Memories of Monte Capanno 1970, Page Six: Our Guests

Zacks' friends: Weren't a few relationships  between students and guests (e.g., John Dean) at least contemplated?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Our Italian buddies: Who can forget the guys from Firenze (Florence) who once skipped rope with sausages in our cavernous hearth?  Does anyone remember who originially brought them home, and what does anyone recall about them?  "I tracked down our old Italian friends, Luigi Cecchi, Paolo Barbetti and Massimo Baldovino in 1973 & stayed with them a month.  In 1992, I returned to Florence and found Luigi ("Gigi") who is now a master leather craftsman for Gucci and owns a (I kid you not) Medici villa on the outskirts of Florence." (by Mark F.)

Little Gina and her parents, Joel and Susan Agee: A VW bus, a liberated three year old, and Monte Capanno...

 
"...There is a couple staying with us now who have a 3 year old.  They've been traveling I think for about a year.  It seems hard on the mother who is really a neat person, and the kid seems very wise.  It seems like this experience has made her very out going and independent." (from Linda's letters, April 1970, to read more please go here)

"Poor Gina's crying and screaming." (from Cathee's diary, June 3, 1970)

"In October 2000, Joel and I had a long telephone conversation in which he recalled fondly the three months of their visit to Monte Capanno.  As he reported it, they came to Monte Capanno from another group living arrangement in Perugia, among Maoists who had found the Agees insufficiently radical and asked them to move on.  Neither Joel nor I could recall who among us pointed them to Monte Capanno, but in my opinion all of us benefitted from them joining us.  Moreover, Joel said that memories of Monte Capanno and people there will appear in a book he is completing." (by Gordon)

Joel on the Maoists of Perugia: " 'Insufficiently militant' is more precisely why the Maoists asked us to move on.  I refused to join them in bloody nocturnal confrontations with 'fascisti' in the town square of Perugia." (by Joel)

"re Joel & Susan & Gina:  Were they going to see Krishnamurti in Switzerland?" (by Cathee)


Denny Kelly:  An Australian on his years-long world tour, Denny worked on off-shore oil rigs to finance his journey.  He rested with us at Monte Capanno, and warmed many a heart toward Aussies in general:

"I remember his wonderfully full-hearted response to questions like 'How's it going?' -- 'COULDN'T BE BEDDA!'   I remember always feeling grateful when he was around -- not to him or anything in particular, just for the gift of existence.  He had a real genius for appreciation." (by Joel)

"Tonight [in London UK] for the first time, we experienced the brawling, warm-beer beer hall affectionately known as the 'Black Horse'.  An English pub is definitely a unique institution at least to the American traveler, for it affords the opportunity to meet and converse with a diverse cross section of English speaking peoples, among them Australians, New Zealanders, Irish, Scots, South Africans and Canadians.  We had a grand time, and even ran into a guy named Denny, an Aussie, who stayed at Monte Capanno with us for a while! (from Gordon's letters, June 27, 1970, to read more please go here)

"I know that a few years later, Denny was in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on the construction of B.A.R.T.  Later, he visited my parents in the San Luis Obispo area." (by Gordon)


Richard Gouley: Several Monte Capanno 1970 residents lived in a group house on 12th St. in San Jose prior to the experiment, including Marti Kramer, Jan Hammond, Barb Hemsted, Terre Eakins, Linda Green and Gordon Bowen.  The group house next door included Rich Gouley, who travelled with Debbie Linson to visit Monte Capanno, and later went on to Greece and Turkey.  Once at Monte Capanno,  Rich chipped in with the chores, and with the fun times.  A substantial section of the Monte Capanno 1970 Video shows Rich tilling the soil for the garden, amid distracted student members who are frolicking in play with a frisbee.  A rumor among Monte Capanno circles later circulated that Richard and Debbie might have hooked up the group of Americans whose travails were chronicled in the film "Midnight Express."  But in October 2000, Rich wrote to report: "I had to rent 'Midnight Express' last nite; boy I am glad I wasn't in that place: a very depressing movie about the time in question. I take the fifth [on whether I knew the real life people depicted in the film]."
 

