Referee Joe Brudage, first casualty Juanita Booth, college nursing program director, brought him back quickly. Faculty/student basketball game featuring FATS (Faculty Athletic Training Society) against the varsity in the old Camp San Luis Obispo gym. ©Michael Raphael/The Tribune

Cuesta had a band?
A theme song?
Why did this tradition die out?
Paging Cuesta Cougar, Cuesta Cougar to the white courtesy phone.

From the March 13, 1969 then Telegram-Tribune

Annual game
FATS (faculty) wins at Cuesta

By Mike Raphael
Staff Writer

Capitalizing on a slam-bang attack, Cuesta College’s “FATS” (Faculty Athletic Training Society) thoroughly demolished an obviously outclassed varsity basketball team in the second annual faculty – varsity game Wednesday.
FATS coach Wayne Anderson, of business office fame, vowed before the game that he intended to extend his one – game winning streak.
The elderly team jumped to an early 1-0 lead after three or so minutes of the first quarter of three – quarter game, that was sort of played in three-quarter time.
The biggest crowd of the season—if you include the band, faculty wives, children and several dozen county high school students — watched as varsity players got their entire team into foul trouble.
But the younger set seemed bent on defeating the oldsters and at halftime (the end of the second quarter), held an 18-16 lead.
But in the final quarter, FATS surged to a 25-20 lead.
The debacle ended minutes later with the final score 25-23 for the still unbeaten faculty five.
Campus officer Grover Miller led the special team of referees, and often was compelled to use his gun to stop severe attacks by Cougars on the FATS team.
The game ball went to somebody, possibly a band trumpeter, who also may have been the person who set the game records on fire. The scoring is unknown, but it is believed that either Don Hansen, regular Cougar basketball coach, adorned in a hula skirt, or Del Crystal, of plaid skirt fame, led all the scorers.

"Coach" Wayne Anderson (right) cheers, Glover Miller in referee regalia. © Michael Raphel/The Tribune

The game was played under the most rigid of conditions, with only one time out called. That was to allow the band to play a medley of tunes that included the school theme, “I am a Cougar and I Ain’t Lion.”
The varsity crew set several records, including(1) most shots called back, and (2) Most fouls committed in a single game, and (3) most fouls committed after a game.
FATS shot 92.345 per cent, missing only two shots. Both were by Carmen Mauro while flat on his back with referee Joe Brundage standing on his good hand.
One FATS tactic, in the interests of justice and objectivity must be condemned.
That was the old faculty-cheerleader-Jay-Basseri-on-the-ladder-pushing-the-ball-thrown-to-him-through-the-net trick.

[Full disclosure, the author of this blog is not in fact a Cougar but a Mustang. I'd still like to hear their theme song played by a full band.]

Barbed wire collectors meet at fairgrounds, M.L. (Bud) Park is one of the county's charter members. © Michael Raphael/Telegram-Tribune

The wide open spaces of the west were more open before the invention of barbed wire. The idea began in 1867 with two inventors adding points to smooth wire and a year later Michael Kelly created the first commercially successful product. The idea took root and soon there were over 570 patents for the thorny product. There would be courtroom battles over patents. More legal battles pitted pro-fence ranchers against free range grazers and trail drivers who feared the end of their way of life. Religious groups and others protested that livestock injuries were the work of the devil. Some called the product “The Devil’s Rope.”
Having done an occasional fence repair I can testify that the wire wriggles like a crazed serpent and can bite like one too.
Nonetheless the product was something steel mills could churn out and that a western rancher could use to economically keep his animals in and the neighbors animals out.
The new invention was the wave of the future though protesters fought back with pliers. At one point laws were passed making fence cutting a felony.
Later uses would be found in the trenches of World War I and at a prison near you.
By 1969 the controversy was over and it was time for the collectors to take the stage. From the March 28, 1969 Telegram-Tribune second section front page:

