This is an uncorrected chapter of a book I’m working on provisionally titled Live From California: The ’60s — Before, During, and After — 1935-1973.

It’s sort of an autobiography of my first 38 years, which includes my observations on the ’60s. Having grown up in San Francisco, going to Lowell, which was the edge of the Haight-Ashbury district, having dropped out of the straight world in 1965, I have a different take on what went on in these few years, before everything — at least in the Haight district — fell apart.

Lowell, class of 1952. There were about 250 of us.
Note the eight or so of us facing each other — not the camera — in the second row down from the top. (Click or hover over the image for a zoomed detail.)

Lowell was at the Corner of Hayes and Masonic streets, just across a narrow strip of park from the Haight-Ashbury district, until 1962, when it moved out to the Lake Merced area.

Lowell was the one high school in San Francisco you could attend, regardless of what district you lived in. It was one of the best high schools in the country and many graduates went on to Stanford or Cal (UC Berkeley).

(Interestingly, Lowell was the subject of a New Yorker article titled What Happens When an Elite Public School Becomes Open to All in March, 2022. There was no test required to get into Lowell in my day, but in intervening years, demand to attend was so great that testing was required and this became a controversial issue ​— ​too much to cover here.)

I had skipped 5th grade,* so was a year younger than my classmates. I didn’t know many kids there when I started; most of them were from different parts of the city. For the first two years I hung out with a few kids, and had a steady girlfriend, Cora Mae Bolles.

*Mrs. Wasp, my fifth grade teacher told me I should study to be a lawyer, I guess because I argued so much.

Teachers

My two favorite teachers were Mrs. Cooper, who encouraged me to write, and Jack Patterson, the journalism teacher. Years later, at a reunion, three of us discovered we were in our present occupations (English teacher, staff the San Francisco Examiner, and publisher) ​— ​largely due to “Captain Jack.”

Patterson had been a captain in the Marines and had a Silver Star from World War II. He was small and wiry, bald, and had piercing blue eyes that twinkled with humor and mischief. It turned out he was gay, although he never came on to us.

He was a great teacher. I remember to this day how he described the “five w’s and one h” of journalism that, he said, should be in the first paragraph of every news story: who, what, where, when, why, and how.

And how a journalist’s duty was to report objectively (as far as that was possible). Opinion was for the editorial page. How relevant that is in these days of “fake news.”

He got fired eventually. At the time, he owed money to a bunch of friends and since he’d lost his job, he decided to rob a bank in Texas. He entered the bank with a tear gas gun and a .22 pistol. The tear gas gun didn’t fire, so he fired the .22 in the air three times. He was apprehended before he could get away, and because of the gunshots, was imprisoned for armed robbery.

One of Patterson’s former students had been Pierre Salinger; Pierre had been the editor of The Lowell, the school newspaper. Pierre went on to become President Jack Kennedy’s press secretary.

From jail, Patterson got in touch with Pierre, who got Kennedy to issue a pardon and he got out of jail. The athletic director at Stanford gave Patterson a job on the campus. I’m so sorry I never went to thank him in person for his guidance.

Sports

Football

I’d played football in my neighborhood in earlier years, but for some reason didn’t go out for high school football until my last year.

I wasn’t successful. For one thing, all the other guys had two or three more years of high school experience than I did. For another, the football coach was also the swimming coach, and he didn’t want me playing football.

I wanted to play halfback ​— ​I knew I could run and catch passes from neighborhood games ​— ​but the coach made me play defensive halfback. The first time at practice, our 220 lb. fullback George Schwarz broke through the line and was charging towards me. I weighed 150, and decided then and there I wasn’t going to put my head down and tackle him. Law of physics, or self-preservation. I didn’t get to play too much that season.

In later years, I was glad I wasn’t the football star I aspired to be, as I saw all my football friends suffering years later from the contact aspect of the sport ​— ​something that wasn’t noticeable in younger years.

The 1952 Lowell football team, which ended up with four wins and five losses. The highlight of the season was an upset of favored Washington, 6–0, on a second quarter pass from quarterback Pete Kistler to wide receiver Gary Friedman.