"Yesterday a bunch of people went to Assisi and it was too crowded in the car, so I volunteered not to go... about 5 minutes after they left, a taxi pulled up and in it were Rich and Debby, my neighbors from San Jose!  They can't believe this place and hope to stay a while." (from Linda's letters, February 23, 1970, to read more please go here)


Debbie Linson: Rich's companion, Debbie had several mutual friends with Linda (Green) Bowen, e.g. Sally Stephens; both were "Valley Girls" from Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. In October 2000, Richard reported to montecapanno1970.com that while he and Debbie broke up shortly after returning from Europe, she married and still lives in Northern California.  Who can find her so she can report her memories about those times to montecapanno1970.com?

"Big Larry," Kris Kagen's friend on the Norton motorcycle:  Reputed to be an associate of Ken Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters," he was responsible for a popular wallpaper (!!) in the kitchen of the farmhouse.  Again, what do you recall, and where is he now?

"Tall Terry": "Once he convinced me to go with him on a wild motorcycle ride into Perugia to a pharmacy to score... something.  He needed me to interpret for him.  For the next several days his room was black with sleep.  Every once in a while someone would check to see if he was still breathing.  He eventually came out of it." (by Cathee)

Martin Rutishauser: Gordon's childhood friend came to Monte Capanno from his residence in Freiburg, Germany to find and absorb the S.F. youth culture he had missed by living in Europe.  The webmasters and others have memories of running through the fields with Martin.  Martin found our website in September 2005, and wrote to say: "My memories [of Monte Capanno] are all pretty wonderful.  Fried eggs in olive oil and oregano,  lots of sun after an interminable German winter, a personal daily bottle of chianti enjoyed under a tree, skinny dipping in an over-algaed pond, and of course the ["romp in the poppies"] day that cured me of any others [i.e., days like that], but was also a remarkable experience that is still with me today.  I do remember feeling [strange] and that Joel Agee patiently walked and talked [to] me....  I also remember sitting next to and talking to a beautiful and incredibly friendly girl who was wearing purple pants and an orange top (or vice versa.)  I mention that because every time I shot pool after that, the orange and purple solid balls would occasionally bump into each other and would give me a real jolt of remembrance...  Oh, yes, that run through the wheat fields; that seems to have made a lasting impression on a number of people, myself included.  So, I have many fond memories of events and of people.  I was trying to figure out some faces on the site through the dislocation of time. And those gorgeous Tuscan hills.  That was magic.  I have a couple other memories --pleasant--that will require a good bottle of wine to part with.  I also remember long talks with you [i.e., Gordon] about our upbringings and your [hanging out] under the flight path at L.A. airport."

Christian and Wolfgang from Berlin: On their way to Italy in winter 1970, Craig, Kathy, Gordo and Linda stopped in Locarno, Switzerland where they met two Berliners, Wolfgang and Christian, with whom they stayed in a cold, old farmhouse.  Christian, Wolfgang, and a third German, all Maoist architects with idealistic ideas about many things, came to Monte Capanno as our guests later in the Spring.  Joel Agee remembered these guys, writing in 2005 that: "They had a Fleetwood Mack record with them.  I talked astrology with them, and one of them said: 'I love Jupiter' and impersonated Jupiter-energy impressively with his eyes and hands, sort of a soaring amazement and curiosity." 

A few days later, Joel wrote again, stating: " A new fragment of memory surfaced.   I get a sort of Proustian pleasure from these -- the whole flavor of a moment and the surrounding Zeitgeist  become suddenly present.  As I said a few days ago, those three guys had a Fleetwood Mack record with them.  I had never heard of this group or heard their music.  One of the longhaired girls on the cover photograph turned out to be a guy.  I was very surprised by this, in fact found it hard to believe, and one of the visitors smiled at my disbelief with a significantly arched eyebrow, which I interpreted as meaning: 'It's happening, man: androgyny!' -- and then the fantasy of this vast universal blending and uniting taking place on a cellular and genetic level.  Thank God I had down-to-earth Susan with me at almost all times."
 

Georgia and Warren: Cathee's diary mentions them; anybody have a clue who they were?

any others:

 

to go to NEXT PAGE of Memories

to go to Previous PAGE of Memories
 

OR to go to a specific topic, pick it below:

 
The Genesis of the Trip
The Trip to Perugia
Daily Life: Eating, cooking, sleeping, keeping warm, etc.
Governance: did Anarchy work?
Entertaining Ourselves at Monte Capanno
Our Guests
Remembering our Leaders: The Zacks
Our Memories of Each Other at Monte Capanno
Our Italian Neighbors
Trips taken elsewhere around Italy and Europe
Remembering Perugia
Assessing the Meaning of it all