San Francisco, 1980: I shanghai’d Richard W. and Derek S. to help me move from the third floor at 495 Third Avenue. I’d just rented the new office on Geary Boulevard for Network Answering Service, and I was going to live there in the back room.

When Derek showed up, he was yellow-colored.

Ignorant lads as we were, none of us realized that yellow eyes and yellowish skin meant hepatitus, and he really shouldn’t have been working. As it was, complaining of fatigue, he carried boxes of books down the stairs and loaded them into the borrowed van.

Richard and I sympathized by mocking him as much as possible.

But it became clear that he wasn’t doing so well. He started stumbling around a bit, but gamely continued. We were nearing the end of the job.

I had a nice ficus tree. Aside from it’s bad habit of dropping some leaves if moved, it was a happy little tree, and it was going to live in a new home. It grew in an elaborate chinese pot, very heavy.

In most any chinese grocery store in Chinatown or on Clement street, you will find “hundred-year-old” eggs for sale. They aren’t really a hundred years old, but they’re pretty old. They are black in color. I don’t know how they taste because I see no point in eating an egg known to be really, really old. But the point is that they are shipped from China in huge ceramic bowls. I’d bought this one for $5 from a grocer on Clement Street.

Derek grabbed the heavy pot of the ficus tree, and hefted it. He was doing pretty good till he tried to round the corner at the end of the hall, so as to get out my apartment door. But the tree had grown. It wouldn’t really go around the corner. Derek backed up, tried again, and was again balked.

He tried it several times, sweating heavily, using colorful language and expressions. Behind him, Richard and I, holding boxes, encouraged him to get a move on.

Derek stopped, thought, backed up, set the tree down, and turned to me.

“It’s your tree,” he said. “You break it.”

Grant and Green, San Francisco, 1974: While I was living in the apartment from hell in North Beach, I called my cousin Bruce again.

He said that he knew that apartment building, because he’d once been abducted there.

Bruce was several years younger than I, and was mostly seen during family get-togethers at the farm. He’d been a young active boy with red hair and a mischevious nature, alternating between brashness and uncertainty, with just a dash of yearning.

He told me years later that, at the end of a visit, when his family was ready to leave, he would slide a red rubber band around the knob on the bannister of the pine staircase in the hall, so that he was leaving something of himself in that place. And when they returned in a year or so, he’d run to the house, to see if the rubber band was still there.

Sometimes it was; sometimes it wasn’t.

In college, he’d become fascinated by video, and seeking his video fortune, he arrived in San Francisco, and spent the first night at a cheesy hotel on the corner of Columbus and Grant. Perhaps you’ll recognize the spot as a strip joint called the Condor Club, where the famous Carol Doda put on floor shows. It was in this club that her piano killed a man.

Here’s what happened: A waitress had picked up a boyfriend for the evening, and they stayed late, after the bar closed. Carol Doda had a white piano which descended from the ceiling, as part of her act The drunken pair wondered what it would be like to make it on the famous piano, and while engaged in exercises there, triggered the lever which sent the piano returning to the ceiling.

The two were pinned in missionary position when it reached the ceiling; the fellow had a heart attack and died. The waitress, trapped beneath the dead man, was quite sober by the time janitors arrived in the morning light.

At the corner of the building was a two-story sign with a huge plastic Carol Doda posing, in black plastic panties and bra. On the upper floors we find the cheesy hotel, and Bruce’s window was five feet from this gargantuan bra. Being drunk enough, he leaned out to pull that bra off Carol Doda. It wouldn’t come free, though he broke off the strap, and for years after I felt a certain surge of pride whenever visiting North Beach. Our family had left its mark.

Bruce was looking for an apartment the next day, when suddenly an older guy, grizzly with a dirty grey beard, grabbed Bruce’s arm, and shoved Brude through the doorway of my apartment building. The fellow was much larger and stronger than Bruce. Grim-faced, the man said nothing, and dragged Bruce up the stairs. Bruce figured he was about to be killed. So he stumbled to pull the guy’s arm, then straightened, then launched himself straight backwards into the air. The fellow had to let go or fall down the stairs.

Bruce dropped six or seven feet to the landing, ran out, ran away up the street, moved to Berkeley, and never learned what it was about.

But of course, like the curious couple in the bar, there are some things a person just doesn’t need to know.

