Autumn 1998 Volume V #1    i - ii - iii

Earlier newsletters can be found at: http://www.diggers.org/most/MOST1.html
http://www.diggers.org/most/MOST2.html
(6-28-99 note: The following link no longer operable)
http://www.diggers.org/most/MOST_IV2.txt - the issue with the announcement of Lou's sudden death in July 1996.

Emily Mindel and Bill Gottlieb

Rena, Lou and Billie/Vishnu in front of 'the eggshed' at Morning Star, 1971 - photo by Gilles Boisvert
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Tomas & Laurel Diaz, (Morningstar '67), 5/24/98: We were saddened to hear of Nevada's passing on. His death is a reminder that life is so very short, and that eventually we must all face our own mortality, no matter what the circumstances. We are all part of the whole, and when one of us leaves us, we grieve --not only for them, but for ourselves. Memories of those who have gone before us never die, and we can keep them in our hearts forever. Nevada, vaya con dios. Thank you for sharing with us. Love,
 

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Bill/Vishnu's birthplace - 'The Eggshed' at Morningstar
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Ed Fatzinger, 11/24/96: Various Early Times
There was a time in my life where I had had enough of the life of the "normal person". You know... the "Get up, go to work, come home and sleep, on Friday get drunk and maybe get laid on Saturday night" blues? In one of my more lucid moments I thought about what is a life here for? I thought, 'I have a full life in front of me. What will I spend it on?' To my horror, I couldn't come up with an idea. I started talking to people, got a lot of different ideas together and finally came up with one of my own: 'Give your life to God.'
But what would I do? Join the priesthood? Go to Tibet? No... just say, "God. here is one soul who will do whatever you want... all you have to do is tell me." I never heard God speak, so I split - out the back, Jack. I stuck that ol' thumb out on the highway and said, "Here I am... You show me the way" Like a feather I threw my life to the wind. That long road brought me to the Diggers and Morningstar.
I have no real sense of time so I'm unable to provide dates, but I think it was late summer of 1966 that I first visited Morningstar. I was working with the Diggers in San Francisco, scrounging food for their daily serving of "Digger Stew" to the homeless in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. We were living in a commune at 1775 Haight St. One day Dave Spangler and I were talking about coming up with more food because the minions were growing. He said he had heard of a commune up north that might be willing to supply apples. Of course we mulled that one over... apples were great but we had a lot of people to feed and we were looking for staples. Perhaps we could barter the apples for other foods.
A couple of weeks later Dave came over and said he had contacted the owner of the ranch and insisted I drop everything and go with him right then and there. Spontaneity being the way of the clan he and I packed our sleeping bags and immediately drove to Morningstar.
On the way up he explained who Lou was and told me of his generosity. When we arrived and parked by the well, Lou came down from the Upper House and we were introduced. I was immediately awestruck by this huge, dark man with the strong voice and stern, businesslike manner. He said something to the effect, that he would allow the Diggers to harvest his apples and take them into town to feed the hungry. He took us for a tour of the apple orchard and then we returned to the house for dinner.
That dinner was the first macrobiotic meal I ever ate. It was strange food, served in a strange setting, by a strange man who throughout dinner continued to reveal different facets of himself . He at first appeared stern, but then would crack a joke and laugh hilariously. By the end of that meal I felt as though I had known him for a hundred years. The after dinner chillum may have helped. No real decision was made at that first meeting. He invited me to come back and stay for a couple of weeks so he and the others could see if this relationship would work out. We slept over that night in the Lower House and in the morning drove back to San Francisco. I remember Phil Brougham and Leni Brown were there, along with Bruce Baillie. I think Don and Sandy King were also there.
A week or two later I packed my bags and hitched a ride up to the farm. I had a mission from the Diggers -- to bring back apples -- and I wasn't going to let them down. Don and Sandy immediately befriended me and showed me around, where I could sleep, house rules (such as there were), etc. I slept on the porch of the Lower House for a while.
We spent a few days getting acquainted. I explored the farm, observed and intermingled with most of the others. There were about a dozen or so people there. The place was officially used as an ashram. An ashram is the eastern equivalent of a Christian retreat. Most everyone meditated or practiced yoga. Some of the people who were staying there were paying rent and resented Lou's insistence that the Diggers, who had no money and abhored it, be allowed to stay. I know there were heated discussions and eventually some of the dissidents left in protest. While my own spiritual persuits were not as piously conceived, I tried to respect their ways and attempted to keep a low profile. The macrobiotic diet intrigued me. I talked with Lou and he explained it was a way of cleansing the body, of expanding consciousness.
I said "Huh?" and he, with a broad grin and an even broader outstretching of hands, leaned down into my face and said "It gets ya high, boy!". And that for me was the beginning of the `Psychedelic Gospel'.
There was a good library of 'Beat' books in the Lower House and for once in my life I had an ideal setting in which to just read. I read Dharma Bums, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Yage Letters, and others. It was all there... a complete explanation of all the experiences that I had had with acid. The hallucinating effect of the Bardos, the premise that drugs would introduce you to God, the reason for The Quest.
I'm an old city boy and didn't know beans about apples. I got some literature from the county farm bureau, and Lou arranged for someone who knew apples to come out and take a look at the trees. Unfortunately the prognosis wasn't very good. Years of neglect had left most of the trees either dead or dying. We desperately trimmed the trees in a slim attempt at saving them but it was to no avail. The trees were lost.
I was prepared to leave then, but at one of the social gatherings, everybody settled on another plan. Since the only flat land on the property was where the chicken shed was, we would tear down the chicken shed and plant crops there. Lou hated the shed and chicken cages as they were the symbol of animal cruelty. The hens that laid in this egg factory had had their bills burned off so they couldn't peck the eggs. The cement walkways where the cages had been would even serve as walkways between the crops. It was perfect.
Lou borrowed a tractor from a commune over in Gurneville and I did a very good job of plowing that field (if I don't say so myself!) I was skeptical when Phil and Leni started planting but they, Cindy, Sandy King and others were out there most every day, primping and preening that garden. I obviously didn't know anything about crops. In about 3 months, that garden blossomed... a glorious sight.
During those first few months there was an evolution of sorts taking place for most of the residents at Morningstar and I also had a lot of changes to go through. There was a 'money jar' on the mantlepiece of the fireplace in the Lower House, and whenever he needed to go to town for supplies Lou would dip his hand into the jar and take whatever he needed. One evening he reached into the jar and only pulled out ten dollars. Although he didn't say anything, the expression on his face revealed his displeasure.
I felt bad about this because I had nothing to contribute, so despite my Digger philosophy, I started working odd jobs around Sepastopol to bring in some money. I pulled weeds for ranchers, cleaned out chicken coops and occasionally worked out of Manpower in Santa Rosa. My Digger scrounging skills would sometimes yield food. Whatever money I made, I put half into that jar. It gave me great satisfaction. Unfortunately my long hair and hippie attire also brought along some notoriety from the surrounding community.