But a couple of good things came out of football:

1. Each night after practice at the polo fields in Golden Gate Park, we had to run around the ¾-mile track in full gear. I did it faster than anyone else, and it led me into going out for cross-country and then running the half-mile on the track team.
2. On the bus to and from practice I started sitting next to Gary Friedman, a star wide receiver. Gary liked me, even if I wasn’t playing football at his level. He “adopted” me, in a sense.**Looking back, I can see that at various times in my life, people have “adopted” me. It happened again at Stanford, and a number of times in the publishing business ​— ​people who for some reason liked what I was doing and helped me move along through life.

Swimming

I was on the swimming team — ​diving during 10th grade, the 100-yard butterfly my last two years. I was on what they called the 130s, a team for lighter weight, smaller guys and I got first place in each event. But it wasn’t the same as varsity swimming.

Track

Bob McGrouther and I were the school half milers. Bob was 6′4″, and the track coach said I took 3 steps to every 2 of Bob’s. Bob was consistently faster than me. My best times were 2:06 in the half mile, and 4:53 in the mile. Good, not great. (Bob ran the half mile in 2:03 and a sophomore, Pete Ryder, ran the mile in 4:45.)

(These were years when you didn’t have to concentrate on one sport, as nowadays.)

My three best friends, the guys I hung out with, went to parties with, had adventures with turned out to be Gary, John Brazier, and Ron Chapman.
Read More …

This is a newsletter I send out maybe once a month. If you’d like to be on the list to receive it, you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.

To those of you receiving this for the first time, this is an intermittent and infrequent newsletter that describes what’s going on with our publishing operation and daily lives. The last one was two months ago. I’m sorry these are so interminably long, but (yes, I’ve said this before):

So much of what I write these days has to be short (tweets, Instagram, etc.) that it feels good to just let it rip once in a while.

Cover of the Rolling Stone

The big news around here these days (other than the end of the world as we knew it) is (was) the article on Lesley and me in the New York Times on March, 11, 2020. Journalist/writer Penelope Green and I have corresponded a bit over the years, but not in any depth. To my surprise, she emailed me after getting my January GIMME SHELTER newsletter, proposing she do a story on us in conjunction with the publishing of The Half-Acre Homestead.

Interesting, I thought, a sophisticated New York journalist picking up on our do-it-yourself California homestead.

When doing the book, there was always the issue of how much of our private lives we wanted to include. Getting covered in one of the biggest (and best) newspapers in the world was even riskier. How would we come across? A lot of it had to do with journalism. After emails and talking on the phone with Penelope, I felt comfortable with her.

She flew out on a Wednesday, came out here for about four hours, including lunch, on Thursday, and went back to New York on Friday. She got it. She liked what we were doing, what we’d done, loved Lesley’s weavings, got the history right. I was happy with the article.

It caused an explosion of emails, phone calls, and book orders. Things are just starting to settle down now.

Here it is: www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/style/diy-lloyd-kahn-handmade-homes.html

The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening

Dining table made of 3″ by 10″ used Douglas fir floor joists from industrial building

A lot of people are saying that this is a perfect book for these troubled times. That using your hands to create food and/or shelter is not only still relevant in this digital age, but especially applicable now, when people have to stay at home. Bake some bread, fix that leaky faucet, build a table, knit a hat, plant a vegetable garden.

We got a long handwritten letter today from a 29-year-old woman who said, “Every time I open the book, it makes me excited for a future when I can build a beautiful life with a loved one…”

If you want to review the book for any type of media, send us your address and we’ll send you a free copy. To buy a copy, contact your favorite independent bookstore, or go to our website (we have free shipping + a 30% discount on two or more books): www.shelterpub.com/building/halfacrehomestead

Note: You can get a sneak preview of the book by going to: shltr.net/homesteadflipbook. It gives you about one-third of the book.

Kids

Brother and sister planning their first homes with one of our mini copies of Tiny Homes

I gave one of our Tiny Homes mini books to a 10-year-old working as an apprentice at the Proof Lab Surf Shop in Mill Valley. He flipped through the pages excitedly and then said, “This is what I want to do. … This is so sick!”

Biennale Architettura 2020

This architectural exposition scheduled for this summer in Venice was to have an exhibit of “…the content and influence of three iconic counterculture publications on organic architecture published half a century ago by now 85-year-old publisher and builder Lloyd Kahn — Domebook One (1970), Domebook 2 (1971), and Shelter (1973) — on contemporary architecture practices.” They sent me a round-trip ticket and three nights lodging, and, as you might guess, it’s been called off. I’m hoping that sometime in the future I can finally see Venice. And boy, to be recognized by architects — that’s something new.

