But for me now, as then in the past, there are reminders of Williams College and Dr. John W. Hopkins and the things he regarded as important, to be found everywhere, although the world can sometimes conspire to seem like such a mock.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Near Forgotten and Ancient Relics
Too bad the new owners threw out Bub the space dog's lock of hair that Dr. Hopkins once showed me.
But for me now, as then in the past, there are reminders of Williams College and Dr. John W. Hopkins and the things he regarded as important, to be found everywhere, although the world can sometimes conspire to seem like such a mock.
But for me now, as then in the past, there are reminders of Williams College and Dr. John W. Hopkins and the things he regarded as important, to be found everywhere, although the world can sometimes conspire to seem like such a mock.
Williams College Library
(Photo by Miss Daniela Thompson, Berkeley Historical Society and Bay Area Historical Society, permission for use pending).
The library of Williams College has been completely redone as evidenced by this recent photograph. Gone are the long reading tables and chairs Dr. Hopkins and I would utilize to pour over historic and ancient works. Gone, too, is his personal collection of historic paraphernalia as pertaining to the Understanding movement and flying saucers and visitations from the space brothers. For me, the clean up crew's tossing his personal papers out under the Great Home's porte cochere for the trashmen to collect to get them out of the way for proper, historic, and well-financed and very expensive renovations was akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria, but you'll just think I am being melodramatic by my so saying. But I do believe that.
Williams College burned bright for decades in the Berkeley Hills, like a glittering rare and occult gem. They all rightly should have had a little more in the way of genuine respect for Dr. John W. Hopkins and his fellow travelers. He for decades was the real guiding spirit of the place.
UFO's: "Serious Business"
Back to the good old days of Williams College under the tutelage of Dr. John W. Hopkins. That old black Cadillac certainly got a lot of use, and so did the everyday white car (it might have been an older Pontiac sedan) as Dr. Hopkins traveled far and wide for flying saucer conventions, usually as a featured speaker, and would sometimes visit with friends and followers, maybe even a relative now and again, along the way.
On March 2, 1960 he was by all advance reports lecturing on flying saucers at a speaking engagement in far away Desert Hot Springs, and described Unidentified Flying Objects as "serious business".
From the Desert Hot Springs Sentinal (you'll need to pay to read the article).
(This engagement does not appear to be an Understanding event, or at least the event did not make the listings in the Understanding newsletters. Understandable, as this was a busy period for Dr. Hopkins as shown below from items gleaned from the Understanding newsletters of the time. In February, he as President of Williams College hosted none other than Orfeo Angelucci himself for a series of lectures and meetings.
In January and February alone, Dr. Hopkins had traveled far down the state of California to Orange, Inglewood, and Pasadena California, and then back up to Berkeley for Orfeo, then back down the state all the way to Needles, according to the Understanding newsletters.
(Understanding Newsletter information courtesy of Sean Donovan of DanielFry.com, who most currently pulled back the edition he had published and is currently rewriting portions of his ten-year research project, a biography of Daniel Fry called "Contactee". I hope he finishes soon as I would like to read his book.)
On March 2, 1960 he was by all advance reports lecturing on flying saucers at a speaking engagement in far away Desert Hot Springs, and described Unidentified Flying Objects as "serious business".
From the Desert Hot Springs Sentinal (you'll need to pay to read the article).
Desert Hot Springs Sentinel › 3 March 1960 › Page 2 - Newspapers ...
www.newspapers.com/newspage/51350262/
Desert Hot Springs Sentinel, Title: Desert Hot Springs Sentinel, State: ... on Unidentified Flying Objects as "serious business," Dr. John W. Hopkins, Ph.D., will ...(This engagement does not appear to be an Understanding event, or at least the event did not make the listings in the Understanding newsletters. Understandable, as this was a busy period for Dr. Hopkins as shown below from items gleaned from the Understanding newsletters of the time. In February, he as President of Williams College hosted none other than Orfeo Angelucci himself for a series of lectures and meetings.
In January and February alone, Dr. Hopkins had traveled far down the state of California to Orange, Inglewood, and Pasadena California, and then back up to Berkeley for Orfeo, then back down the state all the way to Needles, according to the Understanding newsletters.
