For years I’ve had a strange feeling looking at these pictures, not a dirty feeling—nothing to do with sexuality or relations—but the same feeling you get when you’re high up on a mountain, breathing that pure air, the way it is over by Big Basin Park, where the redwoods are, and the mountain streams. We used to go hunting around in those redwoods, even though naturally it’s illegal to hunt in a state or Federal park. We’d get a couple of deer, now and then. The guns we used weren’t mine, though. I borrowed the one I used from Harvey St. James.

Usually when there’s anything worth doing, all three of us, myself and St. James and Bob Paddleford, do it together, using St. James’ ‘57 Ford convertible with the double pipes and twin spots and dropped rearend. It’s quite a car, known all around Seville and Santa Cruz; it’s gold-colored, that baked on enamel, with purple trim that we did by hand. And we used moulded fiber-glass to get those sleek lines. It looks more like a rocket ship than a can; it has that look of outer space and velocities nearing the speed of light.

For a really big time, where we go is across the Sierras to Reno; we leave late Friday, when St. James gets off from his job selling suits at Hapsberg’s Menswear, shoot over to San Jose and pick up Paddleford—he works for Shell Oil, down in the blueprint department—and then we’re off to Reno. We don’t sleep Friday night at all; we get up there late and go right to work playing the slots or blackjack. Then around ten o’clock Saturday morning we take a snooze in the car, find a washroom to shave and change our shirts and ties, and then we’re off looking for women. You can always find that kind of women around Reno; it’s a really filthy town.

I actually don’t enjoy that part too much. It plays no role in my life, any more than any other physical activity. Even to look at me you’d recognize that my main energies are in the mind.