Adventures In A Lawless California Mountan Town; Part 2

[Wyatt Burp]

I once wrote about a little well hid town in the Sierras where we sometimes visit. Except for not letting our dog in the bar, no laws really seem to apply there.
On another occasion on our way back to Sac. from Oregon we encountered a town in the heart of Bigfoot country. We stopped at a bar where someone was having a birthday party and were immediatly invited to join in. To look at us, especially me, we fit right into these little local hangouts in out of the way places. My wife wears her cute sexy clothes and I'm in cutoffs, tank top, and untrimmed beard. Well, we ended up staying there until night drinking, ending up in the hotel across the street. In the course of this day we would meet people and for some reason they just tend to open up to us. We never ask any probing questions and respect and appreciate meeting people from different places. Turns out this place was full of mountain pot growers and folks that tend to live their lives the way they want. At one point the back door was open and these two guys were standing out there smoking weed. The bartender saw this and said in a stern voice, "Hey! You know you can't do that! You can't bring your drinks outside!" A local Indian tribe, we were told, comes down from a nearby reservation and things supposedly get pretty wild.
It's fun sometimes visiting places where the regular rules don't apply and I get to meet people that do what I do and ignore the laws that we just don't approve of. To me this is the real California. Unfortunatly people from other states only get to hear about the dumb laws and think L.A. and the Bay Area sum up the state. Get out of town and you'd think you were in Idaho or Montana. BTW. I won't mention the town if anyone asks.

 

[off road]

You are traveling (driving) and you stop at a bar for a drink? Be honest, and tell us how many DUI's do you actually have?

California is the way it is (leftist and anti-gun!), because we now have a third generation of potheads (grandchildern of the 60's hippies) outvoting the few sober folks that are left.

 

[feralmerril]

Wyatt, how was willow creek? Hoopa was the indian factor. I treated power poles there back in fall of 1964. I got in quite a fracus there. Most the town got wiped out in a flood late 64 or spring 65.

 

[feralmerril]

Wyatt did say he went to the hotel across the street after drinking.

 

[Wyatt Burp]

You are traveling (driving) and you stop at a bar for a drink? Be honest, and tell us how many DUI's do you actually have?

California is the way it is (leftist and anti-gun!), because we now have a third generation of potheads (grandchildern of the 60's hippies) outvoting the few sober folks that are left.

Let's see. We're travelling through the mountains and have to take a leak and the first place we see is a bar. So we stop. We have a couple beers and end up staying for hours and then what do we do? We stay at the hotel right there! Maybe that's why I've never gotten a DUI or been arrested for anything in my life. And according to you I'm a pothead because of the second hand smoke around this bar because OTHER PEOPLE are getting stoned! I don't care if they smoke pot so according to you I'm a pothead for not condemning it? And I don't recall ever seeing my granddad or my dad smoking weed. And I don't indulge in the stuff. I remember my dad almost getting in a fight with my brother in '69 because he wouldn't get a haircut. So how can I be a third generation hippie? But I don't go to other places and judge the people that choose to smoke pot in public. The way you just judged three generations of my family. It's an observation about how laws don't seem to apply in places. And when I say I ignore certain laws, they pertain to carry loaded guns in the car when travelling, or on me when camping in places that prohibit it.
I like meeting people from differnet places.

 

[7003006]

Let's see. We're travelling through the mountains and have to take a leak and the first place we see is a bar. So we stop. We have a couple beers and end up staying for hours and then what do we do? We stay at the hotel right there! Maybe that's why I've never gotten a DUI or been arrested for anything in my life. And according to you I'm a pothead because of the second hand smoke around this bar because OTHER PEOPLE are getting stoned! I don't care if they smoke pot so according to you I'm a pothead for not condemning it? And I don't recall ever seeing my granddad or my dad smoking weed. And I don't indulge in the stuff. I remember my dad almost getting in a fight with my brother in '69 because he wouldn't get a haircut. So how can I be a third generation hippie? But I don't go to other places and judge the people that choose to smoke pot in public. The way you just judged three generations of my family. It's an observation about how laws don't seem to apply in places. And when I say I ignore certain laws, they pertain to carry loaded guns in the car when travelling, or on me when camping in places that prohibit it.
I like meeting people from differnet places.