Aliens

Late one morning a bunch of us were taking showers in the upper house. Some of the girls, probably Cindy and Pam, were sunbathing on the porch. A small white station wagon pulled up at the well, hesitated and then parked by the north driveway. A small, thin man dressed in a purple plaid over beige jacket stepped out and timidly started walking up toward the Upper House. With that jacket and white shoes he looked like a Don Knots parody of a used car salesman. He stopped just below the porch and I and some others stepped down to greet him.
He stammered that he had to talk to the head man. I explained there was no head man here -- could I help him? He insisted on seeing the head man. Someone went down to the Lower House to retrieve Lou while I talked with the man. In a rather nervous and furtive manner, he told me he had been driving one night recently on a desolate road when he had been stopped by an alien spaceship. The aliens had given him a book and instructed him to deliver it here, to Morningstar. By this time a couple of the naked girls had joined us and his eyes had begun to dart from breast to breast. Whoever had gone to look for Lou returned and reported he wasn't around, so I told the guy he could give the book to me. After promising that someone would read the book, he hesitantly handed it to me and turned and fled down the path accompanied by a good chorus of laughter from our little group.
True to my word I read the book -- Van Dannikan's Chariot of the Gods -- and later left it along with a note for Lou on the table in the Upper House. Lou read it, and told me he thought it was just a lot of bunk and the man some kind of nut. But I've always wondered why that poor, scared little man would have braved approaching such a motley crew as ourselves. After all, most of our neighbors thought we all looked like a bunch of aliens.

The Reporter

One day when Neal Hartnagel and I were walking down to get the mail, a blue convertible came speeding up Graton Road, slid onto the driveway, sped up the hill and stopped in a cloud of dust. We went up to the car to see if the occupant was alright. A comely young blonde got out of the car, slammed the door and kicked the car. There were tears in her eyes and she was cussing at the car and the world in general.
She was a young reporter for a local newspaper and she wanted to see Lou. It seems she was so upset because her editor had turned her favorable story about Morningstar into another tirade against the "drug-crazed anarchist hippies" and she wanted to apologize to Lou.
The car was flooded and wouldn't start. Neal was only too quick to walk her up to Lou's place. I retrieved the mail, started the car and drove it up to the well. When I arrived, Lou was hugging and consoling her. He told her things like that happened all the time, he was used to it and had come to expect it from the press.
We were living away from the world on a secluded hillside in California. I didn't watch TV or read the newspapers any more. If the world was going to blow itself apart with nuclear weapons, I didn't want to know it was coming. This was the first time I had any inkling that the world was looking our way.