The Summer of 1969

When I arrived in Glendale I was expecting to move into the garden house at Billie's place. She moved me into a room in the house proper. Billie was a bit older than my mother and a very large woman. She had a heart of gold. We became friends. Though I had put myself back together somewhat on the drive to California, having a friend at that time was very nice. The idea was that I would look for some significant kind of work. I called around and finally started looking at jobs that were less significant. I had at that time modestly long hair and a moustache. It was neetly trimmed and not very radical. I certainly didn't look much like a hippie. Well I guess looking like a hippie was a relative thing, because the hair and the moustache were issues to some potential employers in Southern California. I ended up getting rid of the moustache but kept the hair. I finally got a job as a janitor in a local hospital. Now I was the only non-hispanic working in the hospitals maintenance department. I was also the only student working there. Everyone else was supporting themselves working there. The job was explained to me and I was shown my area. I started working. I had all my work done in an hour and a half. I had finished the day's work. The head of housekeeping then started to give me additional work. When I broke for lunch I sat to eat with the other janitors. They explained "making time" to me. You see I was expected to stretch out the work to fill the day. Finishing so quickly just made the rest of them look bad. I could understand their point of view, but "making time" wasn't something I could do. I finished a week of work and then had to leave. I couldn't do things their way.
I then decided to just travel and experience Califirnia and then go home for the wedding of my best friend at the time. The first thing to experience was a Rock Festival. It was billed as "Newport 69". There had been a series of festivals that had been held in Newport California and this was the latest. The only thing, I wasn't held in Newport California, it was held in San Fernando valley in Northridge. I should have guessed that there was a reason for moving the festival. I went to the festival. I bought my ticket and went in. By that time I looked more like a hippie than not and I fit right in. Some of the big names were there and that was exciting, Credence Clear Water Revival, Joe Cocker and Jimmie Hendrix were a few of the groups. There were others and some I had never heard of. There was a lot of being high and mellow. Some serious Pot smoking and some drinking and some other things. In the day it was very hot. The evening was more tolerable. The second day when I went back, ticket in hand, I was confronted by the sight of kids fighting with cops. Apparently some of the kids thought they deserved to get in free and the cops needed to bust some heads. It was an incredible scene; kids, cops and police helicopters. I didn't go back for the third day.
I visited with my aunt Naomi in San Diego for a week. She put me up and fed me. She had rows of Avacado trees growing in her back yard and I ate avacado in all sorts of ways. I even brought some great big ones home with me. Her house over-looked a kind of canyon called an arroyo which in turn over-looked the Sports Stadium. I went down to Tijuana with my aunt and bargined with the vendors there. I bought some souveneers and I got myself a leather vest. I wore the leather vest without a shirt the rest of the summer. So there I was, everlengthening hair, leather vest and sandals to boot. I was going native(flower child native). I also found an Ankh and strung it on a leather thong along with some beads and wore that all the time also. When I went back to Glendale I decided to shorten my Summer some so I prepared to go North to San Francisco to visit my other Aunt Naomi. First I did some chores for Billie and a little painting on the house. I was pretty lean in those days and very tan and muscular. I also had a very young-looking almost feminine face.
Next - going North