Well said.

 

[Marshwheeling]

I won't mention the town if anyone asks.

I already know. It's Vineland. I read the book. ;-{>

 

[Wyatt Burp]

Remember those hall monitors in school that would snitch you out if you're a second late to class? The one who got patted on the head by the teachers? I think I just encountered one of those guys here grown up.

 

[feralmerril]

Wyatt and I know each other from this board and another. We have comunicated off line in the past. Even though I am older I feel to be of kindered spirits with matt. Seems we like the same stuff. (Not pot) I have read most of wyatts posts here and elsewhere for several years. When you read a lot of what a man has wrote over years I think you get a good idea where they are comeing from. Haveing lived in california fourty years and knowing and have worked in the very small mountain towns he speaks of, I belive I know what he is trying to get across. California isnt just every movie that happens to come from a four square mile spot in hollywood, or all the stuff in the news about weird san francisco. California also is the outback mountain and desert villages that the general public elsewhere has no idea exists. Matt and I have frequented them many times. They are rough, and nothing like the movie images of the other california.

 

[feralmerril]

Now bout that fracus I alluded to. Fall of 1964 I got a contract to treat the power transmission line for my company out of willow creek. I hired four guys. One was a out of work lumberjack. Later I was informed he was up for manslaughter. He had furnished alchol to minors at a wild party. Word was his advances were shunned by two girls. They had a 56 T-bird and they got raceing on a mountain road after the party and he shoved them off the road to their deaths. He was late a few times to work and I gave him leeway and it got worse, I fired him. I guess he put the word out he was going to kick my butt when we came in from work as it looked like half of willow creek was waiting at the station for the fight. I got lucky and knocked him out. He came to as a couple of his buddys was hauling him off and hollered he was going to shove me and my travel trailer off the cliff. I knew he could do it as I had my trailer in a forest service campground a few miles west of town. I had it sitting on the edge of a steep high cliff. I pulled it into town behind a cheap old boarding house that one of my boys was staying at. Seemed all the guys in that boarding house were accomplished guitar players and singers. A night later I was sitting in their front liveing room listening to them jam. In walks "Dan", the problem child with several of his buddys.
I wanna see you out back, he says. I know I am dead. A couple guys I knew started to get up with me, but I tell them to sit down, this will only take a minute. I go out back with the three guys. That surprised dan. He put out his hand and apologized! God got me out of that one!

 

[off road]

Is there actually anyone of you out there who does not know someone who has been killed by an intoxicated driver??? I'm actually a libertarian, and if folks want to light up or drink or snort bath salts or run a meth lab, be a hippie or toothless redneck, that's fine with me as long as they do it on their own property and sober up before they get into their cars and drive (or go to the poles and vote!).

I frequent the eastern Sierra and all over the Mojave desert, so I know California small towns. But in the north, it's a whole different culture and if someone would give me a marker and I could draw a line on the map and seperate into seperatre states inland southern California from the pothead north and the far leftists on the coast, I sure would!

 

[ladder13]

Unfortunatly people from other states only get to hear about the dumb laws and think L.A. and the Bay Area sum up the state. Get out of town and you'd think you were in Idaho or Montana.

I agree, it's the same way here in NY. People hear NYC, and think it's the whole state.

 

[cudamank]

actually if you would make San Francisco, the central coast, and LA into a state (we will give them Sacramento) and the rest of the state would be a nice place to live. okay by me.

 

[NKJ nut]

So if a man and his wife stop at a bar and have some drinks and socialize with the locals and then spend the night in the local hotel, that makes them drunk drivers and potheads, responsible for all of the woes in the state? That is interesting thinking.

Highly judgmental and lacking in credibility but like much goofy thinking ; interesting all the same. By that standard I have corrupted states from Indiana to Fl. and from South Carolina to South California. Never got a DUI though or smoked any weed, motel drapes, dirty socks or underwear or any of that stuff. I did encounter a lot of good people and some not so good. It helped me learn the wisdom of not being judgmental or stereotyping.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

Having lived in the Sierra Foothills for 36 years before moving to Oregon I feel qualified to answer all the questions raised here. The small towns there are all one of a kind. I thought baseball was the National Pastime but found that drinking was 1st choice there. Did my share also but never got a 502. Most folks would help out if stranded or wrecked or stuck in a snow bank. Gave a lot of rides to people that way. Found out those beautiful mountains would kill you if you got in a bind. Without help you were toast. Pulled out a couple of folks that wrecked their cars far from civilazation. Great counrty but over grown with pot farms now. Happy to be out of Calif. now.