Stretching: 40th Anniversary Edition

By having to stick around here, I got the layout done a lot sooner than if I’d been running over the hill every week. Publication date is October, 2020. Here are two of the new pages:

Working on it has made me think about posture. Hold your phone up at eye level. Stop bending over to look at it. Pull your shoulders back and relax them. Try a few of the above stretches if you’re at a computer reading this.

Sheltering In Place

Our life isn’t all that much different. Lesley doesn’t have her friends over for tea these days, I don’t meet my running pals on Tuesday nights, but we have a lot to do in our daily lives around here that’s pretty much unchanged. The cooking, gardening, fixing stuff, weaving, getting firewood, dealing with critters such as mice, ants, skunks, and gophers — running the publishing business — it’s not like were cooped up; it’s pretty much business as usual.

And there are the good things amidst all the gloom, throughout the state. LA has some of the “cleanest air of any major city in the world.” The tourists, which have become onerous out here in recent years, are not clogging the roads on weekends. People are cooperating and helping each other out, neighbors helping neighbors, masks (Lesley’s made about 30 of them for friends) and gloves and distance now part of daily life just about everywhere.

I like it at home! By staying home, I’m more in tune with the weather, the tides, and the rhythms of the surrounding land. I’m doing more foraging, hunting, and fishing. I’ve been making nettle tea every morning; it tastes good and has a lot of healthy ingredients (steep leaves 3 minutes in boiling water, add small amount of honey). Also collecting and eating miners’ lettuce, watercress, a few mushrooms, wild onions.

A few weeks ago I took a 3-mile round-trip kayak paddle and got clams, mussels, and seaweed (the latter to dry and grind into powder to put on just about all foods). I’m making an annual calendar with harvesting times for various wild plants, Like like early summer for cattail pollen, later summer for cattail shoots, early fall for Manzanita berries and huckleberries … there’s a lot of wild food everywhere. Now there’s more time to get it.

I’m certainly not the first to say it, but things are seriously out of whack on the planet — all being made worse by our loathsome president and his greedy, vicious cohorts. It’s as if the planet is conscious (the Gaia hypothesis), and taking steps to stop planetary abuse and untrammeled consumption. One can only hope that when it’s over, the world economies will do a reset. The problem is, the most vulnerable are suffering the worst.

Making Do

I’ve come to realize lately that there are a ton of used things in my life that I’m nursing along, and that I get a lot of satisfaction from making do instead of buying new. A few examples:

• Replaced damaged plastic knob on teakettle with piece of madrone
• My 20-year-old Mercedes E-320, bought for $4000, a fantastic car
• My 10-year-old Smartwool merino wool jersey, with patches and holes
  (my blankie)
• Coffee roaster top held together with high-temperature silver tape
• 70-year-old (family heirloom) wooden pruning ladder, still working fine
• Stool re-covered with piece of old Persian rug
• 25-year-old Evinrude 15 hp outboard, motor rebuilt twice

The Aging Body

One of the things I learned working on fitness books in the ’80s and ’90s, was that it’s not so much age that makes you lose strength and agility, as it is disuse. People stop using their muscles and they deteriorate. I read about a 35-year-old doctor who broke his leg skiing. When the cast came off, his leg was shriveled, “…like the leg of an old man,” he said. It’s the “use it or lose it” principle. If you stop using your muscles, they’ll shrink, and you’ll get weaker. It’s not that aging doesn’t take its toll, but steady exercise — if possible — is key to staying healthy and fit.

Bob Anderson, author of Stretching, my frequent running partner through the years, told me once: “You never hear anybody say, ‘I’m sorry I worked out.’” So true. Every time I hike, walk, paddle, ride a bike, or lift a few weights, I feel much better. Especially paddling; something about being in the (cold) water and getting an upper body workout leaves me feeling energized and happy.

My New eBike

I started competitive running at around age 50, did it for 20+ years, and quit racing 10 years ago due to knee problems (I wanted to be able to walk for the remaining years of my life).

