Mickey and Timmy Build a House: Part Two

     When I had finished remodeling the studio, I was flush with new carpentry, plumbing and electrical skills.  I had a tool belt and a bunch of tools and I knew how to use almost all of them...  The deck that I built on the back of the studio overlooking the horse pasture was probably the most fun building project.  Why?  Because I got to build it from scratch and I didn't have to try and mate it to an existing structure with cock-eyed angles.

     As the years past, I enjoyed the extra rental income that was generated from my modest handiwork, and the labors of my studio partners in the renovating we did to turn the original garage into a recording studio.  In 1991, I was invited by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, where I was the assistant controller, to seek employment elsewhere.  When I was hired by the Director of Finance, one of her selling points was that as a resident of Mill Valley, I could take the Sausalito Ferry to and from work every day as our offices were only about a five minute walk from the ferry building.  The work day was a typical 9 to 5 kind of deal.  There was a ferry at 5:20 PM which was ideal.  I could pack up my accounting accoutrement (I worked mostly in crayons back then) at 5:10 and be at the ferry building by 5:20 for a jolly ride across the bay back to my beloved Happy Acres.  When I found out that there were later ferries, I took that opportunity to occasionally wet my whistle at the local watering hole next to the ferry building.  Hell, I could always take the next ferry... 

     After about six months of this schedule, I got a summons from the Director of Finance, Ms. Bernstein (all names are, of course, fictitious).  It turns out that they weren't quite satisfied with the amount of crayon work I was putting in on a weekly basis.  Instead of regaling my fellow tipplers at the ferry-side bar, Ms. Bernstein was disappointed (I'm paraphrasing here...) that I wasn't spending some of that time putting in extra, uncompensated, mind you, hours toiling in the numbers mine.  I think they were also a bit uncomfortable having a decidedly WASPish Goy such as myself counting their shekels.  That's merely conjecture on my part.  Whatever the reason they sacked me.  I mentioned to the good Ms. Bernstein that neither she nor my immediate boss, the Controller, had ever said anything to me and that I had no negative reports in my employment file.  In the light of that situation, it seems like an unfair termination.  I mentioned that I wouldn't contest the disemployment if she wouldn't contest my filing for unemployment compensation.  She agreed and the devil's pact was made.

     Looking back at my decidedly middling career as a corporate accountant, I noticed how each job had a shorter duration than the one before it.  I had to take stock;  I was a mediocre accountant with spectacularly bad skills in the art of corporate politics.  Maybe it was time to get out of the numbers racket.  Having enjoyed the extra rental income that the studio afforded me, it occurred to me that if I built another rental unit I could be independently poor.  I left the JCF offices for the last time with my purloined box of crayons and went home to do a little figuring.  My most excellent landlord had given me permission to build a shed on the property to house a vegetable packing and processing operation for the fruits, vegetables and salad greens I had planned to generate from my large (12,000 sq. ft.) garden.  If I, instead, repurposed that shed into a quaint little cottage for two, I would be able to make ends meet.  Most of my meals would come from the garden; to hell with the ridiculous idea of a commercial produce concern.  After building the cottage and getting it rented I would spend my time growing glorious produce in my garden.  I used to joke with people that the clerks at the local grocery store couldn't figure out how I thrived through the years as pretty much all I bought at the store was booze, meat and tobacco...

     I picked out a spot on the left side of the horse pasture down below the main house.  From there you couldn't see any other houses and, perhaps more importantly, no other houses would be able to see the cottage.  I planned to have the back wall, that faced back up hill to the main house and the next door neighbor, built without windows so those houses wouldn't be seen.  All the windows would be on the sides and in the front of the cottage. To the right were the horses, to the left was a small stand of Bay trees and below was a lovely view of the garden; perfect!  

     My brother, Tom (I call him Timmy), was living at Happy Acres at the time.  In lieu of rent he would help around the property.  He was a big help in the garden.  He likes to weed.  I told him about my plan.  He wasn't pleased.  The spot where I wanted to build was the same place where he had just piled up all the odd sticks of lumber that had been accumulating on the homestead since the thirties.  "Timmy", I said, "I'm sorry, buddy, but we're going to have to move all this wood up by the main house."  I convinced him that that spot was the ideal place for the cottage.  It took some convincing but he finally, reluctantly, agreed to move the wood.  While he was doing that, I got to work on my plan for the cottage.  

     Since Norm had given me permission to build a shed, obviously the roof was going to be a shed roof.  The structure was going to be a simple rectangle twenty-four feet from front to back and thirty-six feet from side to side.  The roof would be flat with a 1 1/2 foot rise over 24 feet.  High in front and lower in back for runoff.  Internally I would build two twelve foot long half walls that would divide the cottage into three bays.  The first would be the bathroom/kitchen area.  The second was to be the living room.  The third bay, with large windows looking out over the garden and the forest, was to be the bedroom with a twelve foot long closet at the back.  I didn't want to close off the various rooms as I fancied the idea of the internal architecture being open.  The open 36X12 foot area, surrounded by large bay windows and a six foot sliding glass door, would make the place airy and light.  

     The foundation would be post and beam, like you find under most decks.  In fact I took the specs. for the foundation from a book about building decks.  (At this point, the astute reader might note that I was not supporting a deck, but a house; bringing question to the wisdom of using a deck-style foundation to support a house.  More on that later...)  Because the unit would be built on a slope, the front half would have significant room underneath it and I planned to build a little storage closet under there.  At ground level in front of the cottage I would build a lovely redwood deck with a wooden wall on the windward side to serve as a windbreak. I planned on putting another big window in that wall to provide a view of the horses and the setting sun.  It all looked so idyllic in my mind.

     My brother was both skeptical and supportive at the same time. He gently questioned the wisdom of building a cottage on property that I was renting; a rental agreement that consisted of a handshake and a month-to-month tenancy.  I countered with that fact that I had already enjoyed twenty lovely years at Happy Acres and I had a wonderful relationship with my landlord.  Indeed, I looked upon Norm and Georgia as if they were my foster parents.  "Don't forget, Timmy, Norm said I could do pretty much whatever I wanted as long as I took responsibility for it."  My beloved brother pointed out that this project probably didn't fall under the label of "pretty much anything".  But I had the bit in my mouth and I was committed to this.  My brother agreed that I was committed.  Or did he say should be committed?  I forget.  No matter; Mickey and Timmy are going to build a house!

