GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

A 3.5 mile bike ride from Munson’s place can get you to Colma, a Bay Area city with 1.5 million underground residents.  When property values began to rise in the early 1900s, the City of San Francisco passed a series of ordinances that first prohibited any future cemetery from being built within the city limits, and later forced the eviction of all but two existing cemeteries.  When there’s money to be made, never underestimate the ability of your democratically elected officials to find a way.  The project wasn’t completed until 1942 when finally every corpse, headstone, coffin, grave marker, crypt and vault had been uprooted, shipped to Colma and re-interred.  Usually while visiting Munson I’m up early and looking for something to do until 11:30 a.m. when Munson will climb out of bed to begin preparations for the first race at Santa Anita.  One good option is a fifteen minute walk down to the BART station at   Balboa   Park   and trav...

It's difficult to know what's going to happen when I stop by Jean and John's place.  I never know what other characters may show up or what new treasures have been retrieved from an estate sale or the neighbor's trash bin.  I expect they will be up to their usual verbal shenanigans where they suck me into a completely asinine conversation until I catch on and yell at them to knock it off. One night while I was over, they were having fun trying to bait me when John decided it was time to bring out some things he had recently unearthed at an estate sale in Beverly Hills.  John has spent years going through what other people want to unload and he knows what to look for and how to find it.  Often the reason for an estate sale is that the home owner has passed away.  In such an instance it is not unusual for the sale to be overseen by one of the former owner's children who has little knowledge of the items left behind; particularly those that are old and rare. Whe...

Munson and I had sailed to the center of Moro Bay just as the offshore wind began to howl.  We were staying at the Umbeck’s in Los Osos and had taken out their sabot, an eight-foot-long sailing dinghy.  The sabot is a tiny craft intended for single-handed sailing by youngsters.   photo from Duckworks Magazine We were both over six feet tall which along with the ice chest we loaded aboard made for cramped quarters.  Between the ice chest and the two of us, the little boat would be asked to maneuver while hauling nearly 500 pounds.  Neither of us had ever been sailing before but after a twenty-minute laurel-and-Hardy routine that dealt with tacking and coming about, we were all set.  We had made use of a steady but gentle breeze to take us out into the bay where we now sat working our way through the beer in the ice chest.  At first the occasional gusts went unnoticed but as white caps appeared and the wind neared gale-force lev...

The documents below were found in a dumpster outside Frank Gehry’s Los Angeles offices.

I was fortunate to be around Stephen Murrell Peters in the mid 1960s before he was stricken with a severe form of maturity.  I've written about Peters before and since no one else is recording his deeds, I feel it is my duty as well as a privilege to put down a few more words about the man. Someone we knew (Tut Wynn as I recall) was attending Occidental College and was on the cheerleading squad.  Peters not only had nothing to do with cheerleading he wasn't even going to school.  However, we all hung around together and Peters happened to get wind of an invitation put forth to the Oxy cheerleaders to participate in a Los Angeles City High School cheerleading camp.  Peters also discovered that none of the Oxy cheerleaders were going to attend as none of them wanted to blow a Saturday with a bunch of high school kids.  Peters talked Tut in to letting him borrow the Oxy cheerleading outfits so he, Cummins and Chaffee could go as imposters...

Photo – historicengland.org.uk England 1862, Wednesday early afternoon - the postman has delivered a parcel to an estate just outside London .  The box has been taken up to the study on the second floor and placed on a large table.  The head of the household has returned from his midday walk and is making his way up the stairs.  His full whitish-grey beard and poor posture make him seem older than his age of fifty-three.  His movements are slow and he requires the use of a walking stick.  He pauses in the hall for a pinch of snuff before entering his study and taking a seat at the table.  He notices the parcel on the table and sees that it’s from James Bateman a horticulturist.  He had requested specimens from Bateman to use in his work on the insect pollination of orchids.  Using his penknife he carefully removes the twine and paper and opens the box.  This time Bateman has included something truly unique - Angraecum sesquipe...

The spring sign-up for kindergarten was at 8 a.m. and I was determined to be the first person in line.  The previous year the line began to form on the day before at 4 p.m.  Figuring it would be best to shave a little off of last year's mark; I showed up with my lawn chair a day early at noon and was the only person there.  I had been recruited by Maria, daughter-in-law, to hold a place in line so my grandson would have a kindergarten to attend come winter.    However, as I was to discover later, being first in line doesn't guarantee a spot in the school.  Assuming there are any openings, the selection process involves a weighted scoring methodology for each applicant that in addition to your place in line takes into account many other factors – gender, ethnicity, location of residence, gang membership(s), arrest record, family income, etc.   I sat in my lawn chair wondering why the Old Testament, other than one male and one female, makes no mention of the...

The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history had once taken place just up the road from the house we bought.  Along with the square footage and number of bedrooms, you would think the seller or the real estate agent might have at least mentioned this in passing.  It wasn’t the first time we had bought a house so we knew enough to check the appliances, the water pressure and the HOA fees; but it never occurred to us to bring along a Geiger counter.  If you were unfamiliar with Simi Valley you’d have no way of knowing that Rocketdyne spent decades perched atop a hill above the valley having a go at mother nature.   Santa Susana Field Lab photo by U.S. Department of Energy. In 1947 the U.S. Government chose the top of one of the Simi Hills to build the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) where the development and testing of rocket engines and nuclear reactors could be carried out.  The location that may have seemed somewhat remote at the time now...