La Honda

History in the USA is either a commercially run enterprise or hidden to the point of inaccessibility. In La Honda, the small town in the hills south of San Francisco you find no notice board not a sign nor commemorative plaque or statue – nothing to remind you of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, the celebrated heroes of the psychedelic era of the 1960s. The author of “Sometimes a Great Notion” and „One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” who once referred to himself in an interview as being “too young for a beatnik and too old to be a hippie” is not remembered by any monument here. He lives on however in the works of Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson. And in the memories of the people of La Honda.
„He was a nice guy,” said Pat whom I meet on the porch of Apple Jack’s Inn, “he worked in a hospital where he secured acid for his guests. Most people were using it at that time to find out what would happen to themselves. Kesey gave it to others to watch what would happen with them”. The tall trees of La Honda must have witnessed some truly wild spectacles. Kesey used to mount speakers in the tree tops and had bands like the Grateful Dead over for private gigs. The Hell’s Angels were regulars until the police decided they had seen and heard enough. Pat – a small braided tail in his graying mane – remembers the crazy old days. “The farmers were thinking the devil had moved into the neighborhood. They were trying to remove him – by all means necessary”. Soon after Kesey abandoned his property in the late 1960s a thunderstorm destroyed the house.
„Write this down,“ Pat commands, „Bush is an asshole. The Republicans are assholes.” He refuses to have his picture taken because he is in – to use his words – some trouble with the government. “Last time I voted was for John F. Kennedy,” he said, “His reward was to extend my tour in Vietnam”.