     Thanks mostly to my brother's Sisyphean labors, the building site had been cleared and I was ready to start laying out my foundation of posts and beams.  If you have read the first part of this narrative, you'll recall how frustrated I was having to remodel our recording studio, none of whose angles were square.  With this building project, I was starting from scratch and I was determined to make this foundation and the sub-floor as level and square as I could, knowing that this would greatly ease the rest of the construction.  I carefully laid out my basic 24 X 36 foot outline.  I marked the places where I would be digging the holes for the posts that would support the beams that would, in turn, support the subfloor via a series of twelve foot joists.  For this task I used a plumb bob that I fashioned out of a bunch of slugs tied to the end of a string.

     Because of the obvious risks of such a foolhardy venture, I determined to build this little palace on the cheap.  The labor would be supplied by the brothers Stevens for free.  The lumber for the foundation, the subfloor, the walls and the roof would come from a used lumber outfit in the East Bay that I had used before for the studio retrofit and some of the garden construction.  The BMW 320i that I was driving at the time, wasn't really up to the task of hauling all this lumber, so I bought a beater Toyota pick-up truck with long bed for the job.  The truck also came in handy for hauling horse manure from the Muir Beach stables to my garden's compost pile.  I dug the holes, nine in all, and filled them with cement and stuck in a piece of support iron called a saddle that each of the posts would be affixed to.  Using a tautly stretched piece of twine I marked each post to be cut so that the beams, which would lie on top would be level and straight.  After the beams had been laid on top of the posts, I used a long bubble level to make sure I had done it right.  So far, so good.  I hammered in more support saddle angle irons on top of the posts to fix the beams to the posts.

     The beams ran front to back.  Each one was twelve feet in length and they were 4 X 8's.  I had to give Wesco the exact dimensions because they often had to mill their existing stock of used lumber to the buyer's specifications.  The newly milled beams eventually torqued a bit and I had to plane them down to give the sub-floor a fighting chance at coming out properly.  I squared the diagonals of the foundation to make sure we were in square.  After a little bit of pushing and pulling we were within a half inch of perfectly square which I judged to be adequate.

The deer are justifiably curious about this new development at Happy Acres.

     Next it was time to nail in the joist hangers which would support the twelve foot long 2 X 8 joists that would support the sub-floor.  I measured, cut and hammered in all my joists.  Next up laying the sub-floor.  It took several trips to Wesco to secure all the plywood I needed for the sub-floor.  Laying the plywood floor would be the true test of my former calculations.  I was in luck and all the 4 X 8 plywood sheets fit, pretty much, perfectly.  My brother's well founded skepticism began to turn to admiration.  "Wow Mickey!  You've built a beautiful dance floor!" marveled my brother, "Maybe you should just stop here.  You could have some righteous square dances here!"  "Timmy", I said, "we're not building a dance floor; we're building a rental cottage.  Do you have any idea how much I could get per month for a cottage in Mill Valley, adjacent to the coastal hiking trails with a deck in a lovely rural three acre environment with barn, horses and a large organic vegetable garden, all less than twenty minutes from San Francisco?  I ain't stopping till I'm collecting rent on this place.  I plan on being the envy of all the neighboring slum lords..."

     Now it was time for the walls.  Before building the walls, I had to procure windows so I would know the dimensions of the cut-outs in the walls.  After perusing the local paper, I found a guy who was replacing all his windows.  His old windows were for sale for a pittance.  I bought them and hauled them down to the building site.  They were very substantial double glazed windows in various sizes.  I figured where I wanted to put each window and built the wall frames accordingly.  I showed my brother how you construct the frame for each wall by making a rectangle filled with studs nailed in at sixteen inch intervals.  The frames are fastened together lying on the floor.  When they're finished you tilt them up into place and using the bubble level to make sure they're vertical you nail them into the edges of the floor and use diagonal supports to keep them vertical.  Measure, cut, hammer, repeat.  Pretty soon the wall frames were up.  I was really getting into the flow of things.  Next up was putting up the plywood outer walls with the appropriate cutouts for the windows.

     When this was accomplished my brother really started to get excited.  "Wow Mickey!" he enthused, "it's really starting to look like a house!"  Interior posts were fastened to the floor and another set of beams, to support the roof were nailed into place.  Another set of joists to support the roof were hammered into place.   Now it was time to put the windows in place.  For proper weather proofing and drainage, I had determined that these windows had to be attached from the outside.  The smaller of the windows weren't that much of a problem as we could walk the windows up two ladders placed side-by-side and place them into their frames, then I could nail them into place.  The big window, which was about 4 X 8, was another story.  When my brother and I had transported it from truck to the building site we realized how heavy it was; real heavy.  On bringing it down the hill we actually slid it vertically supporting it from the front.  It made a little furrow in the ground as we slowly dragged it into place below its window frame in the wall, ten feet above.  That night I put my mind to the task of how to raise the window into place.  I was quite pleased with the scheme I came up with and I couldn't wait to see if we could pull it off on the morrow.  We'll find out in the next posting of "Mickey and Timmy Build a House".  

     See y'all then!  Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

          


































































     

Mickey and Timmy Build a House: The Beginning

     Some time ago we had a little garage studio here at Happy Acres.  It was against zoning regulations and the neighbors across the street, who had been plagued by our raucous music at all hours of the day and night, justifiably had us shut down.  While my studio partners and I went on to build a spiffy new (very big---very expensive) studio in a properly zoned area, I was left with the remnants of the old studio.  Since most of the recording equipment from the old eight track studio was woefully inadequate for our new studio I was left with a still functioning studio.

Here's the three virgos who built the little garage eight track studio known as Tres Virgos Studio.  Allan on the left, Mickey da Mayor in the middle and our recording engineer, Robin on the right.

Interior of the control room which was to become the bedroom of the renovated rental unit.  Partner Robin at the controls.

     I took advantage of that opportunity thusly:  I had a bunch of projects that needed doing.  I had recently taken over the rent for the whole three acre homestead and I was going to make some changes.  One.  Get rid of the goliath of a blackberry bush that sat in the middle of what I was going to turn back into a horse pasture.  Two.  Redo the windows in the living room and the crumbling brickwork of our "Hagar-the-horrible fireplace.  Three.  Replace the front door with something less easy to break into. (see former posting: "Play Misty for Me").  Four.  Rebuild the back stairs that were getting seriously rickety.  Five.  Replace the bathroom walls with the cedar shakes that were on the studio walls and lay down a new linoleum floor.  

