In the Beginning...it all started on a wee, speck-island town across the bay from San Francisco, called Alameda...'twas 1968 and...

Like all high school kids, at least of that time period, I had to have some kind of day job in order to earn spendin’ cash….

"You can learn a lot by just watching.” -- Yogi Berra

It was now sometime near the beginning of 1969 when ol’ Vince n’ I decided it was time to put out the feelers to Lou...

Glenda Plant was in my high school graduating class of ’69. She was tall, gorgeous, kind, sexy, intelligent, voluptuous, loving...

Lest y’all think that these 3 episodes with Glenda have been constructed by your humble narrator in a manner in which...

After the previously a’feared fireworks in Connor’s office had fizzled out, and we were released back into the general population...

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged..."

We were back to Square Three: Tommy, Vince, and Lou…though, truth be told, I went by “Tom” back then…Geez, what was I thinking?...

“Welcome to St. Elizabeth’s High School, the happenin’ place to be on a Friday night."

"Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God” -- Lenny Bruce

So, by far, up to this point at least, the biggest professional “feather in our cap,” came in September of ’69, about 3 weeks into the...

I was born in Alameda, California - it was my first home - and lived there until I was about 16, then moved to Oakland in the Rockridge...

I first met Pat Thrall one late-afternoon in the summer of '69 right after Cookin’ Mama had just finished an early-afternoon gig at the...

Pat and his younger brother Preston (to whom I have already briefly alluded earlier in this tawdry tale, and about whom...

Also, by this point in time (very late-1969), I had begun my freshman year at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. Got in there....

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it." - Jonathan Winters

Pat called me the next day and told me about this band that he'd heard the night before at Winterland called: "The Sons of Champlin"......

Life is strange sometimes. Especially when you are young and adrift in your own confusion. I had been told what I could do, what I...

Paul Hahn was one year ahead of me at Alameda High. He graduated in ’68. Me in ’69. And although I didn’t know him personally until his...