It was 1965 during my second summer in Mendocino when I met the “Boys from Berkeley” who came to Noyo Harbor to fish for salmon. Gary, Gil and John, students at UC Berkeley, had purchased a 35 foot fishing boat and planned on getting rich that summer to pay for their college education... and drugs.

They often came to our house, staying for dinner and conversation. They enjoyed philosophical and metaphysical discussions with Dad. I fell madly in love with Gil and then John, both musicians. I went out on the boat with them a few times. On one occasion, we spent the whole night at sea. While bobbing to the rhythm of the waves and breathing heavy diesel fumes in the below-deck cabin, I was lulled into a deep sleep. To my disappointment, not one of the boys seduced me...that I’m aware.

I’d like to think that my beauty, sexuality and magnificent personality were just too much for the boys from Berkeley and I drove them crazy, but as it turned out, Gil, a shy classical guitar player, was practically an extinct creature already. We dated twice, and a few years later I heard he committed suicide. In his blonde head, he had demons beyond shyness, the shyness that I had fallen in love with.

John, a piano enthusiast, had his demons, too. We dated for a short while. We spent a night together at the Highlands Inn on the Carmel coast and I lost my virginity which surprised the hell out of him. He did not want to be the one.

I loved riding the Judah trolley line all the way out to his apartment in SF, listening to him play the piano, looking at all his books. He sat at the piano with a relaxed composure, long and lanky legs crossed casually at an angle to the keyboard, lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, smoke trailing upwards into his eyes. But he didn't seem to notice or care. At those times he reminded me of my mother's young friend, jazz pianist Charlie, who rode his racing bicycle all the way up the Big Sur Coast highway and sat at Mama's upright piano for hours in just such a relaxed creative state.

Although John was the only person Mama ever knew who had read the Works of Flavius Josephus, her dislike for him was immediate and intense. With her disparaging attitude exploding us out the door, we escaped in his cool red convertible Porsche, the heat of hate blurring the mirage of a loving mother behind us. But Mama was right. John was arrogant, narcissistic, rude, bright, talented, a troubled young musician and a drug addict who ultimately destroyed himself and wound up at Atascadero.

All the while I was with John, I was insecure and jealous, always fearful he would find another woman. My neurosis, a familiar refrain in my life—another woman more intelligent. My fear of losing him was manifested one evening in San Francisco when he began to flirt with my younger stepsister. He was letting me know he was not mine. John Wattron was the end of my love odysseys, until I met Tony.