Paddy O'Sullivan

Saturday, September 29, 1979 to Sunday, July 22, 1991

On a Saturday afternoon in 1979, I was working outdoors with a pick and shovel, making steps out of railroad ties on the hillside below my house.  A jolly man staggered slowly up the driveway.  With long whitish hair and beard, he looked like Santa Claus.  Holding out one arm, he said, "Can I lend you a hand?"

I stared down at that arm.  He had no hand.

"Oops, sorry," the man said.  "I meant the other hand.  This one was eaten by a tiger."

Paddy at Apple Jack's, 1978

That was my introduction to Paddy O'Sullivan (Padraig or Padreic or Padreac — I've seen it spelled each of those ways).  On that particular day, he actually helped me move one railroad tie before he realized that I wasn't a soft touch for cadging a drink.  

Paddy was by nature a performer.  He claimed that his career began at the age of four as a character in the "Our Gang" movies, tipping his hat on film with the same gesture as he tipped at age sixty-four.  Whether or not he truly started as a Little Rascal, he became a bigger one.

He could show you a newspaper article from 1957 with the headline MAN HATCHES OSTRICH EGG.  That man was Paddy.



His mother had a theatrical career, or so he said.  He had a pair of pistols called the Naked Ladies.

In San Francisco Paddy had been living with the poet Bob Kaufman in North Beach, just across the street from City Lights Bookstore.  Kaufman was an improvisational jazz poet who would riff and recite on sidewalks, even sticking his head into people's cars.

Bob and Paddy both were in a downward spiral.  A young woman who had befriended Paddy finally got him out of there, drove him to La Honda, and set him loose here the way people abandon dogs and cats hoping somebody will adopt them. Those dogs and cats often wind up on my doorstep, so it's fitting that Paddy appeared there as well.  Don't blame the young lady, by the way.  She gave Paddy "a couple years' worth of re-invigoration," as she put it.  "He had really crawled into a shell when I met him.  He gave me a couple of years of entertainment, and that's what he was, basically, all his life, an entertainer."

For a while in La Honda, Paddy was a squatter in Ken Kesey's old cabin, which was vacant, floorless, and basically unlivable at the time. Then he rented a garage and promptly got kicked out. He ended up occupying a trailer below my house.  The trailer was owned by a man who was preparing for an invasion by space aliens.


Paddy wore a cape.  He published a thin chapbook of poetry: Weep Not My Children.  Though he'd lived for years at the world center of beatnik culture, he insisted he was not a Beat.  Similar to Bob Kaufman, Paddy would recite anywhere at any time.  He once barged into a private birthday party, stood on the table with the cake, and recited wretched poems until he was finally shoved out.


Paddy spent most of his days and nights at the bar in Apple Jack's where a photo of him, full color, framed, hung on the wall.  Claude and Kayla, the owners, kept a benevolent eye on him.

The last time I interacted with Paddy was in 1991.  A hot July night, sleeping with the windows open, around midnight I heard cursing from the street below my house.  At 5 a.m. I heard more cursing — and a voice crying "Would somebody please help me?"  Outside, at the base of those railroad tie stairs, I found Paddy lying tangled in blackberry vines: confused, lost, unable to stand.  He'd been there since midnight.  "Why did you fill my home with brambles?" he said.

"You're not in your trailer," I said.  "You're in my blackberry patch."  

I couldn't raise him to his feet by myself, but a patrol car pulled up.  The sheriff's deputy said, "Is it Paddy again?"

The deputy stood over Paddy and said, "You're getting too damn old for this shit."

Paddy said, "I only had a couple of beers.  I think I had a heart attack.  Flutters.  There's a respirator in my trailer.  Just take me home."

"Paddy," the deputy said, "last week you got lost in your own woodpile.  I'm calling an ambulance."

In retrospect, I'm amazed that Paddy helped me move that one railroad tie back in 1979.  I must be a pretty good contractor to have gotten that much work out of him.  He'd been hoping for a beer, but I had none to give.

Paddy could only be happy at the center of a three ring circus where he could read his poetry while wearing his cape and hat.  La Honda is a one ring circus, but it was the best he could find. 

Paddy, I'm a little late, but this beer's for you.

Guest Blogger: James Adams, cabinetmaker

Moon Rocks

The town of La Honda is populated by a remarkable collection of erudite cranks, of whom James Adams is a prime example.  James is a cabinetmaker by trade.   I've worked several jobs with him.  James can tell you tales about riding a Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle, about psychedelic research, about 30 years of coaching soccer (he was the model for the character of the Harley-riding pistol-packing soccer coach in Boone Barnaby).  He's also an astronomy freak with what is probably the biggest home-made telescope in La Honda.  Recently he wrote about a job which didn't involve me but that fits well with the themes of this blog: pride of craft, fatherhood, the random humor of life.  And moon rocks.  Here's how James tells it:

Some completely unremarkable junk, except that it came from the moon, has gone missing. Well, a very small weight of the stuff was presented by the U.S. Government to various screwball heads of state, Fascists and/or totalitarian and/or democratic leaders who were at the time considered "our friends."

