{"id":2254,"date":"2023-09-29T01:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T01:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2254"},"modified":"2023-08-28T12:35:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T12:35:45","slug":"chap-15-in-the-news-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2254","title":{"rendered":"Chap. 15 – In the News Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chapter 15<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re in the News Again   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We arrived in San Luis Obispo at dusk, to visit a guy Skip put on the list, too late to find the back road over the last mountain range to Muir Beach, so we parked in the Walmart lot.  We\u2019d heard that Walmarts – across the land – were okay with RVs and their occupants staying overnight and it turned out to be true.  There were almost a dozen RVs already parked when we pulled in.  We were glad to arrive in the cover of darkness having had our fill of adventure for the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Over a Walmart supper of pan-fried salmon, corn-on-the-cob, and salad, Skip told us about how he got to know his Muir Beach friend Rick Feldman, a former major league pitcher.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Skip Dewar\u2019s claim to fame back in the Cities was being a politician, with a winning record, but his first claim to fame was baseball.  After a so-so college pitching career, he taught political science, and coached both Little League and high school baseball.  In the summer, he made a name for himself doing the play-by-play for the minor league baseball team.  In the inner-city neighborhood that elected him to office nine times, he was \u201cSkip.\u201d  \u201cAt the legislature, it was \u201cScotchy.\u201d  Some of us on the bus knew him as the Sunday morning barefoot, bare-handed softball player on our co-rec team, the Saint Paul Riff-Raff, also starring Patty, Huck and Rocky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Skip got to know Rick Feldman when Rick was pitching for the Saint Paul Saints.  Back in the day, minor leaguers often stayed during the season at some local\u2019s home, and Skip took Rick in.  Rick eventually made it to the major leagues, playing for the Dodgers, but his first love was horticulture, and thus the backyard orchard\/nursery in Muir Beach we were about to visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Waking up early in cramped sleeping quarters, Steve, our lawyer, went for a jog in the early morning haze and came back with the morning papers.  (He had drawn the short stick the night before, which meant sleeping in the Land Yacht\u2019s reclining passenger seat.)  We all woke up when he came back exclaiming \u201cWe made the paper!\u201d and read the story out loud:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strange Goings on at the Hearst Castle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patty Hearst Redux?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

National AP Wire Services<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dateline:  San Simeon, California, Tuesday, October 18, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Monday was a weird day at the Hearst Castle.  No one seems to know if it was really Patty Hearst who showed up at her grandfather\u2019s castle yesterday with a group called \u201cThe Rumpkins.\u201d Hearst has been mostly out of the public eye for years, reportedly living in Mexico since the death of her husband.  This reporter was unable to make contact with her or her immediate family.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Patty Hearst was in the headlines in the 1970s after being kidnapped by a radical group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (or SLA), and then, according to her family, brainwashed into joining the revolutionary group as a gun-toting, anti-capitalist foe of the American way of life in general and her family\u2019s fortune and newspaper empire in particular.  The government saw Hearst as a willing participant in the SLA\u2019s criminal activity.  At her trial she testified that all appearances and statements that she was a sympathizer of the SLA\u2019s cause were due to her being drugged and brainwashed, but after the trial there was speculation that her testimony was based on family threats to disown her unless she told her family\u2019s version of the truth. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Around mid-day yesterday, the Castle\u2019s tour bus operator had an apparent heart attack, lost control of his vehicle, and almost ran down some tourists.  One of these so-called \u201cRumpkins\u201d was on the bus at the time and grabbed the wheel before anybody was hurt.  Another \u201cRumpkin,\u201d who said he was a doctor, came to the aid of the driver, who, it turned out, was just pretending<\/u> to have a heart attack.  Things then got weirder yet.  The \u201cdoctor\u201d claimed the high cost of prescriptions was responsible for the man\u2019s heart failure and the crowd of onlookers took up a chant of \u201cLock Trump up!\u201d   At that point some woman climbed on a table top and told the crowd of about a hundred tourists she was Patty Hearst and now a member of the \u201cRumpkins\u201d group. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Mrs. Prescott Pemberton, visiting from Maine, saw the whole thing:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt all happened so fast,\u201d she said, \u201cbut you could tell, whoever they were, they wanted Donald Trump locked-up \u2013 and it surprised me so many tourists seemed to agree.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     According to the California Highway Patrol, this was all staged by a traveling street theatre group out of San Francisco known as \u201cThe Rumpkins.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The bus driver was interviewed and confirmed that he was paid to act the role of a heart attack victim.  He said the Rumpkins told him they were shooting a movie about a terrorist plot to mow down all the tourists in the garden. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The State Trooper on the scene admitted he had never heard of the SLA and didn\u2019t connect the dots that the name \u201cPatty Hearst\u201d had any special significance.  It\u2019s still unknown if this was a re-appearance of the real Patty Hearst.  She has some history as an actress.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The manager of the state park site, Thomas Kolavitch, said no one was hurt and everything was back to normal within minutes. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Attempts to contact the Rumpkins last night were unsuccessful.  They were last seen driving south on Highway 1 in a rainbow painted RV with Minnesota license plates.  Possible charges include \u201ccausing intentional unnecessary deployment of police resources.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                        –End of Story<\/strong>–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     After hearing the newspaper account, Steve dialed the L.A. Times to report that it was indeed a group of actors and not the real Patty.  Also, Sally got on our website to, as she put it, \u201cnot exaggerate<\/em>, tell the truth.  I don\u2019t want us busted!\u201d – although some of us wanted to maybe play this up a bit longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     With breakfast delayed due to all the excitement, we opted for Walmart sweet rolls and a quick departure, but not before someone in the parking lot exclaimed, \u201cThere it is!  The Rainbow Family RV!\u201d   Turned out to be friendly fire.  The guy who shouted waved us to a halt, told us we were already famous in RV circles.  \u201cYah, wow, far-out man,\u201d he started with an almost ear-to-ear grin, \u201cLots of us talk as we visit, ya know, and this mornin\u2019 we was all asking around if anybody\u2019d seen ya.\u201d  Then his wife came ambling up and wanted to know if we were really Rainbow Family.  She had been to every Rainbow Gathering since the first one in 1972 at Strawberry Lake in Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cI was there too!\u201d  Huck exclaimed.  So we invited them into the Land Yacht, where Huck and Sunshine (that was the name she gave us) could recount their adventures at Strawberry Lake (maybe even having seen each other back then). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cDid you go naked in the sauna?\u201d Sunshine asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cWere you part of the group that had to hike in the back-way \u2018cos of the police roadblock?\u201d Huck asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cDid you do the acid?\u201d they asked each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      After a few minutes we said we had to be going.  \u201cNaw, stick around,\u201d said Peaches \u2013 that was his name \u2013 \u201cYou should meet some of the rest of us staying here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cWe\u2019re already a day late to catch up with our buddy,\u201d Skip said.  \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cWhere ya goin\u2019?  Maybe we\u2019ll follow you,\u201d Peaches said grinning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cNahh, my buddy\u2019s already uptight there are so many of us,\u201d Skip replied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cWell, where you goin\u2019 after that?  We could have some fun together,\u201d Sunshine piped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Leaving the parking lot, Huck said, \u201cWow!  Friends from the 60s \u2013 still hippies!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cI don\u2019t know, seemed kind of \u2018out of it\u2019 to me,\u201d Patty said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cKind of scruffy-looking to me,\u201d said Sally.  Sunshine (the female) had cut-off shorts (way high cut off shorts, right to the crotch) and was very bouncy (with no bra).  Peaches (the male) had a cherubic, roly-poly pumpkin-like face under a scraggly beard, and hair down to his waist, and, apparently, a never-ending grin. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 15 We\u2019re in the News Again         We arrived in San Luis Obispo at dusk, to visit a guy Skip put on the list, too late to find the back road over the last mountain range to Muir … 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\/2254"}],"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=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2598,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}