Chapter 11
News From Montana
After four days in Sacramento, electrically charged to last 200 miles, and with racing stripes, we left for San Francisco on a sunny, early October mild-temperatured morning, a Monday. Tiny, puffy, blue clouds dotted the sky as we headed the 90 miles down I-80. Excitedly, everybody talked about everybody they wanted to visit in the Bay Area, so we planned to stay a week or more. We found an RV park near old Candlestick Park where we could stay for $80 a night. After parking the Land Yacht, and doing some “What is Fun” thinking, we headed-out to catch-up with old friends, inviting them to our “Hootenanny” at the RV park this coming Saturday. The “Hoot” was Rocky’s latest idea for “what is fun,” and when we asked the RV proprietress if it’d be okay to invite some friends and move our RV nearer the picnic grounds, she said fine – as long as she could come, anybody in the park was welcome, and we paid a week’s advance.
Huck and Susie looked up an old Paisley Park buddy who thought the Hoot was a great idea and said he’d bring friends and extra instruments.
Steve went to visit an old chum of his in the National Lawyers Guild.
Sally and Patty had lunch with an old actress friend of Patty’s from their days together in the Circle of the Witch theatre troupe. Riding BART, Sally shared more of her life story with Patty – yes, she was married but she’d decided to come with Max on this fishing trip because her husband would never go fishing with her . . .
“Come on Sally, that’s not much of a reason to leave a guy – leave a guy you love?”
“Well, you’re right, kinda like a lot of us on this bus, I’m fishin’ for something new,” Sally said, warming up a kinship with Patty. To herself, Patty thought – ahh-hah – that explains Sally’s habit of twisting her wedding ring as if she was ready to take it off and throw it out the Land Yacht’s window.
Everybody we went to visit was surprised we were actually in town, incredulous we were living in an RV, and flabbergasted to hear we were hosting a party, a hootenanny no less! It was beginning to look like it could be another test of how much attention to a roving commune on wheels could be too much attention.
Skip and Rocky went to the City Lights Bookstore to find out more about the Pirate Party and learn about any local connections to Andy Yang’s Forward Party. They were directed to the California Pirate Party headquarters on 48th Avenue. Nobody was there, but from their website, we saw they had principles to our liking. Rocky reported back later, “We especially liked their slogan, ‘Harnessing the Spirit of Imagination,’ and we put an invitation to the hootenanny on their website – repeating their slogan.
During the week some of us went off fishing, and others stuck around the park to meet the neighbors. There were campers from all over the country, and Canada. Some seemed to have been there for weeks or longer, mostly older couples, but socializing as a group. Skip and Rocky got invited to join a friendly poker game. Except for the Land Yacht we almost fit in, but invitations to the hootenanny were met with, “Hey, you kids have a good time,” more than “Hey, we’ll be there!”
On the morning of the Hootenanny, a spectacular, all-blue skies Saturday morning, guess who showed up?! Max and Eloise had driven all night from Montana to make the party! With them were two of Eloise’s volunteers, including Gregory – our skateboarding friend. There was lots of news from Wobegon:
—- Eloise was five weeks from election day and seemed to feel good about her chances: “We don’t have much cash – but here’s my new election piece – isn’t that a great picture of me? Didn’t really think of myself as glamorous. And I love this picture … me standing with the town’s Zoomers! I’ve got more volunteers than anybody ever heard of!”
—- And Max informed us: “Furbush has been acquitted! There was no proof he fired the rifle. It sure seemed he knew Abdul though, the murder victim. The D.A. was trying to prove Furbush had a motive and had both of them at the hunting lodge at the same time. When the state subpoenad the owner of the lodge … he took the 5th to all questions!”
The Hootenanny that evening was well-attended. The weather held. We strung lights from the Land Yacht to the trees, built a campfire and kept the alcohol to a minimum. Most everybody in the RV park strolled by and stayed awhile. Thanks to Huck’s Paisley Park connections, our instrumentation included guitars, ukuleles and fiddles. Harmonicas. One violin. Tambourines, drums, a triangle, even a washboard. We sang Joni Mitchell, Woody Guthrie and Neil Young songs, “If I Had a Hammer,” “Solidarity Forever,” “Waltzing Matilda,” and even “Purple Rain.” We were most raucous singing John Prine’s “And you can see me tonight with an illegal smile…” We ended with “Good Night Irene.” And phew, the cops never came. One of those who did come, though, was a guy from Palo Alto who was in the Pirate Party, who got to know Sally pretty well, pretty quick.