     To do all this, I would give musicians who wanted to record their music free studio time and my rather basic recording engineering chops.  They would give me the labor to accomplish the above tasks.  Amazingly, it worked.  I got all of the above rebuilt, replaced, repaired and chopped down and they got recordings of what, in my humble opinion, was some really forgettable music.  Hey, I was happy, they were happy, end of discussion.  Eventually we shut down the recording operation and sold what we didn't need for the new studio and incorporated what we could use.  I was left with a gutted suite of three rooms; a control room, a music room and a sort of staged area in the back that was our drum riser.  For awhile a friend of mine crashed in there for a pittance (it deserved nothing more in its unimproved state).  The place had lights and power.  It did not have heat, a kitchen or a bathroom.  I decided this was a revenue making opportunity that was going to waste.

     My friend moved out to live with his new girlfriend and I bought some tools, a tool belt and a book on home building.  First project: build a bathroom.  I followed the instructions in the book on how to install a bathroom.  First I had to build a room appended to the back of the studio.  You have to start with the foundation.  I found some old, large and very heavy concrete piers lying around on the property that would be suitable to support a bathroom floor.  Like Sisyphus rolling his rock up the hill, I slowly and laboriously turned two very heavy concrete piers over and over  till they were sitting next to the holes I had dug for them.  Then I carefully dropped them into place.  

Sisyphus, buddy; I feel your pain.  Rolling rocks uphill is no fun.

     Now I had my foundation.  The rest of the support for the room would come from being attached to the back of the studio.  I did some figuring and some measuring and then some buying.  One large purchase later, I had studs, plywood, sheetrock, composition shingles and lots of screws and nails.  Measure, cut, hammer, screw and repeat.  In a couple of days, voila!  I had an empty room.  You haven't really lived till you have managed to put up a sheet rock ceiling by yourself, but I managed to do it.  I was feeling really proud;  I had built a room all by myself.  It had a linoleum floor, sheet rock walls, a simple shed roof and the whole thing was covered in the same kind of composition shingles that covered the rest of the studio walls on the outside.   When you're engaging in sub-rosa construction which is supposed to have a permit, it helps to make the new stuff look like the old stuff.  "What inspector?  Nah!  This old construction was grandfathered in years ago!" 

Front of studio.  To the right of the door is the control room/bedroom.  The horses' old hay barn is on the far right behind that raggedy tarp. 

     I installed a small vanity with a mirrored medicine cabinet.  A toilet and a six foot tall fiberglass shower stall.  The only hitch in the installation of the bathroom was when I bolted the toilet tank onto the toilet base.  When I turned the water on, it came gushing out the bottom of the tank.  Oh, I guess this rubber thingy is supposed to go in there to make a seal...  I also installed a water heater for the shower and sink.  I put it inside the bathroom, right behind the shower.  "Talk about your instant hot water", I chuckled to myself.  The gas heater had a flue that I vented out the roof so bathroom users wouldn't be overcome with natural gas fumes.  Still; hardly kosher as far as the building code was concerned.  Next up; kitchen.

     Eventually I built a kitchen on the old drum stage.  It was actually bigger than it sounds.  Then I set about transforming the rest of the place into something that someone would actually contemplate living in.  This is where I learned about some of the peculiarities of this old building.  It had started life as a garage back in the thirties.  The three brothers, Portuguese immigrants from the Azores, who built the original buildings on this newly homesteaded acreage knew about as much as I did about building stuff.  Despite that, they managed to build a three bedroom, two story house, a garage, a duck pen for the ducks, and a milking barn for the dairy cows that resided here.  Mediocre carpentry skills combined with the passing of many decades, left me quite a challenge in remodeling this former garage.  Nothing was square.  The world of traditional modern carpentry is built around the idea that walls, floor and ceiling should be level, plumb, and at right angles to each other.  All construction lumber is milled to right angles.  It wants to mate up with like-minded right-angled material.  

     It took me many months to do the necessary remodeling without benefit of anything being square to anything else.  At times, I had to get quite creative.  Above the front door, there was a 2X10 beam that was part of the support structure for the roof.  It came to an abrupt end above the door.  It had obviously been a "found" piece of lumber as it was not milled to right angles.  It was more of a polygon and I had to surround it with a big piece of rigid insulation.  My budding carpentry skills wanted to do this right, but how to cut the one piece to fit the other?  A good finish carpenter can use a protractor and a compass square to figure out the right angles.  I decided on a different approach.  I painted the surface of this irregular beam then, before the paint dried, I pressed a piece of plywood up against it.  When I pulled it off I had a painted impression of the shape I needed.  I pressed this against the piece of rigid insulation and I cut along the outlines of the painted area.  It worked!  I was so proud of myself for using my noodle in a creative way to solve a carpentry problem.  I also came to the realization that I could have been done with this whole project faster if I had started from scratch and built the whole thing from the ground up.

The other side of the studio.  The deck in lower left looks down over the old horse pasture.  See?  You can't tell the original structure from renovations we made.  It all looks tacky...  The room with the window in it; I made into the kitchen.  The bathroom was behind the back wall.  I had to demolish it later, but that's another story.

     Eventually, everything that I wanted to accomplish in my new rental unit was done.  I had built kitchen cabinets, I painted them in several colorful shades of blue and green.  If I ran low on one can of paint, that I had found in the basement, I would mix it with another, resulting in cabinets of various hues.  I also did some upholstering in the bedroom, which had been the former control room.  In keeping with the rural and rough-hewn look of Happy Acres in general, I decided to go with burlap set off with half round molding that I had stained an attractive dark walnut to contrast with the tan colored burlap.  I attached the molding with brass screws and I must say, my bachelor sensibilities were quite taken with the end result.

     The big day finally arrived when I was to receive the first person who had responded to my ad for a rental unit.  She was a nurse who worked at our local hospital and she sounded intrigued with the idea of living next to a horse pasture.  She admired the frisky Arabians I was boarding at the time and the old milking barn, the last of its kind in Southern Marin.  I unlocked the front door of the studio and led her in.  She looked around at all my handiwork.  She didn't say word.  She just started slowly backing out of the room.  At the front door she looked at me and said, "Uh, it's a little texture intensive for me.  I'm going to keep looking."  As she left, I thought I heard her softly singing  a song from "Beauty and the Beast".  "I use antlers in all of my decorating" (sung by The Beast).  "Hmm", I thought to myself, "maybe I should have enlisted the aid of the fairer sex in fashioning my interior...".  Having been stung by her pithy comment, I looked around with a new perspective.  She was right.  It looked like the kind of place a soldier from the French Foreign Legion would find homey...  Eventually the place got rented (a single man).  Each new renter brought his or her own touches to the interior and it evolved over time until most, if not all, of my original fashion statements had been quietly removed or painted over.  I didn't mind.  As long as the renters were happy and they paid me every month, I was totally jiggy...

