tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77815553351139417982011-09-21T14:09:54.937-06:00Steve Nelson, who lived in Bolinas through the 1970's, is the CEO of NACER.org, an animal welfare and educational organization. He is a writer, musician and Human Services professional. He currently lives in the Denver, Colorado area.Steve Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02773669076475255213noreply@blogger.comBlogger181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781555335113941798.post-75940317598813825022008-04-10T16:42:00.013-06:002008-04-12T09:02:44.495-06:00

Comet was one of the town's tie-dyed ladies, and was turning sixty. Word got out that she was having a party at her house on the Bolinas Mesa. My freeloading head was filled with visions of snacks, weed and booze, when word reached me. I arrived to find the party in full swing at around 8 pm - many of the celebrants having been at it since early afternoon. There, I found my

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The name says it all. You could see her coming from over the horizon - and woe betide you if she was coming from behind the wheel. Susan was the incarnation of Janice Joplin - but without the voice to sing her tortured soul. She was a trust-fund baby, with enough money to buy her boyfriend a bronze Porsche, and then replace it twice after he wrapped it - and then another - around

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It was a sunny, lazy Bolinas day, with only a couple of cars parked on Wharf Road. The scratching activities of a couple of dogs provided the bulk of the action. Next to the bar there was a sidewalk leading up the hill alongside the building, back toward the long buildings which constituted the Bolinas Hotel, on the wooded hillside behind Smiley's. The gravel parking area for the bar

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David Sorrels was a scrawny, long haired, denim clad, guitar picking clown. David's mother, Rosalie Sorrels, is a songwriter's songwriter, from the tradition of Rambling Jack Elliot, Woody Guthrie and Utah Phillips. Their kitchen became my second home - a place where one could drink Rosalie's homemade sangria, & be a fly on the wall, entertained by the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker, and Arlo

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Tide pool First replenished by thrash of big water hammering jagged reef receding for a while pulling away in service to the moon revealing the serene Here water lays in pockets and folds Rocky lap of seashore Aquaria naturalis comes to simmer in the afternoon then cools in the shadows of fortress cliffs Where steeps the life-broth starfish gropes under purple stone anemone spreads green

Steve Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02773669076475255213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781555335113941798.post-18311953762046905562008-04-10T15:27:00.004-06:002008-04-11T09:58:08.159-06:00

Shortly after my arrival in town it became apparent that my presence was found by very many people to be less than desirable. Being a shame-based person, I was all too ready to personalize this as being essentially a reaction to the unlovable, dislike-able person whom I then believed that I was (In my advancing age, I've learned to embrace my unlovable, dislike-able self, and even

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Timothy Stephens was a painter... I lived in a cabin that I built on his property in Bolinas, Ca. for most of a five year period during the mid seventies. Together we struggled through times of bad breaks, worked crappy jobs for short pay, & had some of the finest of hard times. I painted more than one picture at his urging - inspired by his example. Tim & I would often hustle & scrimp

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For Danny... ...This is the song we did everywhere we went, whenever we did our duet thing.I had a little shack on the Bolinas Mesa, about two miles from the bar in town. Most nights I was too lit up to make the walk, so would stagger across the street to Scowley's restaurant, climb in the window of the pool room, and sleep on the pool table. Since I worked in the restaurant, I would

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Through the long, soggy winters, rain and mist and heavy fog breath life into the craggy coastal hills. There is no greener green than the color of those hills, and no deeper beauty than the sight of them. Their curves and folds so voluptuous as to give the name 'Sleeping Lady' to that part of the Tamalpias ridge which nestles the Bolinas lagoon, separating West Marin from that greater world

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Chris had returned from the Vietnam war physically intact but emotionally scrambled. From early in the morning he could be heard raving up and down Wharf Road, shouting threats and throwing rocks and pieces of trash . The town was in a quandary. One of it's native sons was in trouble - another broken victim of a lamentable war (knowing all war as lamentable), and all were

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Daniel 'Dolomite' Mathis passed away in October of 1996... This is excerpted from my account of the scattering of his ashes from the cliffs at Agate Beach, in 1997... "We pulled in, parked, and climbed out of the van; and quietly started up the trail leading to the edge of the cliffs. Danny Trembley began wailing on his sax, a forlorn bluesy improvisation, as Tattooed John laid out the beat.

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Cookie was, perhaps, the only ‘person’ skinnier than me in all Bolinas. She was mostly gray with a black mask, and whitish whiskers surrounding her comical face - a bit like 'Tramp' from the Disney story. She had a long, whip-like tail that wagged at the slightest provocation, and spindly legs that lifted her to a little more than knee-height. She had more fleas than I did, but not many more.When

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(c)1996 In the soft hills of Marin ...there are wooded places as serene as a chapel where the water is sweet, and the air is scented with redwood, cedar, and moss The brooks that flow laugh like children and deer have worn trails that weave through the massive ferns In times disquieted, I'd retreat to those woods, taking my heart there as an

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Any excuse for a party was a good excuse in Bolinas, and a party could erupt any time, without warning or provocation. Many a day would begin quietly enough with two guitars, a six-pack, and three locals singing favorites on the sidewalk in front of Snarley's, and end with a full blown wingding in the streets. Cheap wine in gallon jugs and sweet, green home-grown would circulate like a

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(c)1994 I came to Bolinas as something of a waif - not really belonging to the streets, but lacking in the social graces necessary to ingratiate myself to the general populace. I came with only the clothes on my back, and a desire to establish something of a home and a life for myself in a place free from the constraints of the negative expectations of my family in Denver. I was all

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I received a donation from a 6th grade Teacher yesterday, on behalf of a student of hers who's trying to raise money for her local shelter. The teacher asked me if I would make a comment on the student's blog, as someone who "gives big" to someone making their own 'small' effort. This is what I came up with, for better of for worse: Dear Jamie, I am the CEO of a nonprofit organization called

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About These Chronicles... Dear Bolinas, I may have been familiar to some of you as "Backyard" Steve in the days of my residence here, thirty-some years ago.In his book, "The Town That Fought To Save Itself", Orville Schell devotes the following paragraph to me: "...Steve. Shy street person. Arrived several years ago and crashed in the loft at Future Studies office. Loves animals. Plays piano.

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