to Japantown, the Kabuki Theatre (now Sundance Kabuki), or the Fillmore. I always wondered what the story was. I finally found out one day that that was the site of the Temple. Several years ago they built a Post Office there.
In 79 or 80 I saw made for T.V. movie on Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple.
Living in San Francisco for many years I often wondered were the site of the peoples temple was, now I know. I used to live up the street from the site in The Filmore, back in 89-90. Now I understand the dark cloud that always hung over that area…..Thanks Lori!
Jim Jones was one charismatic barber.
Sure thing, Dylan. Having lived in SF since ’86 (‘cept 2 years in NYC—’88-90), I’ve managed to acquire lots of interesting bits of history. Of course I’m partial to the more obscure morsels. Are you still here in SF?
No I am in Sacto, don’t ask. I am geting out of this hell hole at the end of the year, moving back to americas finest city.
Nice. 😉 Yeah, ever since I came to SF @ 19 on a road/surf trip up the coast from SD, I was smitten. And when it was time to leave NYC, there was no other city that came to mind…OH! You’re talkin’ about SD. 😉
Don’t feel bad, I leave SF everyday for work…in Pleasanton! Yuck.
I love San Francisco and wish I was moving there sometimes but the cost of living is just to high, I have kept my foot in the S.F. music scene the whole time I have been in Sacto so I am there alot.
I never thought I would move back to S.D.. I am looking forward it, it will be a whole new world after 20 years away.
I never agreed with the title “Americas Finest City”, San Diego moto for there (shitty) mass transit was great thow “Winners Ride the Bus”.
I hear ya, Dylan. If it weren’t for the fact that my house is rent-controlled, I’m not sure if I could afford to stay here. (I’ve been in it — Outer Richmond 2BR/1BA — for 14 yrs now and pay under $1,300.) I know how lucky I am. I ain’t leavin’ till they kick me out. It would be a real trip to move back to SD. I do visit my family every Xmas and sometimes in the summer, so I get my SOCAL fix. IF I ever were to move back, it would have to be near the ocean. (In SF, I’m 5 blocks from OB near the Cliff House.) My fam all lives in La Mesa, so that’s where I “hang” when I go back. Def an easier city to live in, if for the sheer fact that parking is never an issue. That can really get you down in SF.
Lori: You twig to the “San Francisco exodus” post yet?
Hmm Matthew, I don’t believe I’m aware of that threadage. Is it here on Ché?
Lori: Voila — Our “San Francisco exodus” thread.
Yeah was just there pokin’ around. Too much hate for my city. I will t(h)read w/ caution… 😉
Pat I totally missed your thread about Cathy’s brother and was just re-reading some stuff on here when I came across it. Yes her brother is still in prison,actually he’ll always be in prison.In fact he just so happens to be on the number three yard right here in S.D. at Donovan. I ran into a wannabe skinhead named Skull ( I know what you’re thinkin,this shit only happens in the movies) and he was his cellie.The funny part is he (Skull) had no idea who Cathy’s brother was and why he was in prison in the first place! I guess they were only cellies for like 3 weeks cause it was Skulls first time in the pen and I kinda got the impression that Robert did’nt take to him very well cause he obviously did’nt know cell etiquette. Believe me when someone has been in as long as Robert they definately don’t want a first termer celled up with them. But Skull also told me that their distaste for each other went both ways.
Skull tells me that when they would be locked down alone in the cell and some cute chick would come on the t.v., Robert would reiterate over and over how he was still a virgin when they locked him up at the tender age of 19. Skull said he started fearing for his own virgin booty and promptly asked for a cell change!!! Remember Cathy was a pretty healthy sized girl,you can imagine how big her brother is,like 6’5″ with hands that can palm a bowling ball!!!
Lori Stalnaker-Bevilacqua; what a friggen great name! Hey you live near The Cliffhouse? I love that place! Oh man do I have a great story about that beautifully old musty restaurant. It involves Vegas, the cops and Tahoe…maybe for some other time.
It’s 2:30 am in SAN DIEGO and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain harder!
Thirty years later, Diane Feinstein recalls the Milk-Moscone killings. Feinstein was mayor when I arrived … I think she used to hang around Central House.
Thanx, Paul. Ain’t it a mouthful? Never liked my maiden name “Stalnaker.” Got all kinds of nicknames growing up with that one. When I got married to the “Bevilacqua,” an Argentine I met while living in New York, I said “hell yeah, much better — I’ll take it.” So I kept both names. I really only use “Bevilacqua” (which means “drink water” in Italian). Lately though, in an effort to reconnect with those from my past, I decided to throw back in my maiden name. So there. More than you probably wanted or needed to know.
Yeah, yeah, just down the street from the Cliff House. It ain’t that musty old place anymore though (too bad). They rebuilt it (again) a couple of years ago due to retrofitting. I only wish they had rebuilt it like the 2nd version. It was a grand Victorian with 8 stories, tons of spires and an observation tower. It was the most famous and loved one of all. It only lasted 10 years though. Ironically, it survived the big 1906 earthquake, but a year later was destroyed by fire. Man, what a sight that would be — to look up the coast and have your eyes land on that! This is by far my favorite shot of it >>> http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/photos/storm/storm.htm Instead, it’s this modern looking one without the charm of its predecessors.
Another huge loss with the rebuilding was the Musée Mécanique. You remember that right? It was housed downstairs in the Cliff House. A treasure trove of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines. When the GGNRA was was doing up the plans for the rebuilding they “accidentally” left out the Musée. There is a lot of controversy around this. Sadly, it is now located up at the Wharf and completely commercialized. I dug it when it was in my ‘hood. It was still kinda underground and a stumbled-upon treasure.