Here's looking at the back from the pasture.  That large bay window you see looks out from the control room that became the bedroom.  That piece of fiberglass paneling was lodged there for a reason.  Under the bedroom window there used to be a wooden platform that the studio's porta-potty used to sit on.  I removed the potty but left the platform.  One night one of our more intrepid Arabian stallions managed to climb up onto the platform and I guess he liked the sound of his hooves on the hollow wooden floor because, according to my freaked out renter, he did a little impromptu Flamenco dance there, in the middle of the night.  Hence the fiberglass barrier.  Nothing's too good for my tenants!

     Some years later, our dear old landlord gave me permission to build another structure on the property.  Originally, it was to be a shed to process vegetables, fruits and salad greens from my garden.  What it eventually became was a whole different deal.  We'll explore that episode in the next posting:  Mickey and Timmy Build a House:  The Conclusion.  Till then, remember to whistle while you work!  Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

THE MIGHTY BLUEFIN TUNA

     I was digesting my latest Nat. Geo. Mag. and I became transfixed by the beautiful writing of the author of an article about bluefin tuna.  Everyone probably knows by now that the Atlantic bluefin tuna is being relentlessly fished out of existence.  In prior generations, the fish was known derisively as "horse mackerel" and ended up in cat food or was used as fertilizer.  Then the Japanese discovered that it made a splendid sushi and the race was on.  Almost the entire annual catch goes to the huge Japanese fish market in Tokyo.  Tsukiji Fish Market is the largest fish market on the planet and is situated right in the middle of the city.  It processes roughly 2,000 tons of seafood every day but the main attraction for wholesale fish buyers---and a tourist audience that has gotten so large they restrict viewing to 120 at a time and only in certain areas---is the daily bluefin tuna auction.  Since the big earthquake, the market's overseers have become very nervous about the tourist trade.  The place is a madhouse as it is with the bidding for blue fin.  Last year, a single bluefin was bought for 1.76 million dollars.  The powers-that-be are thinking of moving the operation somewhere out of town because it takes up so much valuable real estate.

     I was astounded to learn that the biggest bluefin tunas get up to fourteen feet long and weigh 3/4 of a ton.  They can swim over twenty-five M.P.H.  Their gills are thirty times more efficient than other fish and they absorb 1/2 of the O2 in the sea water that pass over those gills.  They have uniquely shaped gills called 'ram gills' that act like a turbo charger.  Their superb swimming muscles have such a voracious need for oxygenated blood that if the fish ever stopped swimming it would suffocate.  This and other fun facts were learned from the author, Kenneth Brower.  If the name sounds familiar to you, it's because he is the son of David Brower, the guy who founded the Sierra Club.  He has a beautiful writing style and the first couple of paragraphs verged on poetry.  I scanned some stuff from the article, including the first page of writing.  I hope you can read it on whatever device you're receiving this e-mail on because I think it's great stuff.  Hey Timmy!  He reminds me of you on your best days, ya know?  When the metaphors and similes are flying thick and fast?  I also scanned some other pix that show the size of these fish.

The tuna researchers catch the fish on a standard big rig rod and reel.  Then they use a big rubberized tarp to haul it out of the water.  They measure and tag it and slide it back into the briny deep before it suffocates.  In eighteen months the dart self-destructs and it's electronic tag with foam float ascends to the surface and it sends off an electronic signal which is picked up by orbiting satellites.  The data in the tag, a detailed itinerary of where the fish swam and how deep it went, is uploaded to the satellite and downloaded to the researchers back at Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey.  Ain't modern technology cool?  Let's hope it can help save the magnificent bluefin from extortion...  

THIS LITTLE BABY THAT'S GETTING A TAG ATTACHED BEFORE BEING THROWN    BACK WAS 10 FEET/1200+ POUNDS.                                                   

     Here's part of the article written by  Kenneth Brower.  Sorry I couldn't make it any bigger.

Great stuff!  Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

MAKE WAY FOR DUCKS!

There was an amusing "Shouts and Murmurs" in the latest New Yorker about the guttering candles of our aging memories. Thank God for Professor Google and his trusty side-kick Wiki-pedia.  More and more often these days I'll be having a conversation with one of my house-mates and we'll be referring to someone or something whose name has slipped the bonds of memory.  "You know---that movie with William Hurt, Glenn Close and that tall goofy guy with the glasses who was in the remake of "The Fly.  It had a killer sound-track.  What the hell was that movie called...  They were all gathered for the funeral of one of their college buddies." We agree that we remember the movie and it was seminal to our cultural zeitgeist of the mid-eighties.  We just can't quite put our finger on the title.  Some minutes later, one of us will yell out to the household in general:  "THE BIG CHILL!!!"  Was it memory?  or was it Google.  More and more these days, I'm afraid it's Google.  I once lost Burt Lancaster's name for over a year...

This morning I was on the sidewalk in Mill Valley and I was looking in the window of a notions/gift store.  Arrayed in the window was a collection of wonderful ducks that had been decorated with all kinds of found objects.  A short bio with picture tells of a local grade school girl who makes these wonderful tchotchkes from stuff she finds and glues to old duck decoys.  Some of them are quite fanciful and some quite beautiful.  I noticed one that had an artificial plumeria on either side of the duck's head serving as ears.  I went in to inquire.  "They're between $ 20 and $40, depending on the amount of detail.  All the proceeds go to the Humane Society. All of you on my gift list:  MAKE WAY FOR DUCKS!!!

The plumeria flower ears reminded me of something that happened to me yesterday.  Bunny and I were shopping for her niece.  Sheryl had a Macy's gift card and she wanted to buy something called a wristlet, (a clutch purse with wrist strap) which, apparently, is something the younger set are using to house their smart phones in the brief time-outs between texting bouts.  We found a nice perky striped jobby for only $26.  Bunny attributed it to me having superb "shopping karma".  I was just glad to be of service and to get us out of there as quickly as possible.  I was treated to an authentic Mexican lunch at a little joint on Merrydale, near Nicole's place.  As I was leaving the restaurant I noticed two middle aged black women having lunch.  One had a plumeria in her hair; the exact same kind we had growing in our yard back in Hawaii.  It could tell it was not the Tahitian style plumeria which is a bit prettier but has no smell.  It was the Hawaiian kind with a lovely flowery aroma.  My brother and I had to rake them up every weekend by the thousands as part of our yard work.  We also made leis out of them on those rare occasions when we had a date. It was a great strategy to get close.  "Mind if I get a sniff of your plumeria lei?  Mmmm, it sure smells good on you!"

