The Bohemian Grove, Redwood Summer, Bonnie and Woody and The Butt In The Window

I have spent much time in my life living and working just down the road from the famous and secretive Bohemian Grove out near Guerneville, in Northern California. Ex-Presidents and astronauts were rumored to have run around the old-growth redwood groves in some Dionysian St. Vitas naked men-only dance and the local papers were continuously peppered with letters to the editor by angry women and their angry groups (and if you know nothing about this place, you should read the little linkies I left you because it is a very interesting place, indeed).

Courts eventually ordered that the place be opened up to women other than prostitutes, and I knew several elite women caterers who worked events there, and I myself participated in these catering events- I can scrub a mean pot and carry enormous amounts of stuff like a waiter up above one shoulder balanced on a hand (I was once a busboy for a busy steakhouse) and park cars like a shoe box stacker and intimidate the drunken grab assers while the girls were serving.

The groves themselves were amazing, and my last year in California was spent playing cards and drinking mint juleps in the summertime with a man named “Bob” who was a bonafide Bohemian Grove member and very much unlike the stereotype I had always maintained in my mind as to the type of cat that belonged to the Bohemian Grove. Bob was kind and sincere, with mostly liberal politics and a complete lack of ostentation or pomposity.

Bob even went so far as to verbally bash a famously sinister man named Hurwitz, who bought a logging company and was at the center of the big Redwood Summer protests that took place in the mid- nineties with thousands of attendees and famous people and music and politics, and of course, the ubiquitous bongo drummers and spinning hippy dancers…

And someday I’d like to tell you all about all of this- and I will- but tonight I just wanted to tell you about a funny little moment that happened while I attended the Redwood Summer Rally.

My life back in the States seemed to have had this rally as a destination I needed to attend, and people like Earth First!ers and Bohemian Grove ers, and Butterfly feeders, come and go through my time on the planet and I accept it all with the innocence of a shoulder shrugger who can‘t make sense of any of it, and so I asked my big and tall and goofy friend Eric if he wanted to take the weekend and drive up to the heart of the Redwood controversy and check it out. He said yes, and offered up his newer Volvo wagon as our ride and he asked if his then fifteen year old son David could come and I said “sure” and “cool” and “bring bags and clean socks and underwear”.

The rally was a kick and a hoot and hippy girls bared their breasts, and Bonnie Raitt sang and Woody Harrelson spoke, and the police all stood in their riot gear smirking because they were making triple time and in one weekend they were going to make the down payment on that new Redwood deck they always wanted to BBQ on, and if you’ve ever attended one of these things, it is all like a righteous gathering of colorful people who just want to party.

Eric was all smiles and proud to show his son a bit of the world and his son David was in awe of all he saw. The end of the first day led us to the question of “where to sleep” and we decided that the motels in the area were taken by the cops and the loggers, and so the Volvo was chosen and half the back seat was folded down and Eric crawled back there and in big man fashion fell asleep, taking up way too much space. That left me in the passenger front seat and David right behind me in the other backseat, only he leaned his back without actually lowering it to flat.

And I tell you all of this, because life isn't a moment. Life comes at you like the ocean, and strikes you with a wave. If I just told you about a wave, you wouldn't quite "get it", and so I give you more on purpose so you get a little of the currents and tides and the history of the basin where the water resides. Know what I mean?

Even if this is only a story about a butt in a window.

So Eric was passd out and snoring sweetly but not obnoxiously. David was sitting behind me and I could see him trying to sleep in the image of the mirror that was set in the folded down sun visor above and in front of me.

In a tall SUV vehicle parked four feet away from us to our immediate right were five hippy girls. OK, not really hippy girls, but eighteen year olds who had their daddy's Bronco and were doing the protest rally party thing, staying up late and drinking lots of beer, smoking some pot and getting into some very funny and risque conversations about sex in all of its silly manifestations, telling anecdotes and stories and laughing and giggling like stoned and drunk hippy-chick- wannabes and basically keeping me up and I noticed, David too.

David was getting lessons in sex by pretending to sleep and keeping his ears focused on the conversation going on up above us in the taller Bronco. He learned that girls actually LIKED sex and had some favorite moves to describe all ready at eighteen. He heard about The Big O and oral sex and hating rubbers and smelly boyfriends and I quietly watched with amusement as David quietly took it all in with eyes shut and ears wide open.

Girls left within the safety of their own safe numbers are amazingly candid when plied with alcohol and pot, and these girls were very entertaining. It was like listening to a very funny, well-written play. They had ME intrigued and following along while I watched David be absolutely spellbound while pretending to be asleep.

And then we both heard it.

"I gotta pee."

"You gotta pee?"

"I gotta pee like a fucking racehorse."

"So go pee all ready."

"Where?"

"Out there."

"The bathrooms are way the fuck over there."

"Here, take a flashlight."

"I'm not walking over there."

"Well, then, go behind the car."

"There's people sleeping all around us. No way."

"Well then hold it."

"I CAN'T HOLD IT."

Lots of giggles and laughs.

"You ain't going in the car!"

"God, I gotta piss!"

"Stick your butt out the window!"

"What? No way."

"Just hang your ass out the window right there."

"No way. There's three guys sleeping in that car."

David shifted really subtly in his sleeping posture, raising his eyes to a better vantage point.

"They're ASLEEP. They won't even know you're there."

"This is fucking crazy!"

"Just take the flashlight."

"No. I gotta go real bad!"

There was some rustling around inside the Bronco and lots of giggles. Pajama party giggles and then the window right above David only four feet away rolled down and a cute little girl's butt popped out and was suspended in one of the oddest positions I had ever seen a cute little white girl's butt.

"Don't piss on my dad's car!"

"I won't!"

"You're gonna!"

"I am not. If I stick it out any further, I'm gonna fall out."

"Stick it out further!"

David had his eyes cracked-one more than the other- and was getting a real eye full. I mean, the real deal, THE ANATOMY LESSON, and the girl began her tinkle.

I slipped my left foot quietly over the drive shaft hump and pressed in the clutch.

The girl was really streaming out her beer and David was really interested in the technical details of this natural phenomenon.

I had my foot on the clutch to release the starter lock and snuck my hand over to where the key sat like a devilish button in the ignition. I couldn't resist. I JUST HADDA!

I turned the key and the Volvo starting motor cranked over in the silent night and then the car started with a Wvoomp!

There was a series of blood curdling screams, and the cute little shapely bare white hippy butt shot back in the window the way a Sea Anemone reacts to being touched.

Whooop!

It was gone from view and screaming, laughing and yelling and more screaming all erupted inside the Bronco as the peeing girl pissed herself in more ways than one.

David was laughing like a kid in a church, covering his mouth and crying from his eyes.

Eric continued snoring, oblivious and comfortable.

I had a meter-stick grin going, as I turned off the Volvo and enjoyed the aftermath like a satisfied demon.

Teeheeheehee...