I started skateboarding at age 65, and kept at it for maybe 20 years until I broke my arm pretty badly a few years ago. I didn’t give it up right away, but the trauma made me tentative, my skating awkward, and I lost my confidence. Sigh!

My latest activity, at age 85, is with my new Specialized Turbo Levo Fattie pedal-assist e-bike, Is it exciting! I know that hard-core mountain bikers don’t exactly love bikes with motors, but there are three reasons I finally made the jump. First, you get a break when you’re over 80. Second, our good family friend Bryce, a professional bike guy, had bought this bike for his wife, and she decided not to keep it. It was the perfect size, the perfect bike, and I got it for a healthy discount. The third reason, which I discovered on my first ride out into the hills, was that it was fun. Really fun!

It’s changed my life, in spite of the fact that I was crossing a big puddle on a fire road yesterday and the wheel sunk down, and I went over into the water on my side, along with the bike. That’s why my leg and arm are covered with mud here. No real harm, just embarrassing. I squirted the bike and me off when I got home, and I’m going out again today to pick nettles and mushrooms. After a lifetime of riding a bike, this is like having superpowers. You’re going up a steep hill and you kick in the motor and it’s like someone is pushing you from behind. And this bike is beautifully designed, it not only has power, but it’s a kick-ass trail bike.

Lesley has had a Rad eBike for about 6 months now, that she uses to pick up groceries downtown and to visit friends (once that’s possible again).

The State of Shelter Publications

The coronavirus has closed bookstores, and much of our income is cut off. This isn’t exactly unchartered territory for us, because we’ve been in the red for about two years now, and could well be out of business in the next year. We’ve applied for a Payroll Protection Program loan, as well as an Economic Disaster Loan, but the processes are confusing and disorganized. We’re looking into getting a grant, or an angel that would help us keep us rolling (paying printing bills of about $40,000) until we get some income from the new version of Stretching. At that point we hope we’ll be self-sufficient enough to do another 5 or 6 books and keep our communications hub operating for another 5 years. We’ll see.

In any event, it’s been a great 50 years, and a privilege to have been in such a wonderful business, and to have followed our hearts in whatever we’ve done.

In the meantime, we’re going to, as the Scots say, och wheesht and get oan wae it.

On My Blog

• 93-year-old Louie Frazier riding 500-foot zipline across river to his house:
  www.lloydkahn.com/2019/12/louie-frazier-93-on-his-500-foot-zip-line-across-the-garcia-river
• Coyote up close:
  www.lloydkahn.com/2020/03/coyote-on-road-last-night
• Curved casita in Hawaii:
  www.lloydkahn.com/2020/03/sustainable-living-in-hawaii
• Sauna on wheels:
  www.lloydkahn.com/2020/03/this-immaculately-built-sauna-on-wheels-rolled-through-town-yesterday-built-by

My Instagram account (8400 followers): www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn

Shelter’s Instagram account (13,000 followers): www.instagram.com/shelterpub

Música del día

Springsteen, Sam Moore, E Street band live at 25th anniversary of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “Hold On, I’m Comin’”

Over and out…

I was looking through one of my many filing cabinets (which contain old school file folders containing papers and photos) the other day and discovered about 15 folders on a book I started to write in the late ’70s. It was going to be called Home Work* and was about my building experiences, starting with my first building (studio with a “living roof” in 1962), then building homes over the next 17-18 years. I took them out of the filing cabinet and put them in this box:

Back then, I felt that I could offer guidance to novice builders, based on the fact that I started building from scratch. No carpentry training or previous construction experience.

I’d made a lot of mistakes that I could warn first-time builders about, and I had ideas for simple homes based on practicality and economy– and ones that felt good.

I wanted to encourage people to use their own hands to build their own homes. I’d done it, and never had a bank mortgage or paid rent.

The project got interrupted by my publishing Stretching by Bob Anderson in 1980 and then 20 years of publishing fitness books. Karma, I guess.

Read More …

Article in New Yorker (here), 10/21/2013, about Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter:

“…He is a techno aesthete in the manner of Steve Jobs: Dorsey, too, is a college dropout, a taker of long walks, and a guy whose father liked to tinker. And, just as Jobs, with his Issey Miyake turtlenecks, tried to embody Apple’s sleek functionalism, Dorsey’s tastes are self-consciously in synch with the design of Twitter. “Constraint inspires creativity” is one of his credos.;”