So I went up to the lady with the plumeria in her hair and gave her a compliment.  I mentioned the bit above and how we loved the smell of the real Hawaiian plumerias.  "Well, thank you!  But I hate to tell you...this flower is a fake."  I told this story to the folks at the store with the ducks.  They laughed appreciatively then insinuated that either I fork over for a duck, or three, or else vacate the premises.  I may have to go back tomorrow and make a purchase before they're all gone.  After all, who can resist a story where a young grade-schooler comes up with a novel recycling idea whose proceeds go to the Humane Society?  With plumerias for ears, no less...  So those of you on the gift list, you have been forewarned:  MAKE WAY FOR DUCKS!

L&K, Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

My Time with Former Famous Singing Duo, "The Judds"

   Some years ago, I decided to see some of the country I had never been to.  A train ride from D.C. took me to Richmond Virginia.  I did the usual guidebook thing and that night I went to a bar/restaurant in the tourist "gas light" district.  After dinner, (it may have involved hominy grits and hush puppies, I don't know; I was trying the local cuisine.) I wanted to meet some locals, so I sat at the bar and got a drink.  Soon, I found myself chatting away with a friendly fellow to my right.  "Ha!, where y'all from?  I'm bettin' it ain't from around here; this bein' the tourist part of town."  I explained that I was just traveling around.  I started in DC and was wending my way down to Florida via AmTrak, our nation's fine taxpayer sponsored national railroad system.  Richmond, then Charleston, then Savannah then Jacksonville then fly home to San Francisco.  "Frisco?" he mused, "I used to live near there in a little town across the bridge called Corte Madera."  

     Imagine my surprise that we had, at one point, practically been neighbors.  I mentioned that I lived in Mill Valley.  He asked me what I did back there.  I said I gardened, read a lot, oversaw a three acre homestead where I boarded horses and, oh yeah, we have a recording studio on the premises.  He asked if I had ever recorded anybody famous.  I explained that it was a partnership and I didn't have much to do with the day to day running of the place.  I did mention that I happened to be there one day when an awfully cute mother and her young daughter came in to sing backup vocals on some country/western music we were recording.  This woman was dying to "break into the biz" and they were happy to harmonize on other people's music till their big break came along. 


       Here's what our studio, Tres Virgos eventually looked like.

 Here it is in its former incarnation as a garage studio at Happy Acres with my old pal and partner Rob Yeager at the controls.

 Here's our eight track recorder that first recorded the Judds at the beginning of their incredible journey to fame, fortune, The White   House and the Super Bowl.  We had stored those original tapes in my basement.  One day my partner, Robin, called me up and asked if I still had those old tapes the Judds had first recorded on.  I went fishing around in the bowels of my basement and found them.  Unfortunately, the basement leaked during any good rain storm and the tapes were all stuck together and useless.  Mores the pity...

     One of our partners, Pete, who was our main instrumentalist, (voice, keyboards, guitar, fiddle and mandolin), had been giving fiddle lessons to this mom's youngest daughter at the local music store.  Pete and the mom got to talking about music and that's how she and her older daughter ended up at our studio.  "So, this mom you was recordin' was she famous?" asked my drinking buddy.  "Not then she wasn't, but she and her older daughter eventually became the country western duo called "The Judds"."  In fact Pete, my studio partner set me up with the mom, Naomi and we double dated at the Grand National Rodeo in SF.  It was the first time I'd ever eaten a corn dog.  They were so good I ended up eating five that night.  Naomi looked like a beautiful native American princess; Pocahontas perhaps.  She was wearing a pale tan buckskin dress with leather tassels hanging from the sleeves.  I had never been to a rodeo and we had great fun.  I was instantly smitten by Naomi's beauty.  She had a certain southern charm to her that was like catnip and her southern drawl made her sound like a character out of "Gone with the Wind".

     That night when I took her home to her little duplex she shared with her kids in West Marin, I walked up to the door.  It was late and the girls were in bed.  It was dark but for the moon.  She turned to me with her face in the moonlight and told me how much she had enjoyed being with me that evening.  I agreed that she was also quite delightful to spend the evening with, blah, blah, blah.  The next thing I know she gently grabs me by the soulders and pulls my face down to hers and plants a serious French kiss on my all too willing lips.  That was all it took and I barely made it out of there in one piece.  Although it was pretty obvious there was big chemistry there, it was just a first date.  It turns out that that didn't matter as we were a couple inside a week.  "Partners!  Meet my new girlfriend, Naomi Judd; country singer!"  "Hot damn!" said my Virginian bar-mate.  "Naomi Judd!  You were going with Naomi Judd!  I just finished reading her auto-biography!  Number one New York Times bestseller!"  I told him I didn't know about a book.  Although I heard their first couple of singles as they got a  lot of air play, the truth was that I hadn't followed her career and wasn't that big on country/western music.   

As I remembered Naomi and Wynona during our time together.  They're probably singing "The Cow-Cow Boogie." 

     Naomi had her hands full without my involvement in her life.  She was hustling music gigs for her and her older daughter Christina; she was attending nursing classes at the local community college and she had two kids to raise; one nine-year-old and Chris, who was thirteen.  I liked the kids.  Ashley, the younger one, was a stone beauty and just as charming and sweet as any nine-year-old girl you can imagine.  Her older sister, Christina, didn't look anything like her.  She was big for her age, kind of stocky and feisty.  She had a big head of ginger colored hair and, boy, she could sing.  She was also learning to play the guitar and as a former professional musician---steakhouse troubador---I showed her some licks, some chord stylings and various finger picking styles.  She was mainly interested in accompanying her and her mom on their vocal duets.

     The routine quickly came to this:  After work on Friday, I would drive over to their little place out in the country that is West Marin to the little town of Lagunitas, and I would spend the weekend with them.  In the evenings, we'd sit in the little front room and we would play music.  They were working on a whole set they hoped to debut at the local cowboy watering hole out there called Rancho Nicasio.  The songs I remember them singing were "The Cow-Cow Boogie" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" I believe they did some more contemporary stuff too, Dolly Parton and Emmy Lou Harris and the like.  When those two gals started singing, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I had never heard such a divine pairing of two female voices in my life.  Think:  The Everly Sisters...  I was having a great time being the surrogate dad and Naomi's lover.

     On those Fridays, I would already have a bag in my car so I didn't even change from my office duds of tweed coats, knitted ties and polished gabardine slacks--oh--and loafers.  I'd pull up to the front door about six.  The door would come bursting open and little angelic Ashley would run out and launch herself into my arms crying out, "Momma, momma.  Tweeds is here!"  So that became my identity; "Tweeds".  When I was "in residence", all was sweetness and nice.  But a few times, Christina (she wouldn't take her stage name of Wynona for some time yet), would pull me aside into her bedroom and tell me that she and her mom often fought when I wasn't there.  She showed me a swollen purple bruise on her finger and said things had gotten physical.  This was disturbing to me since they were all perfect ladies when I was in residence.  