Understanding Understanding Volume 5 Number 1
January 1960
Saturday, Jan. 30: Dr. John Hopkins, Ph.D. (Northern vice president of
Understanding) "Flying Saucers and What They Mean to You" 8 p.m.,
Darby Park Auditorium, 3400 Arbor Vitae, INGLEWOOD.
Sunday, Jan. 31: Dr. Hopkins, "Flying Saucers" 2 p.m., Science
of Mind Church, 1164 N. Lake Ave., PASADENA.
BERKELEY, Unit No. 17 entertained James Velesquez of Santa Ana, Calif.,
on Dec. 9 at Williams College. The speaker explained various passages from the
Bible. The Berkeley group meets for public lectures normally on the second
Wednesday of the month and for business meetings on the fourth Wednesday.
Understanding Volume 5 Number 2
February 1960
PASADENA, Unit No. 12, is now the largest unit in Understanding its total
membership having recently surpassed that of Oakland. Pasadena’s January
speaker was Dr. John Hopkins, speaking on "Exploration Research Into
Interplanetary Understanding."
NEEDLES, Unit No. 24, heard a talk
by Dr. John Hopkins Jan. 17. The subject was "Flying Saucers and What They
Mean to You."
BERKELEY, Unit No. 17: Orfeo Angelucci spoke on "Eternity-All as One
and One as All" on Jan. 13 at Williams College.
Understanding Volume 5 Number 3
March 1960
ORANGE, Unit No. 7 elected Dorothy Harper as new president of the club
for 1960. Selected to serve with her were Mrs. Wilma Hough, vice-president;
Mrs. Edith Dickerson, secretary; and Iver Blomgren, treasurer. The unit heard
two speakers during February, Dr. John Hopkins, Understanding northern
vice-president and president of Williams College, speaking on "Who Is a
Contactee?" and Dr. Joseph Larson of Pasadena.
BERKELEY, Unit No. 17 elected Guy Hudson as its new president recently.
Dr. John Hopkins was chosen vice-president.
(Understanding Newsletter information courtesy of Sean Donovan of DanielFry.com, who most currently pulled back the edition he had published and is currently rewriting portions of his ten-year research project, a biography of Daniel Fry called "Contactee". I hope he finishes soon as I would like to read his book.)
Secret Glee
All I know for sure, and taken together with some of the other observations by then residents at Williams College, is that long about the late '60s, Dr. John W Hopkins seemed to enjoy irritating some of the neighbors of the surrounding area, like the President of the San Antonio Homeowners Road Association.
The Concluding Episodes of Williams College
Sometime about 1971 I moved out of Williams College to a place in Berkeley that wasn't situated at a tilt and alist, with big cracks in the cold concrete floor from hill slippage and settling, and with a bathroom and shower facility I wouldn't have to share with the ballet dancers, and which also had heat. The basement under the ballet studio could also be like a fun house, items would roll off the table like marbles, pans on the stove holding water to boil eggs had water an inch higher on one side, and the entire room was so skewed from settling that it was like an eerie optical illusion when people stood up inside. In fact, I had to set a leg of the kitchen table on a brick, and it was still tilted enough for items to roll off despite the grabbing effect of a red and white bistro table cloth I had placed on top of the mesa.
About this same time, Dr. Hip moved out to be nearer to all the celebrity life he took part in, as he was gone there most of the time anyway, it seemed. Farley Hall was summarily handed over by Dr John W Hopkins to a man of some mystery, an attorney or a lawyer of some kind, who no one on the estate that I know of actually met, but who they collectively didn't like or trust. Soon, the residents on the estate were alarmed and banded together to attempt to raise moneys needed to actually buy the estate for price on the note, perhaps a bit more, and of course (despite two of the residents coming from very well-heeled families with access to familial fortunes) likely because one of them didn't like the other and couldn't full heartedly engage, this plan ran aground. So quite soon, within a year or two, a few others moved from the estate and on to their own lives elsewhere (one studied mid-wifery in Appalachia and traveled and studied here and there in other fields, while the other with a newly awarded advanced degree was flirting with the idea of a gene bank although that would not be remunerative in any way so he became a real estate broker) with the exception of the highly physical couple (the exotic dancer and body builder) living in the old coach house, who I visited once in 1974. At that time, there was an xray photo of the man's foot held by tape in a window of the place. During that last visit, I felt the place was on the edge of a real abyss, and I could fairly accurately predict the final outcome of Williams College under the benign auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins and the coming end of his tenure there.