San Francisco, 1976: On Geary Boulevard not far from my apartment, you could see the sign: Emily’s Hot Tubs, Sauna, and Massage.

At that time, I’d placed my Yellow Page advertising; I’d installed a phone. That September, when the phone book came out, I was in the Answering Service business. In fact, I was very much in the Answering Service business, because I was the only operator, 6 am to midnight, seven days a week.

I’d started this business in my studio apartment on Third Avenue, so the commute was less than ten feet. From my pallet on the floor I’d rise at six, turn on the phones, then snooze till the first calls. Then, coffee-time and up to speed!

Business was slow enough for baths and breaks, lunch and dinner. And I’d planned ahead.

Before the answering service began, my Thumbtack Bugle postering had been entrusted to hired motorcyclists, and I’d hired Bob to spell me on the phones.

When he arrived mid afternoon, I pedaled off to the grocery store. My bike had an aluminum swiss rack over the back wheel, and a net bag to fill up with groceries. I had a system, and three hours was plenty of time for shopping.

Sometimes there was time for Emily’s Hot Tubs. Their storefront, the first floor of a Victorian, was long and narrow. They advertised massage, but I just wanted to steam and soak. Afternoons were quiet, with the ubiquitous Kitaro music floating from the ceiling.

Then back to work. At first it was easy running the Bugle and answering phones. Time for puttering around the apartment, and playing with Rosie the Cat. I made up a cardboard box with a label that said “Cat Territory”, because she liked to retreat when there were strangers around.

As more clients signed on, less puttering time found me busy all day long. Bob’s hours extended, and we began working as a team during the busy times. It was fun, and at the time, it seemed important, meaningful. Rosie and I had to visit in the evenings.

Rosie was the co-founder; we were great pals for many years. She was always very humble, and never took on airs.

Network Answering Service got hectic, and then we were learning about payroll forms, interviewing, and training operators. I had to move out, and found a room up the street. Every morning I’d start awake at six o’clock, worrying about the answering service. I’d call, and Sally or somebody would answer. But one morning, no answer.

I dressed, and ran all the way. Sally was sitting with a book. “Why aren’t you answering the phone?” I asked.

“It’s the funniest thing,” she said. “There hasn’t been a call all morning.”

I asked what she’d done when she came in. She said nothing. I pressed for details. She said she’d opened the phones as usual. Nothing else?

“I made some toast,” she said.

In the kitchen, I discovered the problem: she’d unplugged the telephone system to plug in a toaster. When I powered up the phone system, by golly, there were the calls!

Such things made me tense. That night, I decided to go to Emily’s Hot Tubs. I’d never been in the evening. I’d get a massage. That should be relaxing.

They led me into a room. I peeled off my outer garments and stretched out on the massage table. A tall brunette, with hair piled high and pinned with a pearl-inset comb, entered the room. She was wearing a tight red dress, and high-heeled shoes. I looked her in the eye.

“I’ve come for a massage,” I said slowly. “No panky. No hanky.”

She smiled faintly, and turned to depart. “I’ll get Cathy,” she said.

Santa Monica Municipal Airport, California, 1969:

From the air as you make a final turn and approach toward the runway, ahead and off to the south you look down upon an airfield belonging to Howard Hughes. Sometimes, just outside the mammoth hangar doors, we could see the Spruce Goose, that famous airplane made from wood.

But this story really begins three years earlier, in Dallas. My friends Tony and Marilyn, and John C. were all intrigued with psychedelics. On John’s millionaire family estate, in the cabana behind the pool, we strung up bedsheets over the glass windows, and made a light show.

We were having a great time before the police came.

You need a projector, the kind that lecturers use, with a lighted table and a lens above. First, you mix oil and water, with food-coloring added. Next, you need a couple of shallow clear-glass bowls. Place one bowl on the light table, add some of the colored oil and water mixture, and then you lower the upper bowl into this mixture.

By rocking the bowls, you will see globs of flowing colored shapes projected on the screen, in this case the bedsheets we’d hung up over the glass windows. Of course, it’s best to have very loud rock music going, to get the full effect.

Because the music was so loud, we didn’t hear the police and fire department knocking, and only dimly became aware that the bedsheets were also strobing with the red flash of the firetruck lights outside.

John C. did most of the talking. The rest of us were disinclined to chat just at the moment. It seems that neighbors, seeing the flickering red and yellow on the bedsheets had thought the house aflame and called the fire department to save us. The firemen, John reported, were grousing, being called out to extinguish a light show.