     I found it hard to believe Naomi would come to blows with her daughter.  She seemed the very essence of a charming southern belle.  She did come from Kentucky, after all.  To me she was sweet, loving and had an old fashioned tendency to want to please her man, anyway he wanted.  A couple of times she came to stay at my place.  She would get up before me, make a full country-style breakfast and then insist on washing the dishes after.  When I protested, she said something about it being women's work.  I shudder to think what my female co-workers at the little Sausalito leasing company would have thought of that sentiment!  Several times I came home from work after one of her nocturnal visits from the night before and I found the apartment was spotless.  Not only that, she had also made my bed and had pinned a little love note to my pillow.  Who is this angel?  I didn't think they were making them down on the farm like this anymore.

    By Virginia drinking buddy was mighty impressed that I had been the "squeeze" of the great Naomi Judd.  "Well, pal, it sure sounds like you had it good.  What happened?"  "Well, as time passed", I responded,  "I started going to some of their gigs.  Naomi was tenacious in furthering their singing fortunes.  She would fib about Chris's age so she could play in bars.  Between sets the girls would head out back with the other musicians and Naomi would get high while her daughter flirted with the other players.  I didn't approve of a thirteen year old girl being put in those situations.  Naomi also had a very secretive side to her.  She would never tell me where the money came from that they lived on since she didn't have a job.  She smoked pot morning, noon and night in those days.  For Valentine's day that year we were together, I took her to meet my boss at the leasing company.  He was from Nashville so I figured they'd hit it off.  After our romantic Valentine lunch at the local French bistro, I kissed her goodbye and headed back to work.  Boss-man Dan was waiting for me."  "Mike, buddy" said my boss Dan, "I got to tell you, that accent of your girlfriend is pure corn pone.  Ashland Kentucky, where she says she grew up, is just across the border from Ohio.  It's as far out of the South as you can get and still be in it.  And I'll tell you something, people in Ashland Kentucky don't talk like your Naomi.  My people talk like that cuz we're from Nashville."

     I had to admit Naomi was beginning to seem somewhat of a conundrum.  She made her own soap out of lard, lye and oats.  I took her to the beach one warm sunny day.  The rest of our volleyball gang was in their swimming suits.  Naomi wore an ankle length dress.  I got some strange looks from my friends that day.  My interest in music as a career had been a fleeting bucket-list kind of thing.  Myself and a partner had a little steakhouse duet and we performed professionally for about a year.  I agreed with my dad that music was a good avocation but not much else.  It was plainly obvious that Naomi and I weren't all that compatible.  "She was going in one direction and I wasn't", I said to my friend.  "Pretty soon I met a gal who was more my style and I ended up breaking up with Naomi after about a year together."  My guy looked at me with a strange look on his face.  "You dumped Naomi Judd?" he said.  "Yeah, I guess that's what happened", I replied.  Then the strangest thing happened.  He looks at me and says, "Is your name Mike Stevens?"  This guy and I had never introduced ourselves so there was no way he could know my name.  "How did you guess my name?" I asked, dumbfounded.  He let out with a mighty whoop and exclaimed excitedly, "You're in the book, dude!  She says you're the only guy who ever dumped her.  For some reason that really struck me, kinda, and I guess I just remembered your name.  Crazy, huh?"

     Crazy indeed.  My mind is still reeling from this situation.  A guy from the other side of the country in a city I've never been to before, identifies me by name from something that he just read about that happened some twenty-five years ago.  I'm in the book.  I have been in a book before.  It was written by my brother and had a print run of about 1,500.  I figured in a couple of his stories.  But his book never made it to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List!  My Virginian drinking buddy insisted on buying me a drink.  He also insisted on informing anyone within ear shot that he was drinking with the only guy who dumped the great Naomi Judd.
I beat a hasty retreat.  I was definitely in "Judds" country and didn't want to generate any bad blood.

                 "Always Mercilessly Candid"?  I don't think so...

     One of the first things I did when I got home was buy "The Judds" first album and purchase a copy of "Love Can Build a Bridge" Naomi's autobiography (as told to Bud Schaetzle).  The cover enthused, thusly:  "An explosive autobiography.  Unforgettable! (this book) exhibits the woman the world has known and adored, outrageous, breathless, voluble---and always mercilessly candid"---Chicago Tribune.  My, my!  I can't wait to delve into this torrid read.  I started thinking more about my time with Naomi and the kids.  If she was really going to be "mercilessly candid" there was going to be some stuff about her life that her rabid fans down in Southern Baptist country would find a bit hard to believe about their beloved "Mama Judd".

     Here's Naomi's recounting of how we met.  I was not a CPA, I did not start a magazine called BAM.  I was an employee of a magazine called "The Mix" which was about recording studios.  I was a guitar player and I was a "tall blond-haired volleyball enthusiast".  So, she did get some things right...

     More in the conclusion to this tale in the next posting.
         
     Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

My Time with the Judds: The Conclusion

 After we broke up, I saw Naomi once or twice when she and Christina came to sing at our studio.  She still looked ravishing and she was sporting around in a red and white Chevy convertible.  Several years passed.  I left the little leasing company and went to work for a magazine, run by some friends of mine who were also involved in our recording studio.  The magazine, "The Mix" was  about the professional recording studio business.  One night, one of my cohorts from the magazine calls me up.  "Mike, you ought to turn your TV to TBS, your old girlfriend and her daughter are accepting an award as best new singing group on the Country Western Annual Awards Show.  In the next several years I got similar calls from my friends.  The Judds racked up an impressive bunch of awards including six grammy awards which is for all music, not just country.  Later, I heard that they sang at the White House and eventually, they were the featured act at half time of a super bowl.  If you've played the White House and the Super Bowl, you really haven't got much more to prove in the music biz...

     So I read Naomi's book.  She had told me a lot of this stuff when we were together.  For instance the two daughters had two different fathers.  Something I don't believe they knew back then.  As Naomi related it to me.  She got knocked up by the high school quarterback on her first sexual encounter.  When he heard she was pregnant he wanted nothing more to do with her.  There was another fellow who was besotted with her charms and Naomi married him so she'd have a father for her child.  She explained that back then, being a single high school girl and pregnant didn't sit too well with her people in Kentucky.  I can only imagine...So she married the second guy gave birth to her kid from the first guy then had the second guys kid a few years later.  I wasn't sure keeping this fact from her kids was such a good idea.  They were bound to find out sometime, then they'd resent her for having withheld that information from them.

