Last night Dale (Bass player) and I got together with our band's wandering Conga/Harmonica player, Earl, after he flew in from parts unknown. He's always off somewhere evangelizing a fire safety product (he was a Fire Dept. Education Officer before he retired). Haven't seen him for about 6 months as he also moved out to the desert which means he misses our weekly band practice and our gigs unless our schedules are just right. We talked and drank a few beers for a couple hours during which a variety of musical topics came up. For some reason the band "Fever Tree" came up. We must have been talking about vinyl LPs and album covers, might have been drugs;). Anywho, this morning I went to Youtube (surprise) and looked up "Fever Tree". First tune was "San Francisco Girls", the video ended with this:
Flip past the Fleur-de-Kos
Gladly. The back door usually lead through the kitchen where the heart and soul of the house resides. Actually the sign was just something to give me a catchy title for a diary.
The sign also reminded me of a path not taken.
Back in 1966 after graduating from High School, a friend and I went on a "surfin' safari" to So. Cal. BOHICA was a surfer???? Damn straight. Of course up here on the upper left coast one had to wear a wet suit to survive, I even wore booties. Had a Hobie long board and could hang ten. Biggest problem with most Oregon beaches that I surfed (beside the cold water) was it was a long way from the car to the beach. We hoped this wouldn't be the case down south and the water would be warm.
Strapped our boards to a '54 Chev wagon, loaded up camping gear and off we went.
When we got down to the beaches around LA, the waves were about a foot high. WTF! Well this was disappointing to say the least. What to do? We decided to head back north and check out the beaches on the way back. The Surf Gods were against us, no waves. Our last stop was "Half Moon Bay" just south of San Francisco. Same thing. Fuck! Disappointed and frustrated we turned north and headed home. The one thing we didn't do was stop in San Fransisco to my utter regret looking back. San Fransisco and Haight-Ashbury in 1966, the year before the "Summer of Love" when it became a real freak show!!
A path not taken.
A year later I was in the Army and 2 years later in Viet Nam. What a bummer. What a different trip it might have been if we had only stopped over to check out the scene going on at the time, sigh.
I ended up a DFH anyway, just took a little longer.
Me, circa 1972.
What a long strange trip its been.