 

[writerinmo]

Is there actually anyone of you out there who does not know someone who has been killed by an intoxicated driver??? I'm actually a libertarian, and if folks want to light up or drink or snort bath salts or run a meth lab, be a hippie or toothless redneck, that's fine with me as long as they do it on their own property and sober up before they get into their cars and drive (or go to the poles and vote!).

I frequent the eastern Sierra and all over the Mojave desert, so I know California small towns. But in the north, it's a whole different culture and if someone would give me a marker and I could draw a line on the map and seperate into seperatre states inland southern California from the pothead north and the far leftists on the coast, I sure would!

Don't recall him saying anything about driving AFTER he had his beverages, seems to me his post says he checked into the local boarding house.

I lived in California for many years, both in the Bay Area, San Jose, and up by Modesto, and potheads were pretty darn profuse around those parts, when did they herd them all up and corral them up north? Guess I've been out of touch with things out there, my sis-in-law sure must not be keeping me up to date on things there!

 

[feralmerril]

Like many here, I have been over most of the west through the years. Where I live here in SW utah is one of the top places, I have seen much of the sierra`s that I like as much or more. I owned for many years 10 acres of undeveloped, beautiful but steep mountainside north of portola near lake davis. I had planned on retireing on it. When it came down to it, I didnt like the politics, the land was high off the road and steeper than my wife and I wanted to deal with, plus we couldnt begin to afford any kind of house in that area at that time. I got a small fortune for the land and we settled here. Had it not been for stupid game, gun and hunting laws etc, we could have been quite happy there. Also, where we live its mostly BLM, back there I doubt we would have had near the freedom we do here, to ride quads. You would normaly think oregon also would be ideal but in my experiance I belive there are more old hippys, greenies, liberals, dopers, and general biggited nuts than I encountered in california! Maybe its all over now? When I graduated in 1958 in berlin wisconsin there wasnt one hint of dope in that school!

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

Wyatt and I know each other from this board and another. We have comunicated off line in the past. Even though I am older I feel to be of kindered spirits with matt. Seems we like the same stuff. (Not pot) I have read most of wyatts posts here and elsewhere for several years. When you read a lot of what a man has wrote over years I think you get a good idea where they are comeing from. Haveing lived in california fourty years and knowing and have worked in the very small mountain towns he speaks of, I belive I know what he is trying to get across. California isnt just every movie that happens to come from a four square mile spot in hollywood, or all the stuff in the news about weird san francisco. California also is the outback mountain and desert villages that the general public elsewhere has no idea exists. Matt and I have frequented them many times. They are rough, and nothing like the movie images of the other california.

And I would probably like to visit and be more comforatble at these off-the-beaten-path places than I would in the larger cities of California. FTR Texas has MORE than a few of these kinds of places...I love to go to them on the weekend. Only one has ever given me the creeps and I won't go back to. One, (Anderson, Texas) looks like Dodge City circa 1880 with Grimes County Courthouse looking like a castle in the middle of the street!

 

[old bear]

Offroad:

Offroad, I was born in Berkley Ca and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for much of my life. As expected my political leanings vary between liberation and liberal. I've also been a handgun shooter over 50 years and an owner over 40 years. So your blanket assertion, as oft happens with sweeping statements, that all liberals are anti-gun is false.

Let's all remember that when those of us enjoy the shooting sports start fighting among ourselves we give the "anti's one more weapon to use against us.

 

[feralmerril]

In 1963 I worked around richmound and rosenburg texas. Even though at that time I had never been to new york, I was driveing a truck with new york plates. Thats because my company that I was a foreman for was from buffalo new york. (Osmose wood preserving co.) I was pulled over by a rough cop in richmound. He simply said, Ah catch yuh hair agin and ah`l throw yuh in jail. Then I noticed I was driveing through the black red light section!