     When I got to the part of the book where she was living in Marin County and coming to our little studio I started reading her version of our time together.  Whoa, honey!  I knew you smoked a lot of dope in them thar days but really?  This is how you mis-remembered our time together?  I was stunned at the "sins of commission and the sins of omission" in the book.  She never mentioned the smoking, of course and, strangely, she didn't mention that WE HAD HAD AN ABORTION TOGETHER!!!  She may have blithely let it slide but I will never forget that day.  She came to me one morning at her house and informed me that she was pregnant with my baby.  I asked her what she wanted to do.  I was pretty "green" at this stuff.  I had never been married or, as far as I knew, gotten a girl pregnant.  She had been married twice by this time and was a single mother already saddled with raising two, sometimes rambunctious, daughters.  With an angry, exasperated stare, Naomi said to me,  "What do you think I'm going to do?  I don't want your baby!  I've got more than I can handle right now."  Although I was somewhat taken aback by her tone I agreed.  Hell, I didn't want to have my baby either! 

     We drove out to the little Women's Health Clinic in the village of Point Reyes Station in West Marin.  Naomi had me wait in the car while she went in and took care of business.  As I sat there waiting for her I thought about what was transpiring inside and I got very emotional.  I admit I cried a few tears for my unborn child.  Forty-five minutes later a very unemotional, even cold, Naomi came out and didn't say a word about what had happened.  Hmm, this is some steel magnolia I got here...  I don't believe the situation was ever mentioned again.  Still, I marveled at how a woman could terminate a pregnancy and not show any emotion about it.  I wondered what the good God fearing, bible thumping folks back in Kentucky would have thought...

     It was becoming clear to me that part of my attraction for Naomi had been my studio connections.  Why not shack up with the owner of a recording studio?  Couldn't hurt, right?  She was bound to scare up a few gigs singing harmony on other musicians recordings.  Naomi knew my involvement with the studio was not like my other partners.  I had a regular job in the world of finance and the studio was just a hobby; as much a clubhouse to play music with the gang and party in, as it was a "going concern" which it rarely was.  As far as me being a partner in "Tres Virgos Studio" with my other two virgo general partners, it was like Sunday brunch.  I was the chicken and they were the pigs.  The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed...  Despite really digging their singing together, I was uncomfortable with Naomi passing off her thirteen year old daughter as old enough to be singing in bars.  While her classmates are home in their "jammies" doing their homework, Christina is singing backup for some bar band in San Francisco.  Hank Williams may have gotten his start that way but I didn't think it was an appropriate way to raise a young girl in "modern times".

     As she started making more connections in the contemporary music scene in the bay area, she probably saw me less as a boyfriend and more like a speed bump on the road to a successful music career.  About this time, I got a call one day at work.  It was a former co-worker of mine at the leasing company in Sausalito where I worked.  I had always liked Colleen, she was a Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University and in addition to being very intelligent, she was a lot of fun.  She started bombarding me with a run of silly, off color jokes, and soon had me in stitches.  I agreed to have dinner with her at her condo in Tiburon that night.  One thing led to another and I never made it home.  The next day, I was talking to one of my studio partners on the phone, when the operator broke in and said she had received an emergency request to break into our phone conversation.  Fearing the worst I quickly acquiesced and the next thing I hear is Naomi's voice, "I know you were unfaithful to me last night!"  That sure got the little hairs standing up on my neck.  "Listen, Naomi, honey, it was totally innocent.  An old work colleague of mine called me up and I went over to her place for dinner.  I had bit too much to drink and I didn't want to drive so she put me up for the night."  I didn't mention that she "put me up" in her bed but we were too far gone to consummate anything.  I'm thinking to myself, "How the hell did Naomi know where I was last night?"  It was kind of freaky...

     "Listen, Mike, we need to talk about this.  Me and the kids are going out of town, back to Kentucky to momma and poppa for a short family visit.  I'll be back on Wednesday, you've got my car (mine was in the shop, Naomi had two, one of which she had loaned me, temporarily).  You come pick us up Wednesday night at the Oakland Airport."  I quickly agreed and we hung up.  Then I started thinking to myself, "Emergency telephone break in?  How the hell had she known what I'd been up to?"  Then I remembered something that happened earlier in our relationship.  I was on a volleyball team sponsored by The Olympic Club of San Francisco, a very old and august sporting club for "gentlemen of a certain persuasion".  I didn't exactly agree with their admissions policy (no women, no blacks) but they were the best team in the Bay Area by far and I was honored when the coach "drafted" me.  The initiation fee was waived and I just had to pay the monthly dues.  The president of the company I worked for had been on the waiting list at the "O Club" for three years and when he found out I was a new member he was understandably miffed.  

     We had a tournament coming up that was local, so I took Naomi along with me.  As we walked down the hall, outside the gymnasium, one of my teammates walked past us.  When he was out of earshot, Naomi turned to me with this astonished look on her face and exclaimed, "That guy's name is Tom Krause!  I've never seen him before in my life but his name just popped into my head!"  Whoa, another "chicken skin" moment with Naomi.  My partner, Tom Krause was a buttoned-down banker in SF who wore Brooks Brothers suits and serious, financial district shoes.  He and his wife lived in a nice house on the Belvedere Marina.  His social circles were about as far away from Naomi's as you could get.  "Great..." I thought to myself, "my girlfriend is psychic."  Coda to this episode.  When I packed up Sunday evening to return to my place, I noticed that my volleyball shoes felt real heavy.  "Hmm, looks like it's time for some new shoes."  I bought new shoes and was about to toss my old ones in the back of the closet when I noticed that all the weight was in the toes.  I reached in to the toe of each shoe and, much to my surprise, found two lovely polished and painted stone "eggs", one in each shoe.  The girls had put them in there as a present for me.  Awww.  How cute is that?  It only cost me the price of a new pair of shoes...