When I stopped up to visit Dr. and old Mr. Hopkins in 1972 or so, to pay a friendly visit and to thank the Hopkins family for all their kindness and hospitality afforded to us all in the past, Dr Hopkins mentioned somewhat morosely and resigned finality that he was awaiting the arrival of "the people of color." These turned out to be the black couple brought in to help care for the needs of old Mr Hopkins in his final year on earth. Charles the handyman was still there then, too, as I inquired about his welfare.
During those years, hard pressed for money, Dr Hopkins would occasionally sell off antique furnishings from the place. The finer pieces were maintained in the Great House, while a few other items had been stored in the storeroom adjoining my basement flat. Once when Charles went in to retrieve a chair or lamp, he left the door temporarily unlocked for his return visit to retrieve more furniture. I went in and found an old brown flat metal suitcase with wooden ribs and leather handle, which was snapped shut with one lock (as the other was broken), and I opened that to find some old women's clothes, notably a thin and once elegant cable knit cardigan sweater that likely once belonged to Dr Hopkins's mother. I carefully refolded the garment and placed it nicely in the suitcase again, snapping it shut with the lock. Just as it had been when I found it.
The estate was no longer drawing people in to stay and create, as if the institute itself knew its time was coming soon. The woman who took my basement place started an essential oil business in San Francisco and soon (within a matter of months) moved out, and that room remained unoccupied I believe, merely a place that vandalous rich drunken teenagers of the neighborhood would trash and spray paint with rude grafitti. The woman who I'd known from the poopy desert college who had inherited Sandy Archer's old place in the early days of the Mime Troupe was off on extended travel and learning, and she deposited a friend in her old place, though she too left within a matter of months as I understand to start up a coffee house hundreds of miles away. I only remember seeing her once, long black braids and lace about the neck of her flowery dresses. Even Ed Leddy eventually left, despite Fantasy records absorbing the rights to the the first jazz album I ever bought, and he moved to Florida to be nearer the aunt who mailed him round cylinders of rum babas. And the peacock house guy as I mentioned was among the last to remain, but he moved in with a new girlfriend and began studying for a real estate career after an unsuccessful bid in a genetic or science consulting consortium he was part of. Though in mid-1974, the same couple still inhabited the old coach house. They probably had to move within a year, when the estate was taken over by a new owner of the physical grounds and buildings.
In the old days, there was a "W" on the roof of the Great House. Which could be seen from the window of a neighbor's house higher in the hills. Of course, the letter obviously signified W for Williams College, but I always liked to believe the W was for Cassiopeia, and perhaps that notation was a galactic directional signal of some kind for the space brothers to better make their way to the atrium for a visit with Dr. Hopkins.
Oh, yes, at the time of my residence at Williams College, I sent away $5 or $10 and became an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, just in case.
I know what happened to old Mr. Hopkins and his son, Dr. John W. Hopkins. I wish I knew what became of Charles. I have a call in to an old friend to see if she might remember his last name.
About this same time, Dr. Hip moved out to be nearer to all the celebrity life he took part in, as he was gone there most of the time anyway, it seemed. Farley Hall was summarily handed over by Dr John W Hopkins to a man of some mystery, an attorney or a lawyer of some kind, who no one on the estate that I know of actually met, but who they collectively didn't like or trust. Soon, the residents on the estate were alarmed and banded together to attempt to raise moneys needed to actually buy the estate for price on the note, perhaps a bit more, and of course (despite two of the residents coming from very well-heeled families with access to familial fortunes) likely because one of them didn't like the other and couldn't full heartedly engage, this plan ran aground. So quite soon, within a year or two, a few others moved from the estate and on to their own lives elsewhere (one studied mid-wifery in Appalachia and traveled and studied here and there in other fields, while the other with a newly awarded advanced degree was flirting with the idea of a gene bank although that would not be remunerative in any way so he became a real estate broker) with the exception of the highly physical couple (the exotic dancer and body builder) living in the old coach house, who I visited once in 1974. At that time, there was an xray photo of the man's foot held by tape in a window of the place. During that last visit, I felt the place was on the edge of a real abyss, and I could fairly accurately predict the final outcome of Williams College under the benign auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins and the coming end of his tenure there.