Appropriately to how these deserving elder stewards of democracy valued these unique and timeless gifts from the most advanced and powerful society the world has ever seen, the rocks became paperweights, doorstops, and, frequently, trash.

One such treasure was rescued from a burning foreign government building, moments before being bulldozed. Had it wound up in the landfill, it would have disappeared like snow on the water. Unfortunately, it was rescued by someone who realized its intrinsic worth.

Better for him that it had sunk without a ripple. A U.S. Government Agency was on the case. End of story, there.

My connection: in 1970 I was working in Mountain View for a cabinetmaker, an older guy who had been a woodworker all his life, and who belonged to the WIC, the Woodworking Institute of California. This allowed him to do work for the U.S. Government and NASA Ames and such. 

We did jobs for the Atomic Energy Commission, non-magnetic fasteners throughout, mostly vertical-grain fir, classical joinery, like that. Don Sigman, the owner, assigned me to build a shallow box, covered inside and out with plastic laminate [think, Formica]. Maybe 42" wide, 24" front-to-back inside, and maybe 12" deep. With black wrought iron legs.

I was to deliver it to NASA Ames Research at Moffett Field, which was located about two miles from our shop.

The Marine guard wouldn't let me in because I had long hair. I asked him to give me a note to give my boss saying that he wouldn't let me in.

When he asked his superiors, of course, he had to pass me. Looks to kill.

Cut to 1974, taking my stepsons to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. There's the display case, with a plastic lid, with the moon rocks on display!

Oh, la.

J. Adams

Note from Joe C:  Has anybody been to the San Francisco Exploratorium lately?  Are the moon rocks (and the display cabinet) still there?  I wish I had a photo.

Edit:  March 25, 2012  If you want more, I've added a profile of James Adams to my Clear Heart blog.  Here's the link.

Oops

Tuesday, November 29, 1983

As the final task of a 10 hour day, I install a cheapo lock on a sliding glass door which requires drilling a ¼" hole.  I have to guess how far the glass is set into the metal frame because of course I don't want the drill bit to hit the embedded —

Aak!

Did you know that if a drill bit nicks the corner of a 3'x6' sheet of tempered glass, the entire pane shatters into tiny pieces and falls at your feet like a mound of crushed ice?

Mrs. Klein, the homeowner and a very nice lady, tells me that they had to replace another sliding glass window, and it cost $250.  She seems truly distressed that I'll have to pay.  She already feels guilty that I'm spending my time working for her instead of writing the Great American Novel, which she assumes I could do.  But of course the broken pane is entirely my fault and my responsibility.  

I'm angry.  With no one to blame.  My total earnings for 10 hours of work was to be $250.

Back home I have two ways to deal with anger.  First, I decide that this would be the perfect evening to refinish the kitchen floor on my knees with a belt-sander while the stereo is blasting loud rock and roll.  The music is essential as it becomes embedded in the oak floorboards along with the finish oil to create special thumping patterns of grain.

Secondly, I write a poem.  Don't underestimate poetry as a way to cope with anger — especially nonprofessional, nonacademic, sadly not-up-to-critical-standards poetry which of course is my specialty.  I compose poems the way most people sing karaoke: as an amateur, with gusto.  

Oops

In one second a calm pool of glass freezes
crackling under my feet
a day's pay
in one second the slip of a drill bit
Minnesota sunrise
shattered
shocked like a duck I stare
what became of my pretty pond?
My feathers ruffle
I squawk
I wish I could fly south
north
anywhere but here with Makita drill in hand
smoking pistol
decoys in a line bobbing
glass explodes
in my hair, my shoes, down my neck
hard shards
I wish I could shake like water off my back.
What evil hunter
do I blame
in this ambush?

The next morning as I report for work in my tool belt, Mrs. Klein greets me at her front door:  "I talked it over with my husband, and we agreed not to charge you for the broken window.  He says the house insurance will probably cover it."

"Probably," she said.  I love that.  Every homeowner's insurance policy has a deductible, and it is surely higher than $250.  Bless you, Mr. and Mrs. Klein.

What I get out of the whole incident are a long day's pay, a refinished kitchen floor and, for better or worse, a poem.  And one thing more: the kiss of human kindness.

But for Fortune

Wednesday, February 2, 1994

Religious quotations cover the walls; open Bibles appear on every table.  I'm here to install a drop-down ladder to the attic and then add a few lights.