     So now, Naomi knew that there was someone new in my life.  During the time they were back in Kentucky wolfing down the hominy, grits and corn pone, I was quickly getting cozy with my new squeeze, Colleen.  That fateful Wednesday night rolled around when I was to pick up the girls at the airport.  Colleen was at my place, actually in my bed, when I left.   "You go take them home and tell Naomi you have a new girlfriend.  I'll be waiting here for you when you get back", said Colleen as she nestled into the pillows and gave me a big "come hither" smile.  On the drive from the airport back to Naomi's place I gave her the news.  I explained that although I loved our time together, it was obvious that she would soon be moving on to bigger and better things in the music world.  She was very understanding and said I could even keep her second car till mine was fixed.  I thanked her for her understanding and wished her the best of luck.  We sat talking in the car for awhile but I was, understandably anxious to get back to my place where my new girlfriend was waiting for me in my bed.  I told Naomi I should get going.  With that she reached over and took the car keys out of the ignition.  "I've changed my mind.  I don't want you to leave!"  Uh oh, now I'm officially in a jam.  By this time, it was almost midnight and my ride had just been usurped.  I thought for a second.  My best bet is to scram from here and knock on a neighbor's door and use the telephone to get me a taxi, if I can pull of such a stunt in West Marin (a decidedly rural area...) at midnight.  

     So I took off running down the road to put my plan into action.  Behind me I could hear Naomi start the car up and the sound of the gravel as she pulled out of the driveway.  I quickly dove into some roadside bushes.  I could see some houses on the other side.  Then I heard Naomi's loud cries in the still night air, "Mike, Mike!  Come back!  Don't leave me!  Where are you?"  I managed to get to a phone and taxi home to my little apartment.  Amazingly, Colleen was still in bed waiting for me.  I explained what had happened and she reluctantly accepted my explanation.  I jumped into my bed and into her arms and all was jiggy between us after that.

                         Naomi's version of our break-up.                          

     In her book, she has our break-up happen in a whole different way that avoids the embarrassment of a slow speed car chase at midnight with her wailing for me out the window.  Years later, I ran into someone who lived near there and I related my crazy experience that night.  He said that he remembered hearing a women's voice one night around mid-night crying out the name Mike.  Too weird!  About the only things she remembered correctly about that time was that, yes I was a volleyball player.  Yes I was a part owner of a recording studio and I did occasionally play the guitar in there.  Everything else was fabricated to put her in a different light for her "Grand Ole Opry" type fans.  In fact, at that time, I was a pretty good finger picker of the acoustic guitar.  Naomi and Christina liked the way I could play lead lines above Chris's rhythm guitar work.  In our little eight track garage studio, we had a section of wall that was just sheet rock.  Musicians used to leave graffiti on it about their sessions.  It was fun to see all the comments.  One day, Robin, my partner and our main engineer, brought my attention to the latest message.  After one of their sessions, Naomi had written: "FOR GOOD GUITAR CALL TWEEDS: 383-7982".  That nice little comment stayed up on the wall long after the Judds became a household name.

     After finishing the book, I wondered how much of the rest of her life had been fabricated.  It kind of bothered me that she was portraying herself as this poor struggling, put-upon, single mother who managed through hard work and tenacity to overcome numerous obstacles to become fabulously famous and wealthy in the country music game.  I realized that she was idolized by church moms of the South  and didn't want to "tarnish" that angelic image she had fashioned for herself.  I sympathized with her battle with hepatitis.  Still, she was making millions on this book that, I knew, to be anything but "mercilessly candid" as the book cover maintained.

     I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he had a novel idea.  "Mike, if you want to get the real story out, I know a way you could do that and make some coin in the process.  The Judds are huge right now; the autobiography just came out and I bet "The National Enquirer" would love to hear your story."  Wow, "The National Enquirer", king of the sleazy tabloids?  Do I really want to go that route?  I had glanced at it while standing in the check out line at the local grocery a few times.  It seemed like it was all two headed babies, alien abductions and the like.  I remember one story that stuck in my head, and my craw.  "Hippy Love Tryst Throws Self in Volcano!"  The story went on to relate how a trio of hippies, high on acid, went up to the volcano in Hawaii.  With no one else around, they "threw themselves" into the volcano.  I thought, if there was no one else around, how is this story getting reported in your paper?  I talked to a couple of other friends (all guys, I should point out...) about it and they didn't have a problem.  They saw it the way I did.  She was making out like a bandit telling mendacities that her fans wanted to hear---sins of omission, sins of commission...

     I went ahead and contacted the Enquirer at their office in Florida.  When I told the receptionist what I wanted to do she put me on hold for a moment.  Then a British voice came on the line.  Yes they were definitely interested in "my story".  Over the phone, he conducted an interview with me and recorded everything.  "Great work Mike", he enthused, "we'll be sending a photographer out to your place in Mill Valley.  He's from our Sacramento bureau and he'll take pictures of you and any Judd memorabilia you may have lying about."  Several days later there's was a knock at the door and the Enquirer photographer was there.  All I had was a copy of their first album and a picture that Naomi had given me back in the day.  It was a gorgeous professional portrait that she had had done when she was doing some modeling work during her time living in Hollywood.  When we had been going together, I had it pinned up on my bedroom wall so I could admire my beautiful girlfriend.  The photographer took a bunch of snaps including the portrait photo.  "I'm going to have to take this picture and process it at the lab in Sacramento.  I'll be sure to get it back to you.  Sadly, I never did get it back.  Now all I have is the photo on the cover of "The National Enquirer". 

I'm sure my sainted mother, God rest her soul, was thrilled to read that "Pregnant Naomi refused to have our love child and tried to run me down when we broke up".  I gotta say though I sure loved that picture of Naomi and I'm pissed that I never got it back!

     So the story came out and I got paid $ 750 for setting the record straight---at least the part that concerned me.  All my guy friends congratulated me for a deed well done.  It was a different story with my lady friends.  Their take in a nut shell:  "How dare you!  Stooping to publish your kiss-and-tell expose in "The National Enquirer" of all places.  You should be ashamed!"  It was right down the middle; my gender: for; the other gender: against.  So be it.  It's water under the bridge.  Although I did cringe a little when I read how they sensationalized everything.  But I guess that's what they do.  Compared to the "Hippy Love Tryst Jumping into the Volcano" my story was pretty tame...  One last little ripple from this whole thing, came to me from my mother.  Back home in Hawaii where she lived, she ran with a pretty smart social set.  Several of her friends mentioned that they'd seen an article in a tabloid in the check-out stand that mentioned my name and my hometown.  "Jean.  Don't you have a son named Mike who lives in Mill Valley?  There's some kind of kiss-and-tell thing in there about Naomi Judd.  Here.  I brought you a copy."  My mother, like all the other women I had talked to was mortified that I was being written up in "The National Enquirer".  "Oh dear, how could you?" opined my mom, "Naomi wouldn't have my love child and tried to run me over in her car?  It says it right hear in large type!"  I apologized for any embarrassment it might have caused in her social set.  What can I say?  I'm sort of the black sheep of the family and anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

     "Momma he's crazy.  Crazy over me."  I leave you with a song in my heart (their first big single), Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres.