Postcard from Mount Rainier

July 5, 1975, Washington.

Dear Grandma, 

After we went to Victoria, we got bad weather and rain so it spoiled our stay. We took the Gulf Island cruise but didn’t stay long. We went to Salt Spring Island and Galliano Island. A tiny three-car ferry. It sure was miserable being there in the rain, so we went over to Vancouver and to Horseshoe Bay. 

Couldn’t see a thing because of the weather, so we decided to come back to the US. Then the good weather struck on the day we were about to leave. So we decided to stay a while longer and revisited the Horseshoe Bay area. Well worth the bother. It was stunningly beautiful. But the logging industry has ruined much of British Columbia. The air is absolutely foul from the paper pulp mills. Worse than LA smog.

We went up to Garibaldi Provincial Park North of Vancouver, but the only way in is by backpacking. Snow level was too low, so that was out. It had snowed a few days earlier down to 3000 feet, so the mountains were quite beautiful.

We took a ferry across Horseshoe Bay, thinking that the Sunshine Coast would also be as beautiful as Horseshoe Bay, but it was a disappointment. And there was no sunshine We were able to see so many of the sites we missed the last time. Capilano Gorge in North Vancouver was outrageous, an actual granite gorge in North Vancouver with a very bouncy rope suspension bridge. 

In Victoria, we ran into a bunch of people that we had met last year on Salt Spring Island it was a nice surprise. We ran out of things to do in Victoria so yesterday we headed back to the states and got through customs with four 12-pack cases of Labatt’s beer. The customs lady merely said “oh, go on through,” like we were a couple of kids. They usually make you pay duty on any alcohol in excess of 1 quart. We were fully expecting trouble through customs because the bus is a camper van, and they are usually thoroughly searched.

We drove straight through to Mount Rainier. There is so much snow here that one can’t really hike here either. Oh well. I found a warm spring on the slopes of Mount Rainier and soaked my feet from a small wooden bridge. June is not a good month to vacation in the Pacific Northwest. It’s nice now but another storm front is moving in from the coast. We will probably check out the Columbia River Gorge, and  the Trinity Alps, and then head back home in a couple of weeks or so.

Have you heard from Jane yet? I wrote to her in Ireland. I guess I’ll phone when I get back in California to find out when she is returning. Please, tell Borg of my travels as I haven’t sent a postcard. I haven’t yet sent Jane a postcard either. When the weather is so bad I didn’t feel like sending any cards to anyone. As it was, we had to stay in the van or camp out in a museum because of the dreadful rain.

Didn’t get any Dickson tea, but got another kind. I haven’t tried it yet. Barf-o-bits Bob has recovered from his sea voyage quite nicely. I think he just ate too much salmon as he won’t touch the stuff now. If you’re wondering why my writing is so messy I’m writing on top of Bob’s head. It’s the only level spot. 

Love, Baba

College of Marin graduation, AA Art

Jungfrau, Switzerland (drawing)

I worked in Wengen one summer as a waitress & hiked on my days off. My art was destroyed, except this. I also made pressed flower arrangements to ID later.

Article on the art murals at Drake Drake High School, Dec. 1969

I never realized that the art murals at Drake High School were cause for consternation. Liz Haas posted this article on Facebook, dated December, 12, 1969. The mural was in room 219, I think that was Mr. Lucy’s room, and the other mural was in the ceramic lab, on the third corridor. I knew them well. Blast from the past, to say the least. The farthest back I can publish anything is 1970. So it’s a year out of sequence.
Added 6/21/2020

Marin musical line up at Pepperland

Litchfield’s Bermuda Palms, 745 East Francisco Blvd, in San Rafael, was where we went to dance during the late 1960s, early 70s. It was not a particularly safe place for young teenage girls, as it was a pick-up joint already gone to seed, a rough underside of drugs and prostitution was background music. The motel was also a hangout for sailors—a mob during Fleet Week. Talk about culture clash. A milieu of redneck and hippie as it transitioned from Big Band era gone to seed to the reimagined world of rock and roll. My mom and aunts and uncles used to dance there. One time when I was there, there was a knifing, cops swarmed the place. One of my friends, Ruth Steele was exploring the some of the benefits of the fringe, while Sue Williams, Sue Barry and I looked on with Catholic distrust. Definitely Sin City. I wish I had kept some of the posters. But this one from Bill Graham Presents Facebook page, sums it up nicely.

