 How many people here have been to Mendocino? Of course, lots of people. And you know how absolutely lovely and beautiful it is. All the photographs in here, ones that I've taken where I've gone up there many, many times over the last 15 years. There's a real feeling about that village. It's so far away from the city. And yet, San Francisco has such a magnetic attraction and has so much going on with it that even the things that are happening in the city, three and a half, four hours from the coast up there, trickle up and they're felt. And in 1959 in particular, you know the kind of things that were going on in San Francisco. The beatniks and the jazz and even smoking marijuana and just people breaking out of their patterns and trying to do something different and tired of the war and the bomb, the atomic bomb, everybody thought that we're gonna die anyway. It was part of the cynicism of the beats. And as you, part of the reason I wrote this book when I started writing it was I wanted to think about those times. I mean we now, we knew what was coming in the 60s and those people didn't and the people in the 50s, they really had no idea what was gonna happen. But we know now the kind of things that went on. So I wanted to look at the lives of people who were close enough to that to be affected by the unusual changes that were coming down the pike and wanting to participate in it themselves, but far enough away that they still lived a different kind of life. I thought I'd read one just a little bit from my book that kind of reflects the sort of atmosphere that I felt when I was up there. An hour before dawn the next morning, Howard Cain was walking the quiet streets of Mendocino smoking a short cigar. He paused for a moment in front of Alice's house at the westernmost end of Little Lake Street. The moon had set and the fog was thin, allowing flashes from the lighthouse up the coast to break through the darkness from time to time. Howard liked being out at night. It was a time to appreciate the small animal sounds, the rich smells of damp vegetation, and the special lightness that seemed to rise from the ground despite the darkened sky. He was a man who needed a lot of time to himself, a friend from his former life. Was it really just three months ago that he had left it? Who knew this about Howard? Had asked him why he decided to run a restaurant where he would be around people all day, chattering and carrying on. Howard had thought for a minute then said, it sharpens the contrast. Well, there was a lot of contrast going on down in San Francisco. And those of you who were here at the time or maybe were kids being brought into the city, for instance, you'd go into Union Square to go shopping. And the ladies would have on their white gloves and hats and all the men were wearing hats and everybody was all dressed to the nines. And then not even a mile away in North Beach and you can see up there the, there we go. This group, those were beatniks. I mean, those were the beats and that picture was taken and they went on a, meet the squares walk and they walked down to Union Square to introduce themselves. But as you can see, I mean, they weren't hippies at this point. There was no long hair. They dressed in sort of normal looking clothes, although the women wore pants, usually black pants and that was pretty awful. But then there's the Vesuvios and city lights and so many interesting new kinds of things that were going on. And of course there was Lawrence Ferlinghetti with city lights. And one of the two of my characters go down to San Francisco in order to buy books to replace books in the library that has burned down. And I wanted to read you just a quick passage from that. North Beach was shrouded in fog when Ellen and Alice reached it in mid-afternoon, threading the Buick through the traffic on Columbus Avenue and growing excitement as they felt the pulse of city life beating around them. Where on earth can we park the car, Ellen said. We don't need to use it while we're here, you know. Her mother smiled, I know a place. She turned left to Green Street and pulled into an overnight garage driveway. A sign posted on the doorway said, full. I knew it, Ellen said, we'll never find a place. Parking was a problem even then. Her mother waved a silencing hand at her as a great uniformed man came up to the car. Alice smiled up at him and he nodded back. Got any little spot we can tuck this car in for a couple of days, she said. We just drove in from Mendocino. The man smiled and nodded, I grew up in Fort Bragg. How's it going up there? My uncle owns the old general store. He and Alice chatted for a few minutes about mutual acquaintances while Ellen shook her head slightly, amazed. The man gestured to a ramp inside the garage going up. Just so happens a car left five minutes ago so you just drive up that ramp and turn right. You're all set. Alice thanked him and steered the car carefully up the ramp. As they left the garage, they were stopped on the sidewalk by a crowd of people all watching something in the street. A Chinese funeral forming outside the Green Street mortuary. A small but dignified marching band dressed in gaudy red uniforms with plumes on their helmets were slowly leading a large black hearse up the street. The sonorous dirge played on trumpets, trombones and one French horn had an ironic comic edge to its sound. Pedestrians and cars alike stopped to wait respectfully as the funeral procession passed by. A large group of somberly dressed mourners shuffled behind the hearse. Ellen and Alice watched in awe while the whole scene disappeared into the fog. That's something you don't see every day, Ellen said. If I can make this work, let's see. That was actually a scene that I saw when I first came to San Francisco walking around North Beach, the Green Street mortuary marching band. It was just an incredible sight. Malvina's Cal Fave, people remember that one. Then, of course, the folk singers in the different cafes, they became extremely popular, of course. Even when I came to North Beach in 1976, Malvina's was still there and the coffee house scene was still pretty lively only they didn't have as many of the beatniks, the jazz and the comedians that had kind of moved back to New York by that time, certainly by the early 70s, even. Back in Mendocino, where are we? Okay, let's see. Just taking a look at some of the places around the town. The contrast that I try to set up in my book is of a quiet, very small village. In 1959, there were probably only 500 people living in Mendocino. It had been a logging town for a really long time and the logging business was pretty much diminished by that point. And it took four or five hours to drive up there then when there wasn't a really good road going through the redwoods, from Highway 101 over to Highway 1. So the people were kind of isolated and then when the 60s started and Ken Kesey and different people, artists and Bohemians started coming up to Mendocino, they began to change the life of the town. But by 1970, the people stepped in and decided that they weren't going to allow it to be developed into some kind of resort. And so they put a stop on development. So Mendocino now is almost exactly what it looked like in 1970, which is pretty much what it looked like all throughout the 40s and 50s. So it makes it a wonderful step back into the past. So that's our presentation. And we'll sit over here and answer questions if you have some.