<50 Years Ago>
The strains between the hip and the straight communities in the San Geronimo Valley have erupted into gunfire and arson. A committee will attempt to cool things off. Shirley’s Cafe, a gathering place for the hips, has been the target of the violence. Co-owner Richard Green said shots have been fired through his windows and somebody tried to burn down the place by setting fire to a trash bin wedged up against the door. At a meeting which drew 200 Valley residents and a score of county officials, the straights gave vent to their anger, some people even applauding when Green mentioned the arson and gunfire. But in the end it was agreed that a committee be formed to get the rival factions together. Supervisor Bud Baar, certainly no friend of long-hairs, said that peace would come only when everybody respected the rights of others. —Newsgram, April 23, 1969
<40 Years Ago>
Synanon likes to sue newspapers. In recent years its bustling legal department has filed suits and/or demands for retraction from coast to coast. Targets have included the Chronicle, the Kansas City Star, Time magazine, the Pacific Sun and oddly, even the I-J, which often sounds like a Synanon house organ. . . . The Pulitzer citation said the [Point Reyes] Light “ . . . had found evidence of [Synanon] beatings, of hoarding of weapons, of revenge attacks and other legal and extra-legal goings on.” It was coverage of these events which prompted Senator Peter Beher to praise the Light glowingly when he ran into [co-publisher] Dave Mittchell outside the Inverness Store last Thanksgiving. “I told him that considering the quality of your writing, and the risk you are running, somebody ought to nominate you for the Pulitzer Prize,” remembers Beher. —Steve McNamara, April 20, 1979
<30 Years Ago>
There will probably come a day when we look upon television with nostalgia.
God forbid. —April 21, 1989
Compiled by Alex Randolph
