Dick Price 1968
Photo taken by the redoubtable Sterling Doughty (famed for cutting down the Esalen sign with a chainsaw among other exploits.)
this captures Dick so well... and by Sterling. Both Sterling and Dick were one of kind.
Sterling cut down the Simkins sign, and actually got through one and a half posts of the Esalen sign before he was stopped (it never fell). However the keen observer will notice the replacement posts are steel I-beams... Sterling's tradition is kept alive to some degree in that many signs around Big Sur rarely last one night. Although Sterling would be disappointed to see how many more signs there are now than in his time here.
Sterling was one of my first work/study leaders... times have changed
Back in 1980, when my sister worked for Stanford library, she checked out the yearbook that had Dick's wrestling team pictures in it. Those pics were so great! I can remember sitting with that book and studying the pictures. I honestly don't know why I didn't walk downtown and make photocopies. But now it is a real treat to have these great photos available on the iThou site.
Thank you so much, David!
Yes, Steve is correct re: the sign - and the reason for the steel I-beams. Sterling certainly was of the era - along with Jan Brewer, Patrick Cassidy and so many others. I still keep in touch with him regularly and will, in fact, see him later this month. He is visiting. Appropriately enough, on Halloween.
I doubt he would remember me... I knew him during his most "extreme" times. He is an icon of a time gone by in Big Sur and Esalen.
Steve, I am still happy to give the message and you can give your greetings directly - Sterling is now here himself:
Welcome!
What a great picture of Dick. Seeing it brings about a feeling of sadness and nostalgia. We were all so young then, I think Dick was in his mid thirties then. And looks it.
Hello David and all , I was reading this thread when I came across the name of a friend I haven't seen since '67! Jan Brewer. A good man and a friend of Pumpkin Hollow, Ed Landman and the friends at Bluebird. It was my refuge from a spiritless world ( San Fernando Valley in the 60's...my god, what a waste land!!). I was just a high school kid and these cool grownups took me in and gave me a place with a wickedly funny reality that i LOVED!...a place to live in my heart. Jan would visit when he was south and, of course, he seemed to be living a life ideal! Wild in Big Sur, a prinicipled, kind, free human. Jan, are you still out there kicking? I hope so!
I'm very grateful to all those friends and others along the way who were also happiest outside the box of comatose convention & complacency. Life for me to this point? So far, so good, personally! The rest of the world, yikes! It's no tea party. Hear the young and also tell them the truth you know. It helps.
with love to all the mentors and great spirits, intentional or not. Marianne
Yes,