On a happier note, the Camera Obscura IS still there. It’s the last remaining remnant of Playland at the Beach. For years they were trying to get rid of it, but luckily it made it to National Landmark status several years ago and is SAFE. 🙂
Yes, I have a whole lot of love for SF. And especially my ‘hood out here by the beach. I know everyone has their mixed feelings, but to me it’s home.
…the rain has made it’s way up here now…
Lori are you saying the architecture has changed since I was there in 2003? If that’s the case what a shame, that place was (is) magnificent! Please say it ai’nt so!!! B.T.W. what is a Camera Obscura?
“The camera obscura (Latin dark chamber) is an optical device used, for example, in drawing or for entertainment. It is one of the inventions leading to photography. The principle can be demonstrated with a box with a hole in one side (the box may be room-sized, or hangar sized). Light from a scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface where it is reproduced, in color, and upside-down. The image’s perspective is accurate. The image can be projected onto paper, which when traced can produce a highly accurate representation.”
They started reconstruction on Cliff House #4 in Sept. ’02 and finished mid-year ’03. So the one you saw in ’03 is indeed what it is today. They decided to keep it clean and simple, feeling it would blend with the ocean better than the Victorian style one.
The Camera Obscura is located behind it. It’s a rare device (camera), based on a 15th century design by Leonardo da Vinci. It produces 360 degrees of live images and takes 6 minutes to complete the rotation. This one in particular captures the coastline and Seal Rock area. It magnifies the image 7 times on a 6 ft. parabolic table. It’s feel like the images are coming right at ya. Watching a sunset through the camera is sublime. There are also lots of holograms covering the walls inside. I recommend checking it out when you’re here again.
Ha! Matthew, our comments just crossed each other…
Happy 35th anniversary, Patty Smith kidnapping!
When my father was interviewed by a Dutch newspaper, my eight-year-old self ended up being quoted extensively about my own theories surrounding this abduction.
Who else remembers the name Steven Weed to this day?
Lol, mixed-70s slip. That would be the Patty Hearst kidnapping!
LOL — “Patty Smith Kidnapping.” Actually a pretty good band name! 🙂
Check it out … Here’s an epoch-appropriate connection between Smith and Hearst:
“Financed by Robert Mapplethorpe, the band recorded a first single, ‘Hey Joe / Piss Factory’, in 1974. The A-side was a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst (‘Patty Hearst, you’re standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering were you gettin’ it every night from a black revolutionary man and his women…’).”
Patty meets Patty … Kind of the “Patty Duke Show” of ’70s counterculture! And “Between the Pattys” would be one hell of an album title!
In February of 1975, there was also another grusome murder in San Carlos. A senior at Patrick Henry, Danny Alstadt flipped out one Friday night and killed his parents, sister, family dog and critically injured his brother (who was left wheel chair bound for life) with an ax and then proceed to set the house on fire. Danny hung himself in prison about 6 years ago. He was an Eagle Scout and football player.
Wow, here I am remembering all these deaths and I find David Carradine of 70’s Kung Fu series just died, possibly suicide. Kung Fu brought in some of that mystical side of life that I felt i was missing in all the prepacked everything of my suburban childhood. Maybe David C. felt he hadn’t completed Grasshopper’s quest but he still rep’d it well to all us kids looking for something more. RIP, David
Jules: “First, I’m gonna deliver this case to Marsellus. Then, basically, I’m gonna walk the earth.”
Vincent: “What do you mean, walk the earth?”
Jules: “You know, like Caine in ‘Kung Fu.'”
Pulp Fiction…Where’s Bill?? What a loss.
Agree with David, first contact with Asian-holy man-warrior figure in ’70s suburbia.
RIP Kwai Chang.
i think it was autoerotic asphyxiation.
which doubles the bummer factor.
i never got that. ::shrug::
goodbye grasshopper.
(jerry, i love pulp fiction. tarantinos best next to res dogs.)
Happy 25th anniversary, San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre.
Why’d we get ALL the crazies??
CNN has an interesting piece on how the firepower mismatch between cops and perp on that day resulted in significant procedural changes…
As to the question about crazies, there’s the fact that two big old interstates come to an end in San Diego. People drifting west or south because of weather, golden-state fantasies, manifest destiny, or whatever can’t go any further without backtracking, crossing an international border, or swimming. That’s part of it, I think. It certainly has to do with the character of OB, where I’m from…
>>As to the question about crazies, there’s the fact that two big old interstates come to an end in San Diego. People drifting west or south because of weather, golden-state fantasies, manifest destiny, or whatever can’t go any further without backtracking, crossing an international border, or swimming. That’s part of it, I think.
Damn, Simon — great thumbnail sketch!
“San Diego: Down and to the Left” … New T-shirt.
basically> san diego is THE end-of-the-road pioneer-town which ignores the fact that it’s inhabitants hail from a national-culture of indian-killing and land-grabbing and militarism all the while pretending there’s something sanctimonious or precious about ourselves and our grassy-lawns, palm-trees, and sprinkler-systems.
surely paradise always comes with a price.
not that there’s any turning back from things…..or that a call for a return to ireland or africa will settle past debts.
i just think we have a great sunny stage for which such dramas can play out.
weather is almost never a factor….it’s simply one of the best theaters one could hope for.
>>i just think we have a great sunny stage for which such dramas can play out.
Clay: Yup, the contrast between sunny scenery and dark doings was incredibly cinematic.
And I b’lieve the tourist economy inspired a lot of sweeping under the carpet. (We’ve discussed before the city’s mad scramble to put the PSA crash behind it. … I think a lot of other Bad Stuff was glossed over, too.)