When I stopped up to visit Dr. and old Mr. Hopkins in 1972 or so, to pay a friendly visit and to thank the Hopkins family for all their kindness and hospitality afforded to us all in the past, Dr Hopkins mentioned somewhat morosely and resigned finality that he was awaiting the arrival of "the people of color." These turned out to be the black couple brought in to help care for the needs of old Mr Hopkins in his final year on earth. Charles the handyman was still there then, too, as I inquired about his welfare.
During those years, hard pressed for money, Dr Hopkins would occasionally sell off antique furnishings from the place. The finer pieces were maintained in the Great House, while a few other items had been stored in the storeroom adjoining my basement flat. Once when Charles went in to retrieve a chair or lamp, he left the door temporarily unlocked for his return visit to retrieve more furniture. I went in and found an old brown flat metal suitcase with wooden ribs and leather handle, which was snapped shut with one lock (as the other was broken), and I opened that to find some old women's clothes, notably a thin and once elegant cable knit cardigan sweater that likely once belonged to Dr Hopkins's mother. I carefully refolded the garment and placed it nicely in the suitcase again, snapping it shut with the lock. Just as it had been when I found it.
The estate was no longer drawing people in to stay and create, as if the institute itself knew its time was coming soon. The woman who took my basement place started an essential oil business in San Francisco and soon (within a matter of months) moved out, and that room remained unoccupied I believe, merely a place that vandalous rich drunken teenagers of the neighborhood would trash and spray paint with rude grafitti. The woman who I'd known from the poopy desert college who had inherited Sandy Archer's old place in the early days of the Mime Troupe was off on extended travel and learning, and she deposited a friend in her old place, though she too left within a matter of months as I understand to start up a coffee house hundreds of miles away. I only remember seeing her once, long black braids and lace about the neck of her flowery dresses. Even Ed Leddy eventually left, despite Fantasy records absorbing the rights to the the first jazz album I ever bought, and he moved to Florida to be nearer the aunt who mailed him round cylinders of rum babas. And the peacock house guy as I mentioned was among the last to remain, but he moved in with a new girlfriend and began studying for a real estate career after an unsuccessful bid in a genetic or science consulting consortium he was part of. Though in mid-1974, the same couple still inhabited the old coach house. They probably had to move within a year, when the estate was taken over by a new owner of the physical grounds and buildings.
In the old days, there was a "W" on the roof of the Great House. Which could be seen from the window of a neighbor's house higher in the hills. Of course, the letter obviously signified W for Williams College, but I always liked to believe the W was for Cassiopeia, and perhaps that notation was a galactic directional signal of some kind for the space brothers to better make their way to the atrium for a visit with Dr. Hopkins.
Oh, yes, at the time of my residence at Williams College, I sent away $5 or $10 and became an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, just in case.
I know what happened to old Mr. Hopkins and his son, Dr. John W. Hopkins. I wish I knew what became of Charles. I have a call in to an old friend to see if she might remember his last name.
What Important People Do
Just to continue with this thought about Los Olivos, because the reader might not go to the trouble of looking up who any of these characters I mention are, and so remain ignorant really of how things are wound together in my personal history, I will point out that Ray Stark was once a powerful force in New York and Hollywood and continues to be an influence to this very day. I liked the fact he would take time from his busy schedule in Hollywood to come see his son Peter perform in the Shakespeare Festival, which was a small town hokey event for a prestigious intellectual bank like the Claremont colleges (the Shakespearean acrobats and clowns assembled to entertain the audiences on their way to the plays were drawn from the boys gym class at the local high school, and they'd installed a trampoline for their physical antics).
Ray Stark
My pal Peter Stark
What they do now
(I read through that long list, the only thing I can be directly and immediately connected with is Les Blank and his documentary about the Garlic Festival, because I developed a recipe for garlic ice cream, which I have boasted about several times in print. That the influence of this recipe spread farther afield I cannot deny. I never went to the Garlic Festival and I never went to the Nucleus Nuance, a hip restaurant now defunct on Melrose where the famous of the day gathered that used my recipe for a dessert. All that exists now is the recipe, and my name in a book or a newspaper article online).
