Closing In On the Light: The Eleventh Archive

Closing In On the Light: The Eleventh Archive

<Last week: Terror in the Oilwell Hills

 

 

 

We'll begin looking at the eleventh archive, Pictures to The Lost Era 1962-‘78.

There are only two remaining boxes of paintings to be photographed and catalogued. There is a collection of large framed works at the storage. There are the slide carousels, and tape reels for  “The Lost Canyon Trip”, and a box crammed full of xerox copies, and miscellaneous magazine clippings, notes, and who knows what else.

There are the old tape recorders,  piles of cassette tapes, and boxes and boxes of slides. There are some body and trim parts for Pete’s 1959 Ford Falcon. And then?

Who knows what will happen?

I have spent a good deal of time talking about a relatively short period between 1967 and 1969. We’ll move on (I promise) as we open the eleventh collection of paintings, but there is one living strand in this strange web of coincidence that binds me to this day, and one more story that I just gotta’ tell. This is more about me than Pete.

I have mentioned this before, in earlier posts. Pete was a firm believer in his talent and in his mission. He believed. He believed that “The Lost Canyon Trip” would be the catalyst for a campaign to save the Whittier Hills. He believed that his work would gain him recognition, even fame.

He was not the only one who believed. Many people saw Pete’s work and believed he was worthy of recognition, even fame. A few folks thought there was the chance of making a buck helping it happen. One such fellow was Dave R. Dave became Pete’s “agent” for a while.

I met Dave a few times, once in an embarrassing incident up at Pete’s folks house. Pete’s parents were gone for the day. I was up there hanging out with Pete, and Dave came by with Tom Malloy and Gay. Tom knew where we could get some joints. I had smoked weed only once before. I got ridiculously high. Pete and Dave got goofing on me until I had a complete laughing fit, and proceeded to run all over the place making an ass of myself, and ended up grabbing hold of Gay in a totally inappropriate manner. I would learn many years later, in one of my last conversations with Pete, that he  was deeply hurt by the episode. Somehow I had to get this off my chest. It might have come forty some years after the fact, but I did make a sincere apology to Pete for that. And Pete accepted the apology. But I’m getting side-tracked here, and that incident was not the story I started. Back to Dave R.

Dave did do some good work promoting the Lost Canyon Trip. But they needed a venue.

Dave’s mother knew a woman, Marilyn Winans, who was active in the local Methodist Church. Pete and Dave met with Mrs. Winans. Marilyn arranged a rental of the church auditorium. All good.

But Dave did better than that. He was able to get Pete (and himself) an appearance on a local television show, The Ben Hunter Matinee. I saw the show.

Dave introduced Pete, and talked about The Lost Canyon Trip. He had Pete do frog imitations. Then Pete got the microphone. What happened next was classic Pete.

Pete talked about the hills, and the show in the few seconds he had on camera, but concluded his moment on TV by giving out Mrs. Winans home telephone number on air so people could call her with questions about the event. Mrs. Winans was not amused.  I learned later that no one called about the show.

Oh, there was one other detail here. Mrs. Winans had a good looking daughter, Mary. Dave R. was very interested in Mary. Mary was a sweet tempered young woman, but she didn’t appreciate Dave R’s advances. She ended up telling him to. uh- “go 'find' himself” .

So how did I learn all this? I met Mrs. Winans daughter, Mary, in 1999. We were married in April of 2000. 

But on to the eleventh archive, “Paintings to the Lost Era”. There are 116 paintings in this group and some of them are sublime. 

“The Lost Era” was a show about La Habra heights in the 1940’s. The Hamptons lived in a house nestled deep into the hills up on Coban road. There weren’t many homes up there back then, and the houses that did exist were small, settled quietly in among the orange, and avocado groves. It was remote, shady, and as beautiful as it gets here in Southern California. We’ll be here for a while. Enjoy.

Next: Pictures to the Lost Era>