I better watch my mouth, I'm thinking.  No cussing today.  So first thing, I drop an 8 foot ladder which bangs my shin and puts a dent in her oak floor, and I shout: "FUCKING SHIT!"

I'm hopping on one foot, holding my shin with both hands, as Dottie rushes into the hallway.  "Are you all right?"

Dottie is a perky blonde, cute, chipmunk cheeks.  Her chunky black eyeglasses combined with a bit of extra body weight almost disguise the fact that she is still a great-looking woman.  I've known her for years — 14 years, in fact, since our kids were in a playgroup together in La Honda.  She and her husband recently moved to Palo Alto.  This is my first time inside her house. 

"I'm not broken," I say, still hopping, "but it hurts like, um, heck and now there's a dent in the floor.  Sorry about the cussing."

"Forget the floor," Dottie says.  "Let me look at your leg."

I stop hopping.  She leans close.  Already a bruise is visible.  To my amazement, she leans even closer and kisses the bruise. 

She stands up straight.  "Did that hurt?  Or help?  It always worked on my kids."

"It helped."  I'm not kidding.  Awesome, the amazing healing power of lips and spit.  Temporary pain relief, at least.

"My kids didn't have so much hair," Dottie says, wiping her mouth.

"Sorry," I say.

"You can't help it if you're a grown-up," Dottie says. 

The conversation has taken an odd turn, and we both know it.  Dottie walks to another part of the house.  I return to work.

Dottie's impulsive.  She plunges into things, and it's usually for the best.  She's the one who started a preschool playgroup in La Honda, which is how I met her.  It was quickly obvious to me — and everyone else — that she had no idea how to run a playgroup, so other parents soon took charge, and Dottie bowed out.  You could say she failed as a leader, but in fact she created a group that became a La Honda institution. 

My second involvement with Dottie came when I volunteered to supervise the La Honda swimming pool.  Dottie had been running it for the last 6 years and was delighted to hand it over.  "Do you know anything about swimming pools?" she asked.

"No.  Nothing."

"Me neither.  But somebody has to do it.  You'll find yourself making decisions you are totally incompetent to make.  You'll look to the sky and say, 'Why me, Lord?' but nobody will help and you'll just have to decide."

She was absolutely right.  I ended up taking charge of remodeling the entire pool and rebuilding the filter plant because it simply had to be done.

Both Dottie and I served on the Board of Directors, which was La Honda's town government.  At one point I wanted to allow kids from the Glenwood Camp to swim in the town pool as a reward for their help in cleaning the place up.  To my surprise, the Board of Directors was opposed to the idea.  La Honda was always an outlaw town, former headquarters of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, frequent gathering spot for Hells Angels, and long ago a hideout for the Jesse James gang — but in 1983 La Honda was run by a conservative group of old farts.  "We don't want those kids in our town," they said.  "Those kids," of course, were juvenile delinquents and — worse — most of them were nonwhite.

"I know those kids," I said.  "I grew up among people like that.  There but for fortune go you or I."

"Amen," Dottie said.

We were outvoted, 7 to 2.  (That was the last gasp of the old guard.)

Somebody told me that Dottie and her husband, both devout Christians, had experimented with wife-swapping in the 1970's.  I didn't know what to make of that, and I wasn't going to ask. 

Dottie told me that she had met her husband doing missionary work in Africa.  Her husband was Chinese, not African.  He was on a medical mission; she was founding schools.  "We didn't preach or anything," she explained.  "We led by example."

I'm installing the ladder in a hallway that connects two sides of the house with a sort of vestibule/laundry room in between.  In the vestibule are a hot tub, washer, and dryer.  Now with the ladder installed, I have to keep going up and down as I run wires in the attic for new lighting.

Near the end of the day, I come down the ladder to find a young man squatting naked, stuffing his clothes into the washing machine.  It's Ben, Dottie's son, who played soccer with my son back in the day.  Now Ben is a college student.  We nod hello to each other, and then Ben climbs into the hot tub.  Ben, like most Asian-American hybrids, is a gorgeous human being.

After another trip to the attic, I find Jack, Dottie's husband, also naked, standing in the hot tub with his son.  Jack is a surgeon at Stanford Hospital.  He's smoking a joint.  Jack and I nod hello, and then Jack holds out the joint to me.

"No thanks," I say.  "I'm working."

"Good for you," Jack says.  "I take it for my arthritis. I hope you don't have that problem yet."  (This is 1994, long before medical marijuana has been legalized or even entered mainstream discussion.)

Jack does not share the joint with his son, nor does Ben seem interested.

After an extended trip to the attic I come down the ladder to find that Dottie has joined husband and son in the tub.  She's wearing a bikini bottom, no top.  She's unpinned her hair, and it drapes down her chest.  Her fair flesh is mottled red from the heat.  Without eyeglasses, she squints.  "Are you about done?" she asks.

