Xasáuan Today

18 Responses to Flashback! Spring Equinox Celebration at Limekiln Creek 1968

1. Lois says:

   March 19, 2011 at 10:20 pm

   I was there! This is very cool, I didn’t know any photos existed. Thanks for posting.
2. Simon Eagar says:

   March 20, 2011 at 8:32 pm

   Not at all sure why you are posting this material? Are you related to Jeff? Unlikely. Checking out 2008 fire stuff I ran into your extended beef with Ivan Eberle… I don’t know him but he does have a magnificent photo of a mountain lion
3. Simon Eagar says:

   March 21, 2011 at 7:08 am

   Forgot to add photo (taken at Molera) is at the PG museum – mountain lion exhibit.
4. xasauan says:

   March 21, 2011 at 7:35 am

   Simon: We are posting this material because there are people, like us, who enjoy it (see the comment preceding yours). Go figure.

   No, we are not related to Jeff, but we do not, on this site, have a policy of limiting ourselves to publishing material created by our relatives.

   Like you, we do not know Mr. Eberle, other than through his comments on this site (sometimes rational and constructive, sometimes profane tirades and, most recently, an odd threat to expose our “secret” routine for “search engine optimization”), but we agree he has a very nice photo of a mountain lion.
5. Simon Eagar says:

   March 21, 2011 at 4:32 pm

   My apologies – I have no idea why that photo set me off. Must be something I smoked….
6. Lois DeFord says:

   March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

   ha ha. I’m glad your sense of humor is still intact, Xasauan!
7. xasauan says:

   March 21, 2011 at 8:08 pm

   No apologies, please. Now you’re making me feel bad about the tone of my response. We admit this isn’t likely to become one of our most popular posts. We just put it up there hoping it would strike a chord with people, like Lois, who were there. We didn’t mean to harsh anyone’s buzz, and we’re sorry if we did. We only wish Jeff was still around to provide some commentary.
8. Chris L says:

   March 21, 2011 at 11:11 pm

   Count me in with Lois — except I wasn’t at Limekiln that day myself, only wishing that I was. The history of Limekiln / Twitchell Flat circa 1968 is a tale I’d sorely love to hear one day…
9. darkwatcher says:

   March 22, 2011 at 6:09 pm

   As I recall a fellow named Tracy had been operating the Limekiln campground and threw the 1968 Spring Equinox Thing because he had lost his lease. It was to be the last bash for a locale that had been, for a fortunate few, isolated bliss on that remote wild coast. We got there a couple of days early and parked the VW bus on the Rockland Landing point west of the highway. In those days you could easily drive quite a ways out on the point.

   The morning of the equinox dawned warm and sunny. All of the camp sites along the creek had filled the day before. From our perch above we could see the beach filling as groups staked their claim to a particular spot. The event had been heavily advertised by handbills posted in the Haight and elsewhere amid rampant millennial rumors. Late arrivals that morning described gridlock on the highway with cars parked all the way to Lucia and beyond. The wild desolate Limekiln we had cherished was overflowing with people and dogs and cars. After a late breakfast we dropped the last of the Owsley and headed up the West Fork to flee the swelling crowds.

   Later, I found myself sitting alone on the north end of the cove in the warm sunshine listening to the waves on the rocky beach. Then, nearby, I heard the sound of gently thrown rocks and turned to see, at the base of the cliff behind me, a gray old man sorting the beach stones into two piles, light and dark. When he noticed my gaze he began to gently talk about the duality of it all. How people inevitably try to sort life into comfortable categories of light and dark only to have them get all mixed up and confused, just as the rising tide would soon mix his piles of stones. He pulled a tattered copy of Lao Tzu from his pocket and told me that all I ever needed to know was in that little book.

   Overwhelmed with realization, and still speechless from the medicine I had ingested earlier, I wandered down to the center of the beach where Big Richard was beginning to play his tiny little hand carved flute accompanied by a group of conga drummers. Their music reverberated off the cliff walls offering rhythm and melody to the alternating refrain of crashing waves and gurgling surf pebbles. I found my friends sitting on the warm sand nearby, deep in their own reverie. We sat for what seemed like hours or moments and, as our voices and memories returned and the sun slipped into the sea, we shared once again the glories we had come to know at Limekiln.
10. Rick James says:

    May 10, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    Rick James here up on Vancouver Island. As it happens, I arrived at Limekiln in February 1968 and ended up camping beside the creek for the first month or two before befriending Hal Tracy (Tracey perhaps? regardles, he was from Bay area money of some kind.) and becoming one of the “caretakers.” This allowed me to move into one of his old derelict (blue) school buses. Caretaker #1, Gene, lived in the other.
    The leased land was owned by Wells Fargo Bank and they didn’t take kindly to what was happening down there in Hal’s hippy campsite. Hal’s lease then was to expire that summer. So one big party! But wasn’t it also the Neal Cassidy Memorial too? Or was that a month or two later?
    Big Richard? or Crazy Richard? Man, I owe him alot. He fed us all out of his circa 1936-38 Chev. pickup with its homemade camper in the pickup box while keeping us entertained with his stories of the beat scene of the 50s and his flute playing.
    Remember? He was shacked up with “Sweet Mary” probably in her late teens along with an ‘older’ woman – mid-20s? So what was the story here? Well, he filled me in…Sweet Mary was getting over a case of the clap, eerrrr, an STD as they call it today…and the other woman? Well, I guess you can fill in the rest.
    So how did Hal Tracy ended up with this beautiful leased redwood valley bottom? One story I heard, was that a hippy had rescued him from a bad accident and he felt quite endebted….
    I could go on here with many a story but I need some feedback from out there in the ether. Is anybody paying attention? So please get back to me if you have memories to share since I have no end of them from six months down there in Paradise.
    Oh yeah, once Hal lost his lease a handful of us moved up into his lemon tree campsite back in the hills for a couple of months before we got run out of there too….more on that later.

    Rick James
    rejames@shaw.ca
11. Patrick says:

    May 12, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    Does anyone else remember the “lemon tree campsite” up on the hill behind Limekiln that Rick mentions?
12. Chris L says:

    May 27, 2011 at 2:53 am

    Well, I’ve camped up by that lemon tree myself, but only years and years after the heyday described above. The lemon tree had fallen by then (but was still growing and producing fruit). Since I knew it marked the Jane Dani Twitchell homestead, I took a couple lemons to imbibe myself.

    My apocryphal understanding was that it had been a helluva “commune” once — one that Manson had visited himself. But, again, that’s pure rumor/apocrypha…
13. Joe N says:

    June 7, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    I was there, too! The canyon and its lovely streamside campsites overwhelmed by er, humanity. A topless Suzy V. letting some city perv take her picture for $5 up where the generator and stage were. And a birdseye view from the Highway One bridge of the suppertime gathering on the beach below: hundreds of people beating on 4′X8′ sheets of plywood in ravenous anticipation of the meat feast, and then tearing apart and devouring the carcasses of sheep that had been cooking in the ground all day. Ha! What a wild, crazy scene. 1968, y’all.
14. Rick James says:

    June 30, 2011 at 10:10 am

    It was an incredible time that six months I spent living in Big Sur. And me and bud Pat Lawson were hoping one day to connect with someone who was there for the experience. Before I get into stories, I will provide some historical context. Hal Tracy (Tracey?) was leasing Limekiln from Wells Fargo Bank and I don’t think they were all amused with the shenanigans happening down there. His lease, as a consequence, was to expire early that summer 1968 and there was no way it was to be renewed..
    Tracy was an odd guy, although friendly enough, and he show up fairly regularly with what may have been a lawyer friend. I gather he was from money across the bridge in the Bay…Sausalito? or ? What was peculiar though he was entirely convinced that it was all comin’ down i.e. the collapse of American civilization (the assassination of Martin Luther King that spring reforced that belief of course) and had accumulated an acre or two, three? four? of everything you could think of in preparation for when he and a chosen few would have to escape the City to Twitchell’s Flat….I can’t recall all he stockpiled up there in the hills, stoves? furniture? along with a collection of VWs along with one original Model A sedan. It was incredible to walk through this open air warehouse and try to fathom the effort in getting it all up there.
    So, like, what’s left up there? What kind of “artifacts?” Did you come across the wonderful stone outdoor bath? And is the lemon tree perhaps still alive? Do you happen to have photos?
    A “commune”? not really. It was just a small collection of us who couldn’t bear to leave Sur when Limekiln came to an end. So Hal gave us the go ahead to move up under the lemon tree. (too bad it was your Forest Service land.) Here there was an incredible outdoor kitchen set up: propane stove, fridge, tables, shelves, etc. And, god, looking back, too bad we didn’t have the sense to have cameras with us.
    The “cook” was a big black guy from Fillmore district who was a wino and his partner Gloria (who I don’t think he was treatin’ very nice when he got reeal drunk.) There was us two Canadians, a rather nice black lady whose name I can’t recall and constant stream of comings and goings. (Who ever went on the food run down to the dumpsters behind the Carmel grocery store invariably ended up bringing back guests who had picked them up hitchhiking on the return trip.)
    All most of us were “hippies” I suppose, many weren’t all that dedicated love generation folks as such. A guy named Mike or Mark…who was very fair and got an incredibly bad sunburn, and kept telling us the next phrase that was to catch on with the hippy generation was “Ducky Poo.” (There was a Mark Healey that made a post on the internet a few years back that was asking if anyone was there at the lemon tree but it was dead by the time I found it. Perhaps him?) And assorted others including two New Yorkers who had a very glib outlook of what was happening on the west coast, first silly Beach Boys surf music, peace and love ballads, etc. They termed it all “West Coast Stoopid” in their delightful New Yorker accents. Of course, us two Canadians had a very much british style sense of humour and got on great with them. Still, were often got asked by those taking the scene all sooo serious, “Man, are all you Canadians so snide and sarcastic?” (And fate would have it my partner is American with all the in-laws in Napa, CA, so no way I’m allowed to get into my “snide and sarcastic” humour at home. Sigh! I save it for work!)
    Good grief! That’s enough for now! A couple of questions:
    1. Are there more Jeff Norman photos of the Limekiln Spring Equinox still out there?
    2. Has anyone stopped in at the Lucia store? I stopped in there about five years ago or so and talked to guy around my age that worked there who said he often hiked up to the lemon tree. He also said Hal Tracy stopped by awhile back. You wouldn’t happen to know this gentleman by any chance? And next time your by the way feel free to leave my email address there at the store. I’d like to hear from him.