I did like the fact when I heard of this back a decade or so ago that Ray and his wife Frances started a residential home for old actors, as that could have been my grandmother living in there had she lived to be 113 years old or so, presuming she'd had the money to pay for such rents (which she wouldn't have, just living off a deceased husband's meager social security stacked up after years on the assembly line in a Detroit auto factory), and her contributions to Theatre lofty enough to be mentioned and recognized on the rental application. Although my grandmother, when she was close to 75 years old, could still kick high, and reach the top of a door jam, which by all later reports she would still do on occasion when encouraged at a Thanksgiving family gathering. One time, she had a little too much wine and fell down flat on the floor, but just laughed and got up and tried it again and succeeded.
In thinking about it, when I knew Peter, I can't recall that he mentioned his mom to me, his Dad was the one typically who Peter, a young college man just trying to start out and gain a footing in life was the parent he was most concerned with, and I guess this was a reflection of Peter's personal issues of the time. I am the one making this psychological assessment based on our conversations that I recall from the time.
Though he was not completely self-absorbed. Peter and I would also mention and talk a bit about the settlements in Claremont for the retired missionaries ,,, we'd think about the future sometimes, in the shallow way that youth are known to do (his family would likely never have to worry, while life was a stretch for my grandmother after retiring from vaudeville, and how all things must pass, where either of us might be going and how we might end up.) Once in awhile, he genuinely sparkled. We went so see a movie at a Pomona drive-in, Saturday night at the movies like all the other young folks in the Valley, a film which though he knew someone attached to the film in some indefinable way neither of us liked, so we left and drove into the hills one evening and spread out a sleeping bag (which he carried he said because he was a member of the Sierra Club), and all we did was look at the stars in the clear sky, each in our own thoughts which we did not share with one another.
Ray by all reports really didn't like living the bucolic life in Santa Ynez, though he raised horses. His neighbor on Camino Cielo Road, a famous actor turned politician, owned 8 cows, by all reports, and took a huge cattleman's tax writeoff on his property. And they spray painted the grass green with fertilizing compounds when he went to visit a local state mental hospital before he reduced funding to throw everyone out on to the streets when the world at large was unprepared for them. You can't help seeing a conspiracy sometimes, myself included. When I was quite young, I was carried by adults on an outing of some kind, I visited this family home at the Redi Kilowatt house, but I don't recall too much of what went on there and I don't recall meeting anyone in particular, as I preferred to stay out in the garden.
Later, though, Lily Tomlin and I would talk once in a very great while about our mutual memories of relatives working in automotive factories. Noisy awful work, a hell of a way to make a living, is what we agreed upon. That shared commonality, a temporary geographic propinquity, and a mutual friend is about all we had in common at that time, aside from a skewed view of the world. You might see some of the things we talked about in her skits, though, so you'll have to be a detective and figure out what those might be, the spread of creative influence while tracing the intellectual history of the United States and all. I know what they are, but you can feel free to guess and if you guess correctly, you might say this is just too coincidental and so must be a fabrication or an embellishment or just a big fish story on my part. Whatever, history belongs to the victors, the biggest voice in media, and all those other platitudes you'd care to quote here.
None of this has too much to do with Williams College, except I was visiting and living there during this period and these people were in my recent memory then (except for the garlic, that came about a decade later, so I've fallen off a strict chronology here) and so they were part of my cosmos, as we used to say back then.
As for me, currently, I am consumed with bringing in references to Los Olivos so that you might better understand the nature of the people who Dr John W Hopkins allowed to live on the estate, although he did not know the facts nor the aura surrounding any of the famous people I knew in that past, nor even their names, he knew nothing of my personal history. But he allowed me to live there, and he was satisfied he was drawing people to him in some weird occult or metaphysical way to continue on in the genuine spirit of the Institute of Creative Development (overlaid with newer stricta and interpretations as developed by the leadership of the Understanding movement).
Ray Stark
My pal Peter Stark
What they do now
(I read through that long list, the only thing I can be directly and immediately connected with is Les Blank and his documentary about the Garlic Festival, because I developed a recipe for garlic ice cream, which I have boasted about several times in print. That the influence of this recipe spread farther afield I cannot deny. I never went to the Garlic Festival and I never went to the Nucleus Nuance, a hip restaurant now defunct on Melrose where the famous of the day gathered that used my recipe for a dessert. All that exists now is the recipe, and my name in a book or a newspaper article online).
