Moving from Boston / Cape Cod – to Greenwich Village in NYC, a whole new world was opening up. I would hear Timothy Leary say “tune in, turn on and drop out.”
Right before my eyes, friends where in a suit and tie one week, THEN the next week, long hair a dazed look and experimenting with whatever.
NYC was a blast, it was a whole new scene – a bunch of us would dress up like it was Halloween & go out to dinner – tell the waiters “no ‘silverware and eat like Vikings. No one looked twice, it was the beginning of the ‘what ever era. I just had to be part of the ‘happenings’.
Hearing from friends that San Francisco was even crazier, after spending the summer on Cape Cod, it was time for a new adventure. I boarded (snuck) on a plane for the West Coast as a stowaway… with a little help from my friends (that would be stewardesses). Landing in Orange County, John Wayne country, I quickly figured out it was not for me. I was getting tickets for jaywalking & side glances for long hair.
So I called my friend, Mikey, asking him to drive my car out to the west coast. He arrived, I jumped in the car and up the coast we traveled, San Francisco bound.
Stopping in Big Sur for a few days because of mud slides on route one, I finally came to realize the lure of the West Coast.
Wow, Big Sur, THEN and NOW proved to be my most favorite place on Earth. Next stop San Francisco!
Living in the Mission District, with four guys, in a one room apartment, and looking for work. One of the guys knew Barry Anderson & his Vietnam friend John Bulka. I am now working in a boiler room selling house siding on the phone, oy vay.
Barry had some silk screen experience & John was a master builder of any thing, so we started. I borrowed $200.00 and we where off. There where no catalogs, no directions, no one to give advice. John built printing tables & ovens using light bulbs and wood scraps from the hood.
Barry did all the original art work by hand, cutting out designs with ‘ruby-lith’ to make the silk screens. I was into finance ideas and sales. I was still
pretty intense from my East Coast years, but we knew we where on to something!
Those were the roots of Hip-O-Potamus. Born back THEN in 1970.
