Terra
Linda
Kevin
Langdon
published
in Noesis, the journal of the Mega
Society, #177, June 2005
“Terra
Linda” is Latin/Spanish for “
beautiful
land,” and the valley of
that
name is indeed
beautiful
—but
it
was more
beautiful
before
it
got
excessively
built-up, after the time to
which
this account refers, the mid-to-
late
1950’s (
even
the signature oak at the freeway exit is
long
gone).
They
’d spoken about
moving
to the suburbs, but
I
was shocked when my mom and dad
told
me
that
we were
moving
from our house on
Rockdale
Drive
in
San Francisco
to
Marin
County
, north of
San Francisco
, across the
Golden Gate
Bridge
. This
would
uproot
my
whole
life,
except
my
relationships
with
family
and a few
family
friends
, and
I
was both
apprehensive
and
excited
about the
prospect
at the
same
time.
Instead
of attending
Aptos
Junior
High
School
in
San Francisco
I
would
be in the 7th grade in a K-8 country
school
which
had
suddenly
become a transplanted city
school
, because
most
of the kids belonged to
families
who
had
moved
in to this
new
subdivision of tract homes.
When
we
moved
in construction was still going on.
I
remember
seeing bulldozers rumbling by where
back
fences had not yet been built behind our house. There was dust everywhere.
It
was a joke around Terra Linda
that
the name
meant
“
pretty
dirty
.”
Construction
was
an
overwhelming
presence
for our first few months in the valley, not
only
at home but at
school
and in the surrounding area where we kids
used
to
play
. The construction sites and large equipment exerted a
certain
fascination, alongside our social microcosm and the
natural
world of the creek, the fields, the trees, and the hills.
Some
of us
just
played around the
new
construction but other kids vandalized
it
.
The
small
country
school
was a shock, with several grades together in
one
classroom. There was
only
one
eighth-grader, Tom Hurwitz, and
some
fifth- and sixth-graders along with the four or five of us seventh-graders. At
the rehearsal for the graduation ceremony at the
end
of the first year,
I
tied Tom’s shoelaces together. When he
got
up to
give
his speech he
moved
his feet in
tiny
little
steps and everybody laughed (especially Tom). Incredibly,
I
didn’t
get
in trouble. Tom went on to be the star of the golf team at
San Rafael
High
School
.
Dennie
B. Willis, the sadistic
principal
of the
school
, doubled as a
part
-time classroom teacher. He was unfair, punitive, and vindictive (and a lousy
teacher, too).
I
hated
his authoritarian
rule
and rebelled against
it
at every
opportunity
. But
I
was also a “
traffic
boy,”
charged
with
keeping
kids safe going to and from our
school
.
It
was
interesting
work
and
I
enjoyed
it
.
My
father was President of the
school
board for
that
small
suburban district. The
school
district was having
severe
growing pains and he felt
that
he needed to
get
involved
. He was a hospital administrator and had
very
strong
organizational
skills
. Under his direction the
problems
began
to
get
resolved
.
My
dad
wanted
my sister and
me
to
experience
a
less
urban lifestyle, and he
definitely
succeeded
in
that
.
I
have many
memories
of
roaming
the hills,
lying
in the grass, and rafting in the creek, where frogs were everywhere. Sometimes
I
explored the area with
some
of the other kids but
most
of the time
I
was
alone
. This
gave
me
lots
of time for reflection.
There
was still a
working
farm on
one
side of the creek. A
couple
of times
some
of us
got
into the large barn where there was
some
machinery
that
ran
on
tracks
, for
moving
supplies around. We played with the machinery but we didn’t do any
damage
.
Among
the kids my
age
, there were two
who
were particularly
physically
able and charismatic and two groups formed around them.
I
was in the group surrounding Joe Melton, the son of
an
Air
Force
officer. The other group
centered
around Ralph “Biff”
Moore
and tended to be more rebellious. (
It
certainly wasn’t
typical
of
me
to be on the more
conservative
team anywhere, but
I
was in this
case
.)
At
that
time, the
Air
Force
had a stunt-flying team
called
the Sabre Knights.
I
saw them
perform
at Hamilton
Air
Force
Base
,
just
a few miles up Highway 101 (this
base
was
closed
many years ago). Joe
organized
some
of us into a group, also
called
“the Sabre Knights,”
which
rode bicycles in formation. We practiced
quite
a bit and
got
pretty
good at
it
(but, of
course
, the wild wheels-off-the-ground
maneuvers
common
today were practically unknown
then
).
My
two
great
loves
during
that
period
were Joe’s sister Pam and Toni Guerrero.
I
took
Toni to a dance once but
I
never really
got
anywhere with either of them.
Such
were the trials of a young
nerd
. Toni became Biff’s girlfriend and Pam
got
involved
with Tom Rundberg,
who
lived across the street from us.
There
was a
vacant
house not far from Toni’s house where the kids
used
to
hang
out.
Some
of those
who
had coupled up
used
to kiss and make out there. In addition to Biff and Toni and Tom and Pam, Joe
was
involved
with Toni’s sister Ramona (“Mo”).
I
had no partner and was the
odd
man out. Because of this, on a day when the rest of the kids were there but Pam
hadn’t arrived yet,
someone
had the
bright
idea
of sending
me
to fetch Pam.
I
walked over to the Meltons’ house. When
I
got
there and
asked
for Pam, her mother
asked
me
what was going on.
I
was
annoyed
by the situation, especially being sent to fetch a girl
I
liked for another guy.
I
remember
my
exact
words: “Joe’s kissing Mo, Biff’s kissing To,
and Tom’s
waiting
impatiently to kiss Pam.” “
Well
, he
can
keep
on
waiting
!”
replied
Mrs. Melton. The other kids were mad at
me
for a while but
they
knew
they
’d had
it
coming and the
incident
was soon
forgotten
.