I did like the fact when I heard of this back a decade or so ago that Ray and his wife Frances started a residential home for old actors, as that could have been my grandmother living in there had she lived to be 113 years old or so, presuming she'd had the money to pay for such rents (which she wouldn't have, just living off a deceased husband's meager social security stacked up after years on the assembly line in a Detroit auto factory), and her contributions to Theatre lofty enough to be mentioned and recognized on the rental application. Although my grandmother, when she was close to 75 years old, could still kick high, and reach the top of a door jam, which by all later reports she would still do on occasion when encouraged at a Thanksgiving family gathering. One time, she had a little too much wine and fell down flat on the floor, but just laughed and got up and tried it again and succeeded.
In thinking about it, when I knew Peter, I can't recall that he mentioned his mom to me, his Dad was the one typically who Peter, a young college man just trying to start out and gain a footing in life was the parent he was most concerned with, and I guess this was a reflection of Peter's personal issues of the time. I am the one making this psychological assessment based on our conversations that I recall from the time.
Though he was not completely self-absorbed. Peter and I would also mention and talk a bit about the settlements in Claremont for the retired missionaries ,,, we'd think about the future sometimes, in the shallow way that youth are known to do (his family would likely never have to worry, while life was a stretch for my grandmother after retiring from vaudeville, and how all things must pass, where either of us might be going and how we might end up.) Once in awhile, he genuinely sparkled. We went so see a movie at a Pomona drive-in, Saturday night at the movies like all the other young folks in the Valley, a film which though he knew someone attached to the film in some indefinable way neither of us liked, so we left and drove into the hills one evening and spread out a sleeping bag (which he carried he said because he was a member of the Sierra Club), and all we did was look at the stars in the clear sky, each in our own thoughts which we did not share with one another.
Ray by all reports really didn't like living the bucolic life in Santa Ynez, though he raised horses. His neighbor on Camino Cielo Road, a famous actor turned politician, owned 8 cows, by all reports, and took a huge cattleman's tax writeoff on his property. And they spray painted the grass green with fertilizing compounds when he went to visit a local state mental hospital before he reduced funding to throw everyone out on to the streets when the world at large was unprepared for them. You can't help seeing a conspiracy sometimes, myself included. When I was quite young, I was carried by adults on an outing of some kind, I visited this family home at the Redi Kilowatt house, but I don't recall too much of what went on there and I don't recall meeting anyone in particular, as I preferred to stay out in the garden.
Later, though, Lily Tomlin and I would talk once in a very great while about our mutual memories of relatives working in automotive factories. Noisy awful work, a hell of a way to make a living, is what we agreed upon. That shared commonality, a temporary geographic propinquity, and a mutual friend is about all we had in common at that time, aside from a skewed view of the world. You might see some of the things we talked about in her skits, though, so you'll have to be a detective and figure out what those might be, the spread of creative influence while tracing the intellectual history of the United States and all. I know what they are, but you can feel free to guess and if you guess correctly, you might say this is just too coincidental and so must be a fabrication or an embellishment or just a big fish story on my part. Whatever, history belongs to the victors, the biggest voice in media, and all those other platitudes you'd care to quote here.
None of this has too much to do with Williams College, except I was visiting and living there during this period and these people were in my recent memory then (except for the garlic, that came about a decade later, so I've fallen off a strict chronology here) and so they were part of my cosmos, as we used to say back then.
As for me, currently, I am consumed with bringing in references to Los Olivos so that you might better understand the nature of the people who Dr John W Hopkins allowed to live on the estate, although he did not know the facts nor the aura surrounding any of the famous people I knew in that past, nor even their names, he knew nothing of my personal history. But he allowed me to live there, and he was satisfied he was drawing people to him in some weird occult or metaphysical way to continue on in the genuine spirit of the Institute of Creative Development (overlaid with newer stricta and interpretations as developed by the leadership of the Understanding movement).
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
More Agricultural History
In San Francisco and around the Bay Area, the actors and writers I knew from Williams College would watch movies, too. Although these films were in no way the polished productions one might find being fabricated in Hollywood for screens in major theater chains, they were interesting. Here's one from 1965.