At the start, Esalen was separate and distinct from The Lodge, or Big Sur Hot Springs Restaurant, which was run by Jimmy Sellers and Peter Melchior. Bob and Rosa Nash were not there when I started, though still in Big Sur. Joe Adams was peripherally connected to Esalen ( sweet man).

The restaurant served meals to seminarians and staff. As is often the case, restaurant workers are not strangers to hard partying and drugs. There were many days when the breakfast cook would wander into the restaurant 30 minutes late and terribly hungover. Ron ( whose last name I forget, big fella), John Horler, Alan Romero and a couple others were cooks at the time. You can see John Horler's batiks in the Big Sur Folk Festival video. I also have one on my living room wall.

Anyways, one morning John came in a bit late and was hustling to get food out to many seminarians and staff. John was what is known as a snowback, actually of triple citizenry, English, Canadian, and American. Perhaps the English side influenced his cuisine. He produced a barrage of omelletes and sausage, some of which was suspiciously, uhh, crusty and brown. I attempted to cut into my omellete with a fork, to no avail.

I seized the omellete between thumb and index finger and carried it to the kitchen, an area I normally avoided as interlopers were subject to abuse and vile imprecation upon entry. I received the usual abuse ( get OUT OF THE KITCHEN !!!!) , walked over to the bulletin board, and thumbtacked my omellete to the bulletin board, where it stayed.

John said: "OK man, I get your point."