"All done," I say.

Jack isn't sharing the joint with Dottie, either.  Apparently it is purely medicinal.

"I'll write you a check," Dottie says, and she climbs out of the tub.  Shrugging into a bathrobe, she pads into the living room and finds the checkbook in her purse.  Dripping onto the carpet, squinting, she says, "I hope we don't shock you.  Over the years we've found the hot tub is the best place to talk family matters with the kids.  I'd rather it was at the dinner table, but you have to grab these moments.  And," she laughs, "everybody's more honest when they're naked.  Ben wants to drop out of college and do missionary work in Mississippi setting up health clinics.  We support his ideals but we wish he'd finish school first.  Don't you think?"

"I'd better not take sides on this," I say.

"You're so smart.  You've always been smart.  It was always so great to work with you.  Sometimes I —"  She breaks off.

The top flap of her bathrobe is hanging open.  I can't help but notice.  Her breasts are literally steaming.  A small silver cross nestles above them.  There's the scent of chlorine as the water evaporates.

For a moment, she squints at me. 

Then she hands me the check.  "There but for fortune."  She flashes a smile.

Maybe I should say, "Amen."  But I don't.  I like her; she admires me; but we're separated by the Christian thing, and anyway neither of us is looking for adventure of that kind.  I think.  I'll never know.

Dottie walks back toward the hot tub.  "Thanks for the good work," she says.

I came out of the Sixties: pot-smoking war protester, hairy hippy, no church.  Dottie the devout makes me feel straight.

A few months later a friend tells me that Dottie and Jack have sold their house.  With the inflated price of Palo Alto real estate, they could retire.  Instead, they've put all their possessions in storage and gone to some South Pacific island to do missionary work: Jack the surgeon with arthritis, Dottie who will start schools and then not know how to run them.  They'll do more good than harm, guided by their love and their God. 

Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.

Friday, December 9, 1983

My daughter, age five, sleeps in the top bunk.  This morning when I wake her she sits up, looking puzzled.  She leans over the side railing and vomits all over the lower bed, which fortunately my son has just vacated.

Cheerfully she says, "Well, Daddy, you never know what will happen next, do you?"

She's fine.  She goes to school while I go to work on the bathroom that I'm building in a garage (without a permit, for a Superior Court Judge).  The Judge greets me saying, "Could I make an observation?"  Leading me to the garage, he points out that the shower unit that I installed yesterday can only be entered by stepping over the toilet.

Oops.  So I spend half the day rotating the shower.  Cutting copper pipe, I gash my index finger.
   
Checking an electric connection outside, shoving some leaves aside, suddenly I'm eyeball to eyeballs with a tarantula.  Hairy.  The size of a tennis ball.  It's injured.  One leg appears to be broken.  I did that.  I'm so sorry.

On the way home making a stop at Orchard Supply Hardware, I'm lightheaded with a feeling like I'm constantly falling.  I guess the finger's infected where I gashed it on the pipe.  Standing in the checkout line, I almost faint but somehow stifle it by telling myself not to make an ass of myself.  That is, more of an ass.

Back home, stepping inside, the house is full of dark diesel smoke.  In the basement, flames are erupting out the sides of the old oil furnace.  I hear my wife Rose arriving with the kids and tell them to wait outside, not to panic but please just stay the fuck outside.  Running downstairs, I point the fire extinguisher wondering if it still works after three years of hanging on the wall — and it does.  Foam, foam, everywhere foam.  Only then does it occur to me to shut off the electric switch that powers the pump.

It’s going down to 25 degrees tonight.  The house smells like a truck stop.  Could’ve been a disaster if I hadn't come home just then. 

We open windows and go to the restaurant for a spaghetti dinner, the cheapest meal.  We never eat out, can't afford it.  To the kids it's a treat, a special occasion.

Back home we close the windows and turn on two electric space heaters.  The kids all bed down in the living room in front of the fireplace, which the dog thinks is a wonderful idea.  My wife and I prefer the comfort of a mattress, so we heap a mound of blankets on the bed.  Only now, snuggling near midnight, do we have time to talk, to tell each other about our days.  Rose thinks the tarantula bit me.  "But," she says, "it probably won't kill you."

I have no worries about my own survival.  May the little beast thrive somehow, seven-legged, sheltered again under its pile of leaves.  A female tarantula can live for thirty years.

We awaken to sunbeams streaming in the window through a slight haze of lingering smoke and the scent of burnt oil.  In the bathroom there's ice in the bottom of the water glass.  We still have a house.  We have our lives.  It will be a day of cleanup, hot chocolate, warm jackets; but the sunshine feels cheerful and really you never know what will happen next, do you?