The other venue where we danced was the Lion’s Share on the Miracle Mile in San Anselmo. I was a Clover fan, and loved to dance to Captain Beefheart, Sons of Chaplain, Grateful Dead and other bands were homegrown and we saw them often. But this September lineup at Pepperland is astounding in retrospective. Most of the musicians listed lived in Marin and the unspoken tradition was to headline with them. They got top billing. And later they really were top drawer! Wish I could find the summer lineup poster as I was there whenever I could afford to go, which wasn’t often as $3 was a lot of money in those days. Obviously I didn’t write this blog in 1970. Hindsight: 4/25/2022. Here’s hoping I can find some of those posters among my things. Poster is from Facebook’s Bill Graham Presents group managed by Christopher Bolei. 

From Facebook’s Marin History Museum: The Bermuda Palms, was “California’s Las Vegas”. In 1949, San Rafael developer Irving “Whitey” Litchfield built this motel and restaurant. For more than 20 years, the resort was boasted a colorful and musical venue in the Pepperland Ballroom (also known as the Euphoria) attracting Big Band giants like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, Blues singers Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton, and some of the biggest rock groups including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, Leon Russell, Elvin Bishop, Linda Ronstadt, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, Sly and the Family Stone and Van Morrison. In addition, the Bermuda Palms was a favorite spot for celebrities and community gatherings during the 1950s and early 1960s. While filming “Blood Alley” at China Camp in 1954, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum were guests at the motel.”

Sir Francis Drake Art review by Paul Rivera, spring 1970

School busing discontinued because of Reaganomics 1/11/1970

The IJ says Mon., Jan 11, but there was no Mon. Jan 11th in 1967, '68, '69, or '70.

Good old Reaganomics slashed funding for our school bus services. We were the first to feel the ramifications of it, as few families had cars, the San Geronimo Valley was poor. But this meant we were hitchiking in earnest—twice a day, every day, rain or shine, just to get to school. Which meant you never knew when you would arrive at school, or when you'd get home. You never knew where you'd be let off, so no matter what, you were walking a mile or two. For me, hoofing it to school was 8.7 miles over White's Hill, one way. That's 17.5 miles a day. Sir Francis Drake Blvd. was not set up for walking. It was quite dangerous going over White's Hill. No bike lanes then. Walking for pleasure is one thing, forced marching to and from school every day that distance is another thing—especially during storms. Not to mention the time involved—all this because Ronald Reagan cut back back school funding.

See the full story here.
Shank's Mare and Reaganomics

Winterland/Fillmore handbill September, 1966

 Since I can’t backpost before 1970, this handbill was for September 23, 1966. I collected many of these handbills, most are long lost. I don’t have high hopes of finding them, so this is a placeholder for what was lost. This one was gifted to me on my 40th birthday, 1992, by Susan Kennedy and Mike Tuggle. I will probably cross post it, but I also wanted a historical reference of the times as I attended several of these concerts. Jefferson Airplane lived in Woodacre and elsewhere in the San Geronimo Valley. I used to ride my horse past their place. Muddy Waters was also playing at Eli’s Mile High Club and we actually stole Sue Barry’s parents’ VW Bug, and drove to Oakland to see him. (FWIW, the 1974 inception date doesn’t jive with our dates…) And of course, we got to see Paul Butterfield Blues Band play for free at our high school. These were all people that we knew about town as it were.