On other occasions we all hung out, blasted off, and read Timothy Leary’s version of Tibetan Book of the Dead. Some of this was at my apartment with the little swimming pool, on Gillespie street near Lemmon and Oak Lawn. There I had a tiny card on my mail box. It said ‘Brain Wave Laboratory.’ Brain Wave Laboratory received no mail other than a subscription to the Haight Ashbury Light, an odd newspaper from far away.

The best way to obtain the psychedelics was to send Crazy Becky to San Francisco. She had a knack. Sometimes she could find them without even leaving the San Francisco Airport, and she’d turn around and fly back.

On this particular night of Timothy Leary, along toward morning they’d all gone, and I attempted to take a shower. It was very difficult. Perhaps due to my tired state, the ground and the walls kept oozing and heaving, as if the wall had turned to balloons being inflated and deflated. Kind of odd. I lay in the bottom of the tub with the shower stream coming at me for a few years. You know, just puttering around the house till I got sleepy.

But by the time I left Dallas, I was straight, studying Scientology which actually turned out useful, though I became a jerk for a while. Really not the fault of the Scientologists. It just came out, honest.

From there I moved to St. Louis, then to England, and finally to Los Angeles, all studying the far-out world of Ron Hubbard, an amazing man. I met him on a ship in the harbor of Valencia. “Hi,” he said, “How ya doin?”

But I digress. In Los Angeles I began the flying lessons. Santa Monica airport sits beside the ocean. With the instructor, when you take the Cessna up, you rise above the smog layer, and the flightpath takes you out over the ocean, then practice with the controls, then back along a large rectangle in the sky, lower on each turn, hopefully to float just above the runway, and gently lower down without bouncing all over the place.

The motor is loud, the flight check serious, and I never did learn how to recover from a stall. But the instructor, a crewcut ex-military fellow living at the end of his patience, said I was ready to solo.

I’d done touch-and-go’s pretty well. This is where you land but then immediately take off again. Because, if you think about it. landing properly is the most important thing you learn. Can’t land the plane? Definitely a problem.

So, heart in my throat, I clicked down the clipboard for the flight check, and then had no excuse to delay further. My instructor was in the control tower, and I spoke with them on the radio. Cleared for take off.

Picking up speed now, the Cessna’s nose lifting, and- I’m flying the airplane! I’m flying the airplane! Wow! Wow! I’m flying the airplane!

Ok, calm down now. Gaining altitude now. To gain altitude, you increase the power. You push the throttle knob, this speeds up the engine, and you go higher. You adjust your speed with the wheel, by pulling toward your chest or pushing it away from you. If you push it, the nose drops, and you go faster. Pull it, the nose rises, and you slow down. But don’t pull it too much. Too slow, and the airplane stops flying. It stalls.

That means it suddenly slips to one side or the other, and all quickly the entire windscreen is filled with the ground, which rotates before you, way too fast.

I didn’t want that to happen. It would be … bad.

But this was to be an easy once-around. I’d take off, gain altitude, make two left turns, lose some altitude, make two left turns, and land.

Except that, while landing, I did the wrong thing. I was too excited. I shoved the throttle, and did a touch-and-go. This turned out to be a problem because the control tower already had a small jet in the pattern, and so I came up upon it. At the time I didn’t realize it was small; it looked big. And big jets can mean sudden death to small planes, because the spinning air rushing from the tips of huge wings can completely flip your airplane. And it was dead ahead.

I started furiously wagging my tail. It’s a way to slow a plane by making it tack right and left. You turn the wheel left and press the left pedal, and then reverse. It makes the plane go slow, wagging its tail. The jet, being a jet, moved ahead quickly out of my way.

The control tower patiently routed the other incoming traffic around the imbecile — moi? — and I started making left turns to come in for my final approach. And then, by chance, I looked out my left window at the ground.

Have you ever heard of psychedelic flashback? It means that some remnant of old crap in your system, even years later, can cause you to start tripping again.

Well, the ground — all the way to Burbank — was heaving and bubbling, as far as I could see. I’d never had a flashback, but I recognized it now.

Sternly, I told myself, “Right now … is not the time.”

Slowly, the ground below flattened out again. The runway ahead beckoned.

The Cessna floated gently to the ground.