    Rick James
    Courtenay, B.C.
    rejames@shaw.ca
15. xasauan says:

    June 30, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    This is the only photo of ’68 Spring Equinox celebration we’ve found – but our disorganized trove of archives is deep. If more turn up, we’ll post them …
16. Bill Fletcher says:

    February 1, 2012 at 11:07 pm

    Bill (alias Rooney the Red)
    I was stationed up ar Fort Ord., My friends and I had to Hitch a ride to Limekiln. We got picked up by a beautiful hippie couple in a VW bus> They rode us all the way to Limekiln.
    I shouldn’t admit to it but we hiked around the the hill and got in the back way without paying. We were poor GIs and even though it was only, I think about $8.00 to get in we couldn’t afford it, making only $78.00 a month. It was the best weekend of my military draft time, even whe I fell in the river crossing on the huge tree trunk they use for a bridge down there. I espcially liked the non stop jam session that was happening down on the beach.
    What a great time, GIs, hippies and Hells Angels all having a great time together. Too bad they changed the camping license laws. I wish we could do it again.
17. Rick James (60s alias Lou Lemming) says:

    February 2, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Hey, Bill:

    So you sneaked by us did you? Well, it was probably karma, as we used to say back then, that you ended up falling into the creek. I remember that old redwood log across it very well.
    By the way, I was one of the hippy campground caretakers that day. And I happened to be posted to the south highway entrance collecting admissions. Only trouble was, I was being offered various other products in lieu of cash and after about an hour had to find someone to relieve me so I could go lie down in the weeds somewhere.
    My colleague at the other, north end, well, he was a little slow on the uptake so to speak. We were told by Hal Tracy that by no means were we allowed to let any kind of vehicle down into the campground. Then the Hell Angels showed up.
    Well, when he put that scenario by the charming boys and girls on bikes, a couple of them had some rather harsh words, to say the least. They also let him take a peek at some of the rather interesting firearms they happen to be carrying with them.
    Yeah, I remember you fellows well dropping by from Fort Ord just to unwind. I really felt for you all since up here in Canada we didn’t have a draft and weren’t involved in Nam (other than our defense industry supplying arms, etc.) So after it got close to six months in the good old U.S. of A. – when us aliens did become eligible – we vamoosed back to the other side of the 49th parallel…like Frodo and Bilbo back to the Shire.
18. Rick James (60s alias Lou Lemming) says:

    February 6, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    The story behind Spring Equinox Festival March 1968:

    Well, according to Ken Kesey if memory serves me right:
    Neal Cassidy was in a tavern in Mexico (probably wired on speed as usual) when he made a bet with a guy on how many railroad ties were laid between this town and the next village…
    They found him later – dead on the tracks; having jogged along them, counting them all, when his heart finally gave out:
    San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Feb. 4, 1968.

    So I’m in Limekiln for the Spring Equinox Festival, the Neal Cassidy Memorial, late March 1968, when a couple off fellow hippies are telling me all excited: “He’s here!” And I ask, like who?? They say: “Kesey, man!!! Keseys here!!! Oh wow!!! This is sooo Far Out!!!”
    (I make the mistake of asking who the heck might Ken Kesey since I had yet to read “Electric Cool Acid Test” or even heard about his escapades with Merry Pranksters….)
    So a little later, I’m wandering through the crowd in the campground and look up the road to see this knot of hippies all straining and pushing to get closer and connect with someone in their midst. So I ask, “what’s going on???” The reply, “It’s him!!! Kesey!!!!”
    So I managed to push myself into the little crowd to get a look for myself….And then I see it’s….
    Some short guy with a red doeskin shirt, balding, short, and….built and looking like a logger from upcoast British Columbia?!? (where I’m from).
    So, what the hey, I tell myself, there’s lots more about this California scene here I sure need to explore ‘furthur’…..

    Lou Lemming

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