Howdy and how goes your Summer? Are you stretching it out, making it Endless? You can do that with Summer, you know. I had an amazing sunset walk last night, in my old stomping ground of Reseda. I go there once in a while, to maintain The Feeling, and instead of my nightly loop around CSUN, I do my miles in the neighborhood where I used to push Pearl, beginning at Cantara Street School. The school is of course directly north of the short strip of Newcastle Street that we have talked about in recent blogs. Newcastle was home to Pat and Lys and the Watsons (last name slightly changed). And, for a while, it was Lilly's "home away from home", her Reseda home as Lys's close friend.
So I like to walk that neighborhood, but another great reason, espcially in Summer, is the return of the legendary Green Parrots. (hang on a sec, I feel a Shameless Plug coming on...) Pearl and I saw them almost every night in August 2021 in the trees at Cantara St. School. She died just one month later, and I chose our magical experience for the title of our first book, "The Summer of Green Parrots" (available on Lulu and Amazon). On a side note, Pearl is named as a co-writer of that book because she lived the experience with me, not only the Summer of 2021 but through our whole caregiving relationship. So there's your Shameless Plug (in addition to being a great story, the book will make you want to become a caregiver), but in getting back to my walk last night, the Green Parrots were not only back, but they put on a show exactly as described in the book.
It was "magic, Pearl", as I often used to tell her. "Perfection" was another word I used a lot: "That's perfection, Pearl."
You can experience it, too. Just drive over to Cantara St. School, park by the electronic sign in front, start walking west toward Hesperia Street, and look for the parrots in the trees. Heck, you don't even need to look for them; you'll hear 'em before you see 'em. Continue your walk down Hesperia to Lorne, following the chain-link school fence. Newcastle is about fifty yards from the southwest corner of the school. Make sure to count cats on Newcastle. The cats expect you to count them and will be disappointed if you don't. They aren't all out in the open, some of them like to hide, so look behind bushes, under boat covers, beneath cars and on rooftops, and do all of this out of the corner of your eye. Don't make a spectacle of yourself. Our record for counting was 23 cats (!) but the average is much lower, 5 to 7. See what you can do, but go go go. Don't wait until Summer is over.
Since the last time I wrote, I also went to Warner Center Park to see Surfin', a Beach Boys tribute band. Man, were they great. The park was jam-packed. The Beach Boys invented Endless Summer.
Unfortunately, not all is Summer Sunshine. There are darker subjects in our sphere that we must tackle. We can do this, however, and still have an awesome day because it's good to shine a light on dark things.
Among our recent topics is the subject of the Meissner House. In the last blog, I changed the name and called it the Mossner House (moss being an appropriate metaphor), but screw it. All the Mossners are dead, so let's use their real name: Meissner. Man, they were bad news. Big time evil were the members of that family.
News Flash (this just in!): The 1984 Incident at the Meissner House has been 100% confirmed. We are still working to verify the 1983 Incident, and it appears (from a Confirmed 1988 Pool Party) that Howard Schaller was connected to the Meissner House.
Yes, indeedy. Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder.
Now, in the last blog I told you about the house where I worked as a caretaker. Right? I'm talking about 2009 and the house on Jamieson Street in Reseda. I alluded to the things that happened to me in that house. I also told you about the demise of Pat Forducci, which was incrediby bizarre and sad - a guy who worked all his life, now broke and living alone in his car in the heat of 100 degree Summer days.
A guy dying of cancer. And not one single person came to see him besides me.
All those so-called "friends" of Pat, who showed up at his memorial service (even the ones who didn't know him), yet not one of those people visited him when he was living in his car for a year.
I didn't have the means to help Pat, but I checked on him in the nearby church parking lot. We watched the 2022 Fourth of July fireworks from the roof of the CSUN parking garage. Pat could barely walk. I tried to get him to apply for Social Security. It wasn't easy because he didn't care anymore.
And now we know that he didn't care because he'd been sacrificed by his cult.
I was very likely the last person who knew Pat to see him alive. I visited him at his new apartment when he finally escaped homelessness. This was in June 2023 (he'd been homeless since May 2022). He was very happy to have his new place to live, arranged for by his social worker, in a beautiful tree-lined Santa Clarita neighborhood. I visited him there twice. At the time, I was giving him rides home from Olive View Medical Center. On my second and final visit to his apartment (which he'd moved into only three weeks earlier), we were watching TV, and he put on a documentary about the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh. Have I told you this before? Even if I have, it bears repeating. I said something like, "Oh yeah...I remember this guy. Didn't he take over a whole town somewhere, in the '80s?" Pat said, "Yeah. It was in Oregon". With that, the story of the Bagwan came back to me. Pat seemed to admire his "accomplishment" of occupying this town. Maybe "admire" is too strong a word, but he was very interested (more interested than I was) in the Bagwan's story. At the end of the documentary, he asked me a question, "Do you think you could ever join a group like that"?
I said, "What, you mean a cult?" It was the first time I had used that word in quite a while. We think of "cults" as relics from the 1970s, Jim Jones and the like. "Not me", I continued. "It's nothing but mind control". I was surprised Pat had even asked me the question, knowing that I'm not a "follower". He mused for a moment, and offered his own take, "I dunno. It might have it's benefits. Your food and shelter are covered. There's women...". I'm paraphrasing, but he was saying "it didn't seem all bad." I said, "Whattaya mean? Everything they do is dictated by one man, the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh. He's a total charlatan. I think he was even sued by the government if I recall correctly." Pat restated his opinion that such a lifestyle might have it's good points. "Not for me", I reiterated.
Pat was of course "trying to tell me something in so many words" that night.
I never saw him again. He died about five days later.
In Fall 2023 and throughout 2024, I recalled things from 2009 and my year as the caretaker of Diane's House. That's going to be the title of my next book:
"Diane's House on Jamieson Street in Reseda". Good title, eh?
One of the things I recalled was that Pat had come to that house. A mindblower, right? Why would Pat come to that house in August 2009? He didn't know Diane or Sue, and I didn't even know his whereabouts at the time, or how to contact him. But yes indeed, dear readers...one day he was there at Diane's house. And that's because he got a call to come there. From who, I don't know. He just said, "They call you, tell you where to go, and you have to show up or they blackmail you." And he came to the house on the day that his fellow cultists tried to "initiate" me. Yes indeedy.
It didn't work, but it wasn't for lack of trying on their part.
They didn't go home after the Judas Priest concert, either.
Thanks for reading, tons of love, back soon.
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