A Special Visit

You may remember that I met the secretary when I did some work at Lizard Records on Sunset Strip. She would have me do odd jobs. Her family had purchased a resort in Northern California, just south of Crescent City. It had a large, all wood lodge and little cabins spread out around a winding road that ran through the property. All of the cabins had been uninhabited for some time and needed much work to bring them on line. She approached me with an offer to go up there and work on them.

At the time, I was staying with Lance Wakely and Kent Morrill, in a little house in the Hollywood Hills. I was living on the couch, but nobody seemed to mind much. One Saturday morning, I was awakened by a knock at the door. When I answered it, I found two nicely dressed gentlemen there. I invited them in. I was always happy to talk to people and we talked for about an hour. They left me some things to read and left.

Later, when Kent came upstairs, he asked who had visited. I didn't remember but told him it had something to do with the Kingdom, or some such thing. I hadn't really been paying attention.

Anyway, the next week, they called again. They politely asked if I had had a chance to read any of the literature they left and I politely replied that I hadn't. So then they offered me a free home Bible study. Which, of course, I agreed to. If the universe wants me to study the Bible, who was I to argue? They left me with this little blue book.

That week, they came by, and since Kent, who had studied theology in college, didn't want anything to do with these JW's, he made us sit on the floor in Lance's room (he was away at the time). We did so and they asked questions and showed me answers in the Bible. It went well, I guess.

The next time they were to visit, Kent insisted we all sit together and he had invited Andy DiMartino (his manager and long time Catholic, as was Kent) to come, as well. Before they arrived we had "lubricated" ourselves quite well and I was in quite a mellow mood. Well, these two little guys sat and answered questions and accusations thrown at them, each time using the Bible. They remained pretty calm, even though Kent and Andy got pretty agitated. When they left, Kent and Andy congratulated each other on having such a good time. Later, Kent bought a Bible and sat in with us on the study. After a while, we even attended some of the meetings at the Kingdom Hall, as it was called.

Things progressed, until I got offered that job in Northern California. The secretary offered me a used car (I think it was an old GTO convertible, but my memory could be fooling me) and let me know that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was planning on visiting California and if we could fix up the place in time, he would old a retreat there. Time was of the essence.

So I headed up the coast to help out, leaving Kent in the hands of Jehovah's Witnesses.