Tom
and
I
were
friends
, too. We
used
to
get
together to
play
and invent
games
. Tom’s father and mother were Swedish immigrants.
Per
Rundberg, the father, was a
loud
,
obnoxious
drunk
who
went to parties and hit on the women; my dad
saved
him from
getting
punched out for
it
on more
than
one
occasion
. What
I
didn’t know but found out
one
evening was
that
when he
got
drunk
enough
he groped children too.
I
got
out of there
very
quickly
. In retrospect,
I
should
have gone to the police.
On
another
occasion
,
I
was visiting Tom in front of his house. He had a basket flimsily
attached
to the front of his bike with
some
wire.
I
was
trying
to
fix
the wire
so
that
the basket
would
be
attached
more securely but
I
cut the wire in the
wrong
place and
it
came
loose
. Tom
started
to cry and
just
then
his father came out the front door. He
asked
Tom what was going on and he said, “Kevin cut my bike wire!”
At
that
,
Per
hauled off and hit
me
on the side of the head.
I
got
up and
told
him to
fuck
himself. He came
toward
me
again and
I
ran
across the street to my house. As
I
ran
in the front door
I
heard him raging at my mom and dad and
they
told
him to
stick
it
, too, in somewhat more
polite
language. After we’d
discussed
the situation, my dad said
that
I
shouldn’t have
used
such
bad language but
that
he was
proud
of
me
for
standing
up to Mr. Rundberg. After
that
,
I
wasn’t allowed to
play
at the Rundbergs’ any more. Once again,
I
should
have gone to the police.
Later
, after
they
grew up, Tom and Pete became Scientologists and had
their
parents
declared
“suppressive persons” by the
Church
of
Scientology
.
We
had two
very
satisfactory cats in Terra Linda,
Pussy
Willow, a female tabby, and Furry Purry, a part
-Persian
grey
neutered male with
long
thick
grey
hair.
Pussy
Willow was a fearsome huntress and
brought
home many of her trophies; Furry Purry was a lover,
not a fighter.
While
we lived in Terra Linda, my dad bought a 28-foot cabin cruiser.
It
was his pride and joy and the
family
would
go boating on many weekends,
weather
permitting.
I
hated
it
.
I
was
afraid
of being at
close
quarters with my dad for hours on
end
(because he
would
sometimes
get
mad at
me
and
I
’d have no place to
get
away from him; he was never abusive,
just
strict
, and sometimes
wrong
according
to my
perceptions
at the time,
some
of
which
seem more
accurate
than
others in retrospect), often seasick, and bored out of my mind.
It
took
a
lot
of boring
maintenance
work
, too.
There
were two “bad” girls, Cathy and Barbara, in our
school
.
They
fought and cursed and were rumored to do other things.
One
day Cathy had a
fit
over something and climbed up to the top of the water tower on the hill near
our
school
and threatened to jump to her death. The sheriff’s department and the fire
department came out in
force
.
It
was
quite
a circus and Cathy had her day in the
center
ring.
The
next day, Barbara did the
exact
same
thing.
One
day Tom’s brother Pete and
I
were
roaming
around in the hills. Cathy’s brother Brian and two of his
friends
were in the
same
general area and
they
vandalized
some
construction equipment.
They
were apprehended by the sheriff’s department. Brian
told
them
that
we had done
most
of the
damage
and
they
were
just
following
our
lead
, and Pete and
I
were picked up by a sheriff’s car.
There
were two deputies in the car and
they
tried
to pressure us into “
confessing
.” “Those other boys were man
enough
to
confess
,” said
one
of the deputies, and Pete Rundberg
started
to cry.
I
didn’t feel
like
crying.
I
was angry at this
injustice
. The deputies
released
us into the custody of our parents.
That
evening
it
developed
that
a
friend
of our
family
, Dorothy Brown, the mother of my sister’s and my
friends
Craig and Bonnie, had seen the
whole
thing out her kitchen window. Brian was
exposed
as the liar he was, and Pete and
I
were
vindicated
(naturally, the pigs didn’t
apologize
).
The
next day, Craig and
I
were riding our bicycles when we spotted Brian on his bike. We
chased
the
little
rat a
couple
of miles to the
cemetery
, where he
gave
us the
slip
.
Then
,
that
evening, my mom
got
an
angry
call
from Brian’s mom;
it
seems
that
he’d ridden his bicycle several miles
further
and
then
called
her to pick him up. Oddly
enough
, my mom wasn’t
very
sympathetic to the mother of the rat.
While
we lived in Terra Linda we attended
Mass
at Blessed Sacrament Church. The pastor was a priest with a fondness for
liquor. My father
called
him Father Red Nose and made
fun
of his
hypocrisy
and stupidity, as when he
railed
about the people
who
didn’t come to
mass
on Sunday to the people
who
did.
As
the years went by my dad became more and more
cynical
about
religion
and he eventually
abandoned
it
altogether
.
I
could
see his point about the external form, but
that
wasn’t what
interested
me
.
I
felt something in church, something
that
I
couldn’t
explain
, but
it
was the stirring of what
later
became a search for something
greater
than
my
ordinary
day-to-day
experience
and led to a
number
of
interesting
discoveries beyond the
scope
of this account.
I
graduated
from the 8th grade in 1956 and
I
was off to
San Rafael
High
School
. Our
family
moved
from Terra Linda to
Lucas
Valley
, the next valley north,
an
Eichler development
which
had
avoided
some
of the
mistakes
that
had been made in Terra Linda (overdevelopment, poor construction, inferior
floor
plans
, etc.).
Kevin
Langdon Biographical Data
Polymath
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