{"id":2196,"date":"2023-09-21T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2196"},"modified":"2023-08-19T13:35:35","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T13:35:35","slug":"chap-11-news-from-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2196","title":{"rendered":"Chap. 11 – News From Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chapter 11<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

News From Montana<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     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 \u201cWhat is Fun\u201d thinking, we headed-out to catch-up with old friends, inviting<\/em> them<\/em> to<\/em> our<\/em> \u201cHootenanny<\/em>\u201d at the RV park this coming Saturday.  The \u201cHoot\u201d was Rocky\u2019s latest idea for \u201cwhat is fun,\u201d and when we asked the RV proprietress if it\u2019d be okay to invite some friends and move our RV nearer the picnic grounds, she said fine \u2013 as long as she could come, anybody in the park was welcome, and we paid a week\u2019s advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Huck and Susie looked up an old Paisley Park buddy who thought the Hoot was a great idea and said he\u2019d bring friends and extra instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Steve went to visit an old chum of his in the National Lawyers Guild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sally and Patty had lunch with an old actress friend of Patty\u2019s from their days together in the Circle of the Witch theatre troupe.  Riding BART, Sally shared more of her life story with Patty \u2013 yes, she was married but she\u2019d decided to come with Max on this fishing trip because her husband would never go fishing with her . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cCome on Sally, that\u2019s not much of a reason to leave a guy \u2013 leave a guy you love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cWell, you\u2019re right, kinda like a lot of us on this bus, I\u2019m fishin\u2019 for something new,\u201d Sally said, warming up a kinship with Patty.  To herself, Patty thought – ahh-hah \u2013 that explains Sally\u2019s habit of twisting her wedding ring as if she was ready to take it off and throw it out the Land Yacht\u2019s window.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Everybody we went to visit was surprised we were actually<\/em> in town, <\/em>incredulous we were living in an RV, and flabbergasted to hear we were hosting a party, a hootenanny<\/em> 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 <\/em>much attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     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\u2019s Forward Party.  They were directed to the California Pirate Party headquarters on 48th<\/sup> Avenue.  Nobody was there, but from their website, we saw they had principles to our liking.  Rocky reported back later, \u201cWe especially liked their slogan, \u2018Harnessing the Spirit of Imagination<\/em>,\u2019 and we put an invitation to the hootenanny on their website \u2013 repeating their slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     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, \u201cHey, you kids <\/em>have a good time,\u201d more than \u201cHey, we\u2019ll be there!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     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<\/strong>!  With them were two of Eloise\u2019s volunteers, including Gregory \u2013 our skateboarding friend.  There was lots of news from Wobegon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—- Eloise was five weeks from election day and seemed to feel good about her chances: \u201cWe don\u2019t have much cash \u2013 but here\u2019s my new election piece \u2013 isn\u2019t that a great picture of me?  Didn\u2019t really think of myself as glamorous.  And I love this picture \u2026 me standing with the town\u2019s Zoomers!  I\u2019ve got more volunteers than anybody ever heard of!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—- And Max informed us: \u201cFurbush 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 \u2026 he took the 5th<\/sup> to all questions!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     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\u2019s 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, \u201cIf I Had a Hammer,\u201d \u201cSolidarity Forever,\u201d \u201cWaltzing Matilda,\u201d and even \u201cPurple Rain.\u201d  We were most raucous singing John Prine\u2019s \u201cAnd you can see me tonight with an illegal smile\u2026\u201d  We ended with \u201cGood Night Irene.\u201d  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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2239,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}