1964 - 1972
I really had never had any role model due to a worthless father and nothing more than a tool to be used by my parents against each other, although I only see that now, then all I still knew is I didn't understand why the same status of persons who were my friends during my first eight years of education, even though even then it was probably pretty obvious that I might be, well different. And besides, most were really cute. Also, in looking back now during this era, despite the hardships of being gay in high school, I was probably lucky in living in a small town during an era when you could still hitch hike to the beach or to Santa Barbara for a concert as we got a little older.
One of the reasons that I didn't make allot of friends wa
s of course because I fell head over heels for a seventh grader, while I was in the ninth. The only only picture I have of him is here and while I won't revel his name although if you were there you will know him or may make out his signature.
So, that didn't help. However, those who were suppose to help me such as educators, for example, wouldn't do a thing for me because I was gay. I do hope it is somewhat better for gays and lesbians. Remember, should you read this not be familiar or perhaps headed in the opposite direction based on garbage you have listened to on talk radio.
Just remember this small fact, how can, what is now considered no more than five to at best including those who might swing both ways to 10 percent of the population, and given that it is mainly based on a very much theoretical right to enjoy your life in your pursuit of happiness, and thus this particular population having merely the desire for passion with their own type, be in any way possible harmful to anyone? While our Nation has managed to begin to follow a timeline very concurrent with ancient Rome, and remember what 
happened to Rome's Republic, once they needed a strong person to commandeer their forces throughout their known world? They had to succumb to an Emperor, which is not, to the degree that I have been able to tell, a title available in our Constitution, but is increasingly required in order to maintain an imperial based lifestyle, and that is a lifestyle. Today, their particular view of sex is no longer practiced, as in it is ok to have concubines, male and female and so on and so on. Therefore it stands to reason to fear such a small minority and to deny the rights that are increasingly being recognized and have long been stable of modern military forces in Israel and in most if not all of the original EU members, what in the name of hell are you afraid of? But, I digress.
Although I tried to never let music imprint one time frame upon me so that I would only live in that era of music, although I still like to follow alternative college music and have a much broader enjoyment of a number of musical styles from punk, to blues to jazz, to electronica -I now realize I sort of did get my music stamp, beginning in 1964 with the Beatles, but more importantly going forward to 1969 the year of High School graduation, what we now refer to as garage rock, or what the Sirius Satellite music channel refers to as the underground garage, which can play anything from Leslie Gore to the a whole host of groups that make it difficult to pick just one, but certainty anything included in most of my 45 rpm's, to punk, post punk, new wave, modern rock to new groups like the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Anyway, music will be covered along with more "during this era" type things under TimeMap, which I have started, but will eventually expand. However, for this area, I feel should be reserved for writing about my life, or as I actually have started considering, audio files instead, along with pictures.
Cloudburst Floods and Urban Planning
Of course one can not think about this era without regards to the great flood of early 1970, (1969-70 rainy season) when upon what I remember as a January day while at work in the new shopping center off Madonna Road, I had just arrived when reports of flooding starting, well flooding in. There had been what I assume would be called a cloudburst of about ten minutes between about noon and ten after on what had already ben a rainy several days, so the ground was more than well saturated; and over downtown SLO, enough so that once the creek got blocked off further south, then it was only a matter of time for lower Higuera and most of downtown to flood as the creek jumped its banks. 
This was the creak behind our house at the time, where I had spent many idyllic years as a kid safe from traffic and other dangers that might await a little boy, whose mother was at work, building all kinds of sand and creek developments, destroying them and doing it again. Where I became friends with other kids nearby, but mostly remember those wonderful days spending hours in the creek,catching tadpoles, later frogs and meeting all sorts of scary looking enough little beasts to make one be careful about where they might step. Also, in those days, one go could all the way up to where the creek was covered downtown and if brave enough go through to the other side although it was dark and spooky, since the creek was still wild, at least on either side.
Later, but not the part I played so many summers in, did SLO in conjunction with the closing off of the street in front of the Mission undertake, along with other downtown improvements in order to stave off the destruction of downtown from the newly built mall, a creek restoration and beautification plan that should be the envy of any City with a similar habitat. SLO at least seemed to learn from its almost diastases consequences of mall building without downtown beautification, thus even if they didn't know it set the stage and wrote the book on how small California Cities with quaint and old downtown's, can prevent the loss of their historic districts while accommodating increased commercial activity. But, at that time, this was a new beast that would come to haunt small cities up nd down the coast.
Also, unit recently I always held in high regard the obvious planning principles to which SLO City had seemed to adhere, in fill, extending city limits to adjacent developments rather than allowing leapfrog development. However, recently with the increase concerns on global warming I am now sadden to see that it seem so out of step, allowing large swaths of land over the huge car oriented big box stores, when they should have been considering building a small new city either without reliance upon or perhaps the need for all that land to be used for worthless parking of auto robots.
Of course by this time, high school was over and the era of being raised by a wild pack of teenagers had ended and although I attended Cuesta Community College, it wasn't long before I would be leaving for a four year college, since who generally wants to go to school in the same place you grow up. And I wanted a liberal arts education not a career or vocational training, which Cal Poly probably resembled more of in those days.
Recently I had the fun of asking Diane if she remembered one of my last roommates before leaving for UCSB and related the story of going to Denver during December break to visit his former girlfriend Rose. So for now I decided to try and start saving the tidbits of memory files so that I would not have to rewrite them for the site. While it is without any pictures as of yet, another issue that I must decide how best to deal with getting pictures up without verbiage. So, if you are just waiting for the next little bit of writing, then here is Denver72.