Big day for barbed wire fans

By Michael Raphael Staff Writer

Prickly, stickly stuff, is barbed wire. And it comes in lots of forms, more that you’d realize.
If you’d like to see many of the 400 varieties, drop by the county fairgrounds in Paso Robles between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday. That’s where the California Barbed Wire Collectors Association is staging its first ever convention.
At the Industrial Building you’ll be able to see the collections of the 30 members of the state’s only association of the collectors of thorny wire, and it is a free show.
San Luis Obispo County boasts two charter members of the association that established itself in Fresno only two months ago.
— M.L. (Bud) Park, Southern Pacific railroad assistant trainmaster, and Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce manager Swift Jewell.
Park has 103 types of wire, each sample 18 inches long and wired to plywood display boards.
It will be at the show. Some collectors will have as many as 200 different samples in a single collection.
Park started collecting four years ago, when he found a piece of wire called Crandal’s Champion “Ric-rak” near the railway depot in Surf, near Lompoc.
Park picked up one unusual piece of wire in Octavia, an Arizona ghost town, and a J. Haish’s Original “S” near a Los Osos Valley Cemetery not far from his Laguna Lake home.
Collectors identify the wire by the man who obtained the original patent on it, the date of the patent and the nickname, if any.
The oldest wire, by patent date, in Park’s collection is the M. Kelly “Diamond Point,” dated Feb. 11, 1868.
More than half the samples were collected between Oxnard and Soledad, and most of the rest were obtained by trades with collectors in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada and other parts of the state.
The big barbed wire boom was during the 1870s when such wire was given as the cause of range wars.
Today there are a small number of manufacturers of barbed wire. Most of the samples in the collections are estimated to be several decades old.
Park found much of his collection in farmer’s dumps and by keeping a watchful eye on ranch fences, as he and his wife Phyllis, took Sunday drives.
“Some people think we’re nuts when we ask to see their fences,” Park said. “Farmers don’t concern themselves with the variety of wires available, just its strength and resistance to rust,” he said.
Park also has World War I entanglement wires, U.S. and German versions, and said he noticed that the American variety is in use on the Vandenberg Air Force Base perimeter.
Barbed wire comes in one to four strands normally, can be square, ribbon or oval shaped, and have any variety and number of barbs. In some cases, points pieces are added by hand to standard wire already strung.

Jon Dallons in long hair battle with the Paso Robles High School administration. Son of Paso school board candidate. © 2010 The Tribune/Michael Raphael 3/11/1969

High school administrators dream of the days when the biggest controversy on campus was hair length.
Today they juggle funding issues, test scores, curriculum as well as drugs, campus violence, gangs, teen pregnancy…hey I don’t see haircuts anywhere on this list.
This story ripped from the headlines show Jon Dallons, 15, with a Beatle style haircut, (modified to show his ears), black turtleneck, chain with medallion and looking like someone the principal needs to talk to.

Published in the then Telegram-Tribune March 12, 1969:

School board issue?
Long hair beef at Paso Robles

By Michael Raphael
Staff Writer

The flap over the hair length of the son of a Paso Robles school board candidate is temporarily settled.
Jon Dallons, a 15-year-old sophomore, agreed to the suggestion by Dr. Charles James, district superintendent, to get a haircut.
Dallons, son of John Dalons, 42, who is running for the joint elementary and high school boards, was suspended for 10 school days on Feb. 17 because his hair exceeded student council standards.
“Dr. James would never make it as a student because his hair is longer than mine,” the young Dallons said.
Another ruckus started last Wednesday, over the wearing of medallions, the boy said, when boys and girls were told to take off medallions and necklaces.
Jon was told to get a haircut on Jan.14, and that’s when “the trouble started,” his father said. High school principal Steve Zorich told them he would not allow his son to circulate a petition calling for a rules change to allow longer “current trend” hair, Dallons said.
“We don’t want any trouble on campus,” Dallons quoted Zorich as saying. Then Dallons decided he didn’t want to get his hair cut, but was allowed to stay in school anyway, until his mid-February suspension.
After getting the haircut, Jon was again stopped when he showed up wearing a medallion. He was told to take it off.
The elder Dallons, is owner-operator of Western Quartz Products at 2432 Spring St., directly across from the high school.
He said he is not running for the school board because of the hair issue, but had been intending to run long before it came up because he wants “to see where the money is going.”
Dallons has been in business for himself for 15 years, and brought his business to Paso Robles four years ago. He has attended Bakersfield and Los Angeles City Colleges and spent one year at USC.
He said that communications with school officials has been “pretty good,” but that he backs his son up “all the way.” He said he and his son do not expect a rules change even though Jon thinks “80 percent if the kids will sign his petition.
James said a “school reflects the thoughts of the community,” and both Dallons and James said it is a “conservative community.”
Younger Dallons said he was warned at the last encounter that he had 10 days to get his “marginal” hair trimmed again, and that after that he would be “reminded” to get another cut.
Jon said 10 of the school’s 35 teachers are “coaches of one sort or another,” and are “short hair conscious,” more interested in athletics than teaching.
In Dallons’ letter, he said “the law guarantees and requires me to have an education until 16 without any mention of length of hair.”
That seems to size up the Dallons’ side of the issue. But, as he talks, hair grows and young Jon is again nearing the danger point.

Telegram-Tribune page published Dec. 10 1968 documenting protests.

Conveniently reporter/photographer/friend of Photos from the vault/ Michael Raphael also photographed the relevant punctuation challenged section of the student’s Bill of Laws reprinted here:

Section 3 – Violations
1. Boys
a. Dyed or bleached hair will not be accepted
b. Good judgment and discretion shall always prevail in student apparel and hair styles.
2. Girls
a. Any type of sweat shirt, shorts. capris. pedal pushers and other such apparel will not be accepted except on special occasions designated by the administration.
b. Good judgment and discretion shall always prevail in student apparel and hair styles.

Under these rules apparently the Beach Boys as well as the Beatles are seen as pernicious influences on they youth of our nation. Administrators were having nightmares featuring hordes of fashion deprived young women storming the campus shouting “Viva los pedal pushers, viva los Capris!”

In fairness administrators were freaking out at this time as violent protests were breaking out on college campuses. Disruptive protests at Berkley and San Francisco were fresh in many minds. What short sighted administrators were failing to note was the protests were not caused by hair length.

Uh, this just in, hair length did not create the issues surrounding civil rights, free speech and the Vietnam War.

Jon Dallons’ medallion reads “Verseav 21 Janu. 19 Fev.” Post a comment if you know what the significance is.

STEADY TRAFFIC OF OIL TANKERS AT AVILA BEACH AND ESTERO BAY INCREASES THREAT Ship sucks in oil from pier pipeline; one like this dumped some at sea. Michael Raphael/The Tribune ©2010

BP has miles beaches to clean on the Gulf coast, but blown out oil wells are not the only source of oily beach pollution. It used to be that getting tar balls on your feet was part of going to Avila Beach. We were told it was due to natural seeps.
Later  revelations revealed leaky pipes from local oil facilities. Avila Beach was torn down and rebuilt due to contamination under the streets of town.
Turns out there is a third possible culprit.
Tankers.
When they flush their tanks, slicks follow. The region used to have a lot of tanker traffic to the terminals at Avila Beach and Estero Bay. Today the tankers are gone and no one needs to use spirit soaked rags to clean tar stained feet when they leave Avila Beach.
Coincidence?

The following article published June 13, 1969. The Santa Barbara oil spill five months earlier made the public more sensitive to oil in the environment. Though the photo above is captioned on the back as being Port San Luis I don’t recall the T shaped pier configuration or the utility poles. Perhaps a local Union Oil expert can confirm the identity of the facility in the print.

Dumping of oil not unusual –former exec

By Warren Groshong
Staff writer
The globs of oil that covered county beaches from Oso Flaco to Morro Bay came from an oil tanker at sea.
The Coast Guard today confirmed that there were no line breaks at the Avila Beach and Estero Bay oil loading facilities.
And the long-standing problem of oil leaks at the drilling platforms in Santa Barbara Channel are not being given serious consideration as a possible source.
This narrows it down to a tanker that flushed some heavy crude oil out of its tanks into the ocean within a few miles of the coast. However, nobody knows which tanker it was.
Neither the Coast Guard nor state nor oil company official spokesman was willing to state flatly that a tanker flushing its ballast or washing its tanks caused the problem.
But two salmon fishermen, one a retired oil company executive, told the Telegram-Tribune they were 100 per cent convinced that the oil slopped into the sea from a ship.
Chester Blair of Shell Beach said he observed a big oil slick about three miles out from Avila Beach on Tuesday, the day before the thick messy crude hit the beaches.
“A tanker must have washed out the oil on Monday,” the owner of the fishing boat Little Mac said.
C.B. (Whitey) Gerow, 67-year-old retired General Petroleum Oil Co. executive who now fishes commercially, said he is convinced that the oil came from a ship that had been emptied at a refinery either in El Segundo or Richmond and was heading back to the area to take on more oil.
Sometimes hundreds of gallons of oil are left in the tanks after they are pumped at the refineries Gerow said, and if this is washed out at sea, it creates a tremendous pollution.
Gerow said the heaviest crude must be kept at a certain warm temperatures. If it is too cool at the time it is being pumped from the ship to the refinery, fan excess of unheated and extremely gummy crude sticks in the tanks. It is flushed out later, usually while the ship is enroute for another load.
Gerow said that ships that ply the coast with oil never travel as much as 100 miles out to sea. Most of them are within 10 miles of the coast the majority of the time, so any deposit, accidental or otherwise, is likely to find its way to shore, somewhere.
Although scientific analysis of the oil on the beaches have not yet become available, Gerow said it definitely is an unrefined heavy crude oil of the type that would be delivered to refineries.
An official in the intelligence and law enforcement section of the Coast Guard district office in San Francisco said the law requires the dumping of oil must be done at least 100 miles out to sea off the Pacific coast. The rule for the New England coast, he said, is 50 miles.
At present the fine for dumping such material inside the limits is $2,500 and up to a year in prison.
A new law, which already has [passed the house and now is before the Senate, however, would pose a $10 million fine for any tanker that violates the boundary line to flush its tanks.
But the Coast Guard, which is the enforcing agency for ocean oil pollution law, says no ship ever has been caught dumping its oil at sea.
So far, no one has been able to point the finger at any specific tanker. Two tankers at county loading facilities have been checked by the Coast Guard, but have been cleared, at least temporarily.
Meanwhile, the beaches hardest hit at Grover City and Pismo Beach were all but cleaned up.
The Coast Guard said it has flown the area, seen no traces of further oil pollution and has been informed that there is no serious odor along the beach areas as a result of the mess that hit the sand Wednesday night.

For much of the 20th century the Central Coast was a hub for oil transportation. Union Oil, Chevron and Texaco all had facilities that provided the link between tankers and the rich oil fields inland. It used to be a frequent sight to see tankers at Estero Bay north of Morro Bay or at the Union Oil dock near Avila Beach. The power plant in Morro Bay had the option of being fueled by oil via tanker but natural gas proved to be the most economical fuel there. The region still produces oil and has a refinery on the Nipomo Mesa but tankers no longer make the Central Coast a regular port of call.
The quote about keeping the coast clean was prescient, a few weeks later Union Oil would have a blowout near Santa Barbara.

January 10, 1969

Oil tanker off Estero
Strike-idled crew taking it easy

By Gilbert Moore
Staff Writer

Here is the oil tanker “New Jersey” — anchored off Estero Bay — idled by trouble on shore, without sailing orders. Just waiting.
Having never set foot on a ship at sea before, one naturally envisioned on board a set of dramatic developments straight out of old John Payne or Errol Flynn sea movies.
(First mate to captain: “It looks bad, sir. The men are restless. I fear a mutiny. And there is only enough hardtack and beef jerky in the casks to last us till tomorrow.”)
It wasn’t like that at all.
The captain, Verner Claybourn, handsome and genial tells it like it is: “We’ve got all the comforts of home.”
There’s a two-month food supply in the galley. And the “New Jersey,” its 43 officers and crew, are just standing by on the payroll until an oil workers strike on shore is settled.
The “New Jersey” and its crew aren’t directly involved, but Texaco officials don’t want them to dock at Long Beach for fear the strike might tie the vessel up.
“We’re loafing,” said Claybourn. “You should have been here last night. We played poker.”
“Penny ante poker,” added chief engineer Bud Hein, not wanting to give the impression that this was a floating gambling casino.
“And playing cribbage. And Watching the one-eyed monster,” gesturing to a TV set in the recreation room.
“And doing some reading,” said second officer Walt Butler, aware that the modern day sailor must be abreast of the worries of landlubbers.
“I’m reading ‘The Torrey Canyon Disaster,’ about the tanker that broke up and dumped oil on the beaches of Southern England.
“That’s our main concern coastwise,” went on Walt, “to keep pollution off of the beaches.”
Claybourn said they were loafing but they really weren’t.
They were swabbing he deck, painting things up, talking over plots to make all tidy and shipshape while clutching coffee mugs.
The “New Jersey” loaded up last weekend with crude oil at the Estero Bay dock, then bulled out of the harbor area so not to snarl traffic.
Most of the “New Jersey’s” 43 men are from the Long Beach area, and the 20,000-ton 560-foot ship sails the coast as far as Seattle and Portland.
“We work, eat, sleep, do regular routine duties, everything is the same except we’re nto under way. Just like any other day of the week,” Claybourn said.
The 25-year veteran, who started as a quartermaster in 1943, thinks it over a second, and finally comes through with something we can use in our sailing epic.
“Our business is to sail ships,” says the master, “and when we’re not, we’re anxious to get going.”

Saucy hat tops spring ensemble in this 1969 fashion show. ©2010 The Tribune/David Ranns

Fashion shows were a staple event covered by the then Telegram-Tribune in the 1960s. It seemed like every week or two an organization was putting on a show. Styles were changing rapidly through the decade drawing from many sources.

Early in the decade John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline brought a sense of fashion to the White House. Fedora sales for men tanked when this president was never seen wearing one. Jackie brought a sense of elegant confidence to the public eye and an interest in European style.
In the mid-60’s attention turned to what the Beatles wore and London trends.
The Space Age inspired some designers to try modern materials or aerodynamic shapes.

The baby boom generation began to flex their economic muscles and buy what their rock star idols wore. Cloth from India and the Orient, pop art, psychedelic colors, tie dye or basic hippie farm clothing all became options. Add some beads or sew on some patches. Skirt lengths went up and down like elevators. Late in the decade ethnic fashions from Africa and Asia found their way to our shores and closets.
Not being a natural fashion writer there are sure to be things you remember better than I do.

This show was held at the ill fated Cuesta Amphitheater. It was a big spot for entertaining the troops at Camp San Luis Obispo during World War II but the location was doomed. The pseudo mission style building was placed in the flat Chorro Creek bottom between the creek and air strip. Periodic flooding would dump mud  and the air strip limited access. Over the years various attempts have been made to revive the stage that featured USO shows by Hollywood stars but weeds and wood rot seem to be the location’s fate.

May 5, 1969

Cuesta amphitheater
450 attend floral fashion show

Los Ranchos School Parents Club staged a fashion show Sunday in one of San Luis Obispo’s “hidden landmarks.”
Models paraded spring attire in a mission-style amphitheater built by the Army at what is now Cuesta College. The replica hadn’t been used since World War II when the troops were entertained at Camp San Luis Obispo.
Approximately 450 persons attended the show and joined the parents club in honoring Ken Moore, who is retiring this year as principal of the school.
The program was dedicated to Moore, who has been at Los Ranchos School for two years and in the school system here for more than 35 years.
Don Gordon, who provided the floral arrangements staged throughout the afternoon, said the junior college plans to stage other events in the amphitheater.
Gordon, an ornamental horticulture instructor at Cal Poly, supervised the floral arrangements done by that college’s student chapter of the American Institute of Floral Design. The instructor also did “on-the-spot” arrangements to go with the four sections of the show depicting, spring and love, rain and rainbows, garments in pink and red, and formal attire.
The Bel Canto Singers performed songs befitting each section to accompany the models. Soloists were Gordon and Lu Shevlin.
Mrs. Leonore Sanson of the San Luis Obispo Downtown Fashion Guild coordinated the garments and picked the models.
Proceeds gained from admission fees will be used by the Los Ranchos Parents club to buy equipment for the school’s multipurpose room.

Bobby Beausoleil at a parole hearing while he was in CMC prison. © 2010 Mark Brown/Telegram-Tribune published 12-5-1985

Details would gradually emerge. Accounts vary and sometimes the same sources had multiple accounts.
Suspect, Beausoleil had another musician friend, sometimes called Chuck Summers. Later there would be up to 17 documented names listed as Summers’ aliases. Chuck had been present for a time during the three-day period the victim Hinman was held captive.
Beausoleil would later insist that the murder was the result of a drug deal gone bad. His story was that Hinman, the car’s owner, had sold Beausoleil 1,000 hits of mescaline that he in turn resold to a motorcycle gang. When the gang complained that the drug was bad, he went to get his money back. Hinman’s ear was cut in a fight and when the victim threatened to go to the police, Beausoleil stabbed Hinman twice in the chest.
Another version of the story, told at trial and in interviews with witnesses, said Chuck Summers had ordered Beausoleil and two women, Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins. to take a rumored $20,000 inheritance from Hinman. When the extortion attempt stalled, Chuck showed up with Bruce Davis in tow. Chuck and Hinman argued, Chuck pulled out a sword or bayonet and sliced Hinman’s ear off. He then left with Davis in one of Hinman’s cars. Chuck instructed the others not to let Hinman go until they had the money. What is not disputed is Beausoleil stabbed Hinman. After the stabbing, Beausoleil, Brunner and Atkins took turns holding a pillow over the victim’s face until he died.
In an attempt to throw police onto a false trail, “Political Piggy” was written in Hinman’s blood and the wall marked with a bloody paw print. They were trying to link the Black Panthers to the crime.
Chuck Summers increasingly espoused a philosophy of racial hatred and he had a loose collection of followers, sometimes called family. The family took their name from Chuck’s given surname, Manson.
When word got out that Beausoleil had been arrested, Charles Manson assembled his trusted followers. The plan was to free Beausoleil through a series of gruesome copycat murders. This would convince authorities the wrong man was in prison and could also incite a race war they called Helter Skelter.
On Aug. 8, 1969 the murder spree that would forever define the Manson Family began, with others to follow. Some remain unsolved to this day. The murders would be the focus of intense coverage.
Later Atkins would brag about the Tate-LaBianca murders while in jail for another charge, giving investigators an early window into the workings of the Family.
The Gary Hinman case would be the first known murder linked to the the Manson Family. Beausoleil’s first trial ended in a hung jury, but the second trial returned a conviction on April 21, 1970, and Beausoleil was given a death sentence. He was interviewed by Truman Capote while on Death Row at San Quentin.
Under a 1972 court ruling, the death penalty was overturned. Along with many other convicts, his sentence was changed to life in prison.
Beausoleil was stabbed by other prisoners April 15, 1982, and this was cited in reports as a turning point in his life. Bobby Beausoleil would later distance himself from Manson.
Parole hearings were a regular story in the Telegram-Tribune when Beausoleil became an inmate at CMC, within a few miles of where he was arrested. While in prison, he would get married and become involved in movie and music recording projects, including music for a film called “Lucifer Rising.”

Bobby Beausoleil plays his invention, the syntar. The synthisizer/guitar was made while he was in CMC prison. He was convicted of the murder of Gary Hinman and was an associate of Charles Manson. ©2010 Doug Parker/Telegram-Tribune published 12-13-1984

On Dec. 13, 1984, a story was published of a cheerful looking Beausoleil playing a synthesizer/guitar invention he called the syntar. His circuit designs were featured in a nationally published electronic music magazine, “Polyphony.”
“I would give anything to someday be known as something other than a murderer, ” he said in the Dec. 13, 1984, story.
A year later, allegations of child pornography surfaced after CMC officials discovered drawings and stories Beausoleil had written about spanking and had planned to mail to his wife Barbara. She then lived in Arroyo Grande and published newsletters “Sassy Bottoms” and “Domestic Discipline Digest” according to a Dec. 3, 1986, story. A postal inspector later said the material was not categorized as child pornography.
Prison reports from the 1980s described the convict as intelligent and having a good prison record, but the specter of Charles Manson is in the room at every parole hearing. In a Dec. 10, 1987, story, he said, “I feel like every time I come to one of these hearings, I have Mr. Manson sitting next to me,” he said.
“I despise what the man represents … If I had known about what the man was about then, I wouldn’t have associated with him.”
Psychiatric reports at this hearing were mixed, giving both above and below average violence potential.
When victim advocates protested that three Manson family members were in the same prison, transfers were made. Bruce Davis remains at CMC, while Charles “Tex” Watson and Bobby Beausoleil were transferred.
The most recent story I could find was a 2004 article in San Francisco Weekly which locates Beausoleil at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute in Pendleton, Ore.
Next time you see a CHP car on the Cuesta Grade, remember the Manson Family saga began to unravel there.

SMALL MESH SCREEN HELPS REVEAL CLUES TO PAST LIFE Annamaria Enberg, Nancy Williams, Irene Annoni sift.

Mankind’s curiosity had lead to the first moon landing a few days earlier. Closer to home archeologists were exploring the past. This was an unusual dig, it was not spurred by construction pressure and was a largely volunteer effort. Archeology is often funded by a wealthy patron or if the work has enough general interest, a foundation grant.
An archeological effort funded by PG&E had been started a year earlier at Diablo Canyon in advance of their nuclear power plant construction.
Perceptions have changed since the 1960s. An uncounted number of Native American sites were bulldozed by the freeway and homes in the 1950s.
This was the era before native American site monitors for burial sites.
Paraphrasing the question a site monitor once asked me, ‘Would you like people to dig up your ancestor’s bones and put them on display?’
My answer would be no.
But still I am curious about what life was like here before the Europeans came.
Published July 23, 1969 with a redundant headline.

Pismo Beach
Archeologists probe Pismo site

Pictures and Text
By Mike Raphael

Man hopes to probe the secrets of the universe by digging into the surface of the moon.
But he has not forgotten that the answers to many of his questions about his own planet remain buried right here on earth.
So, he keeps digging for these, too.
One such archeological project is under way on a knoll about 50 yards from the edge of Highway 101 in Pismo Beach.
On April 26, brush was cleared and on May 4 the San Luis Obispo Archaeological Society began digging.
Through its effort, the archaeological society hopes to find out if Chumash Indians lived there throughout the year, or if they were just seasonal residents.
The site is unusual in one important respect, says Jay Von Werlhof, director of the society and a Cal Poly instructor in social sciences:
For the first time known to him archaeologists are not pressed for time to excavate and evaluate a site.
Usually such sites are turned up by construction and are destroyed relatively soon thereafter by grading, digging or paving. This site, on state highway right-of-way next to a fence, is relatively untouched.

A FINGER BONE FOUND SATURDAY IN PISMO BEACH Dr. Charles Dills and an important find.

“We know that there was a large Indian village once here,” Von Werlhof said. We’re trying to find out how the Chumash earned their living. It hasn’t been done before.
“We thought the hill would be all chewed up, but found it still intact,” he added.
The site was discovered by archaeological society member George Duclos, a draftsman with the State Division of Highways who knew that Indian burials had been uncovered in the vicinity of the knoll.
Soil analysis shows that there are burials on the mound and already a few bone fragments have been uncovered.
So far we’ve found some remarkable things,” Von Werlhof said. “We found an ash lens at the one foot layer…the Indians had open campfires then rather than houses, Von Werlhof said.
The deeper 20 or so members and students go, the further back in history they go. At about 1 1/2 feet deep now they are digging in the residue of the early 19th century.
All except Von Werlhof and Dr. Charles Dills, the society chairman and a Cal Poly chemistry professor, are summer quarter Cal Poly students. They dig and sift some eight hours each Saturday and  during the week do laboratory work at Poly, in their homes and at adult evening classes at San Luis Obispo Senior High School.
A “sorely needed” archaeology class will start at Poly in the fall of 1970, Von Werlhof said. No school between San Jose and Santa Barbara has one now.
Findings are now stored in member’s garages. After Poly’s archaeology school begins the society will store materials at the school and will establish displays.
“There will be some kind of museum,” Von Werlhof said.
The society will work through Dec. 31, and, if not satisfied with the knoll study by then, will ask for an extension of the encroachment permit and will continue through 1970.
“It’s possible we’ll spend a full tow years,” Von Werlhof said. “The site is worth it. It’s one of the best training sites and best interpretive sites we could have picked out.”
It’s also the largest undertaking so far for the eight-year-old society which now has 35 active members and 50 associate members living as far away as New York.
“We have to dig deep enough to hit sterile material,” Von Werlhof said. Sterile ground is that layer untouched by human occupation.
“We don’t know how deep we’ll go…we’ll go deep enough, back to before the Spanish came,” he said.
Roughly, one foot of depth is equivalent to 100 years of time.
With whisk brooms and trowels workers carefully trim off less than a quarter inch of soil at a time.
Three feet down, should bring them to the beginning of the Spanish era.
There are four trial pits. Before they finish, there will be 15 pits. Several dump trucks of earth will be dug up, piled on the edge, then backfilled to leave the knoll as it was before the digging.
Werlhof expects to dig down about six feet in all, sifting 1,000’s of pounds of soil through screens, to retrieve the small bits that will tell the story of the Indians’ stay.
The screen are mesh, composed of 1/2-inch to 1/16th-inch squares.
The operation is divided into phases:
First, the site is divided into one-meter squares  with one man in charge of each pit who keeps his own notes.
Next, material is screened and sorted, then cataloged, classified and entered into a log book.
The final phase is the storage of all artifacts for later study, analysis, and preparation of a report.
So far the site has shown that the Chumash in Pismo were fishermen and shell gatherers.
But shell fish are not in season throughout the year, and all peoples have to have varied diets.
So if the society finds evidence of structures such as hearth stones or post holes, this will indicate that the Chumash lived in Pismo the year round at some period of their history.
The Chumash, the most advanced of the California tribes, were highly developed artisans and artists.
They inhabited the coastline from Old Creek in Cayucos south to Topanga Canyon along the Malibu Coast and in San Luis Obispo County as far inland as the Carrisa Plains.
The archaeological society, responsible for Chumash discoveries in this county, is most interested in the North Coast Chumash who lived from Old Creek to Point Sal directly oceanward from Guadalupe.
Findings at the Pismo site will be compared to those found at a Shell Beach site dug last winter. Here a considerable amount of fishing gear, shells and evidence of hunting was found in four-foot-deep excavations. Skeletons of a woman and a dog were found there also.
The Chumash prized abalone, traded often by coastal Indians for obsidian and other substances not available here. So abalone is seldom found at coastal sites.
Last Saturday an abalone hook, perhaps used for shore fishing, was found. Bone awls and needles have been found.
The site had already been linked to northern villages because of materials turned up here that are not native to Pismo Beach. Chert, a dense, red rock, has been found. It is used for knives and scrapers and was quarried by Indians at Prefumo Canyon.
The site, one of 535 discovered in this county, was officially reported in 1955. Perhaps by 1971 the answer to the society’s question will be found.
One concern of the society is to convince the public not to vandalize or destroy such sites, and to build respect for such study.
“A site is like a page in a book..it’s irreplaceable,” Von Werlhof said.

If anyone knows the results of the study, or where the artifacts are please post a comment. For a look at how times have changed when Native American remains are uncovered there is an story published today in The Tribune by reporter Melanie Cleveland and photographer Jayson Mellom.

August 5, 1969

It was a horse of a different logo that practiced at Mustang Stadium in the summer 1969. Still smarting  from a upset loss in Super Bowl III, the then Baltimore Colts practiced in San Luis Obispo.
The brash Joe Namath and the New York Jets were Super Bowl champions and the Colts were trying to get back.
They would return to the big game and win Super Bowl V over Dallas in 1971.
Johnny Unitas is remembered as a hall of fame quarterback but a 1968 injury hampered his abilities  and he alternated playing time in both Super Bowl games with Earl Morrall who was the NFL Most Valuable Player in ‘68.
The first day of 1969 practice was brutal, a record 104 degree temperature was recorded that day and the players practiced without pads.  Coach Don Shula and 58 players for the NFL champions ran drills and later signed autographs.
About 500 fans turned out to watch drills that included rookies Ted Hendricks, linebacker, Eddie Hinton, wide receiver, and Tom Maxwell defensive back.  Preston Pearson had a broken left foot and was out. Practices were twice a day at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
The Colts had just come from an exhibition game against San Diego and had another planned in Oakland next weekend. After two weeks on the Central Coast, including watching the second annual California State Women’s Physical Education Teachers Pool Tournament at Mustang Tavern, they headed into the season. The season began in Houston against the Oilers, where the Baltimore Colts won 32-29 scoring on an Earl Morrell touchdown pass to Willie Richardson with three seconds left on the clock.

On August 8 the paper published comments from a Lions Club lunch.
How often does a major league general manager do this today?

Colts’ general manager:
team underrated Namath

By Dave Verbon
T-T Sports Writer

Wherever he goes, he waits for the bomb. It is inevitable, so Baltimore Colts general manager Harry Holmes took the offensive at the Day Lions luncheon Thursday and gave his impressions of the Super Bowl before anyone had a chance to ask.
“After last January it (the game, which the Colts lost to the underdog Jets 16-7) was topic number one,” he said. “Everybody wanted to know what happened. Well, I’ll tell you what happened — I don’t know what happened.”
“When you’re down, you’ll get outplayed, but I felt we were ready for this game. We played an underrated team and an underrated quarterback.”
“Namath showed us something. He’s got the quickest reaction of any quarterback in the game. His mind and his hands react at the same time to the defense.”
And speaking of defense, Holmes admitted the Jets had “out-defensed” the Colts. He said the defense simply didn’t play the game it was capable of, and “who’s to tell why?”
One thing that surprised the Colts in the game, he said, was the Jets’ ability to run against the right side of the Colts.
“Our right side turned out to be a weak spot,” he said. Other teams tried all year to run there and couldn’t, but the Jets did.”
He said the team would naturally like to have another crack at Namath and the Jets next January, particularly considering the Colts heart-breaking record the past two years. Two years ago, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams in a play-off game after the Colts had compiled a far-superior season record.
What does the team think of San Luis Obispo?
“We couldn’t ask for more cooperation,” he said, “and the weather has been great.”
“When we left Baltimore, we had 10 straight days of intermittent rain, and the humidity was always up around 90 percent. I really feel sorry for the guys when they have to work out with their pads in weather like that. You sit around hoping for cloudy days.”
“Normally at this time of the season we wouldn’t be pressing the veterans into two-a-day sessions, but with this weather we’re able to teach them things they wouldn’t normally get until later.”
The practice sessions at Cal Poly are also giving the coaches their first opportunity to see the team’s rookies that played in the all-star game last week.
“We’re trying to mix in the new blood with the veterans,” he said. “The nucleus of the team right now is formed around the 1963 draft — that was the big one.”
“The older guys are dropping by the wayside now. Unitas is the only guy left from that 1958 overtime win over the New York Giants. We’re playing with two ancient quarterbacks. Unitas is 36 and Morrall is 37.”
Rookies have been a bit of a problem this year, he said.
“Three of them were out before the physicals were over, and you can’t hardly get out much sooner than that,” he said.
“They are just not convinced they have got to be in shape. Some of them think they’ve got to put on as much weight as possible and showed up 20 to 25 pounds over. They’re always the ones that protest they’ve been mistreated when they’re let go.”
Holmes then told about some of the “super Colts” past and  present.
On Johnny Unitas:
“He is valuable not only to the Colts, but to all of pro football. This game was just on the rise in the early fifties, but his performance in the 1958 sudden death overtime game really aided the whole game. It was the first great game played on television.”
On Jim Parker:
“He was in a constant battle with the scales. Players get fined $10 for every pound they’re overweight, and there’s no better place to hurt a player than the pocketbook. Once when the weighed 282 and wanted to get down to 275, he dressed in a rubber suit, got in his car, closed all the windows, turned on the heater and drove for 20 miles. He might have made it, but just before weigh-in, he ate dinner and still came in three pounds over. He was a fantastic tackle, though.”
On Alex Hawkins:
“He was a player who went a long way with what he had. He retired from the game this year while he was a free agent. He refused to sign a contract and had played out his option. When he did he didn’t get a postcard from any other teams. He was already as retired as he could get, but held a two-day press conference to announce it anyway. He was one of the game’s great characters. We miss Hawkins, he kept things loose.”
On John Mackey:
“His switch to fullback lasted about two days. It didn’t work for three reasons. He didn’t like it, Terry Cole came back and he got hurt. We decided we’ve got to keep him up on the line where he won’t be so vulnerable and can stay in one piece.

The photos were by Michael Raphael. If anyone recognizes the players post a comment, these were uncaptioned when they ran in the then Telegram-Tribune.

Surfing has been a part of the Central Coast for decades. The oldest local surf photo I can find is from the 1930’s and three decades later the sport had matured. With no local surf board company in the area brothers Reeve, 23, and Mark Woolpert, 20, stepped into the void, shaping styrofoam blanks in a small garage. Both had been in the waves for almost 10 years each and had found a way to double their investment in $35 blanks. The boards were custom shaped and times were a-changing according to the story by Sandy Roest.

Two years ago, boards averaged about 10 feet in length and 25 pounds in weight. This was considered light when compared to the 180 ound redwood boards used by the legendary Duke Kahanamoku n 1925, the man who brought surfing to the West Coast.
As of about 18 months ago, the new “short boards” came in. They average about eight feet and 12 pounds.
“The surfer wanted more maneuverability,” said Reeve tossing long sunbleached hair away from his tanned face.
“It’s a completely new philosophy of surfers. I guess its a funny word to use, philosophy, but it has to do with the fact that surfers want to move around on the waves more. They used to ride a wave straight, now they want to move up and down them. You’re always turning on these boards. The shortness and shape of the board–more a pointed nose that kicks up — makes the board go faster.”
“Why surf a short board?” puzzled Mark. “Why do you eat breakfast? If you like it you like it.”

I noticed the other day that the Craft Center at Cal Poly had ripped out the photographic darkroom and replaced it with a surfboard shaping area. Do I miss working in a darkroom? Those stinky chemicals? The hours spent working over a few images? Did I mention stinky chemicals that ruined your clothes? The expensive photographic paper and film? Oh yea, and mixing up the stinky chemicals?
I miss it a little.

Photo by Larry Jamison.
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Any surfers remember the early days? Post a comment.
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If anyone has a nice like new spare Jaguar like the one pictured at the bottom of the page feel free to donate it to me. Drop it off at the Tribune parking lot c/o David Middlecamp.
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Also on the page:

‘Star Trek’ crew faces lovely enemy

William Shatner and De Forest Kelley are threatened with death on a hostile planet on “Star Trek” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday on Channels 6 and 8.
Leonard Nemoy, aboard the Enterprise, and Shatner on the barren planet, face the enemy–a beautiful girl who is capable of exploding every cell in the human body.

Woe to her boyfriend if he forgets Valentine’s Day.