Ken Kesey Hasn’t Left Us; He’s Just Dead

Ken Kesey wrote the Great American Novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, published in 1964. Well, okay, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was pretty good, too. Twain was certainly more prolific. Kesey’s published works other than his first, and more famous novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, include the novel Sailor’s Song, the historical novel Last Go Round, set in the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, plus assorted miscellany, some collected in Kesey’s Garage Sale. (Paul Newman’s first directorial effort was the film adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion.)

Kesey is also famous – or infamous – for the Acid Tests of the 1960s, bringing LSD and the Grateful Dead to notoriety. Kesey was the ringleader of the Merry Band of Pranksters – “Too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippy” – and the instigator of their road trip, in the psychedelically-painted bus “Further,” to the New York World’s Fair. Tom Wolfe chronicled the excursion in his classic of “new journalism,” The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Ken Kesey eventually had enough of the lifestyle and came to the realization that Pranksters was another name for moochers. He took his bus back home to his farm near Eugene and spent a relatively quiet rest of his life. He died in 2001.

Further – also known as “Furthur,” after decades of deterioration on Kesey’s farm, has been restored. A feature-length film of the Merry Pranksters adventures, “Magic Trip,” has been released and is available on DVD.

Postscript:

Ken Kesey was a champion wrestler at the University of Oregon. His son Jed was also. On the way to a match in 1984, the team’s bus, previously used to transport chickens and lacking seat belts, slid off an icy road. Jed was kept on life support for two days until his parents, Ken and Faye, gave permission to shut it off. Twenty-year-old Jed Kesey had previously signed an organ-donor authorization. Twelve of his organs went to others. The Keseys sued the National College Athletics Association and settled for $70,000. They used the money to buy a new bus for the U of O wrestling team. Read Ken Kesey’s letter about his son.

 

Goodyear Retires Its Blimp!

Goodyear deflated its last blimp the other day. It took about two minutes for the Spirit of Innovation’s helium-filled bag, called its envelope, to crumple to the ground after a hole was ripped in its topside. After ninety years, the blimp era has ended. Not to worry, though. The familiar shape will continue to be seen hovering above sporting events. Goodyear has replaced all its soft-sided “gas bag” blimps with semi-rigid dirigibles.

The new aircraft are the same shape. They have a frame, so maintain their shape after being drained of helium. They are also faster, quieter, larger, easier to fly and more maneuverable. The new dirigibles can cruise at seventy miles per hour. They are quiet enough to not cause disturbances at golf tournaments, where a whirring sound makes it impossible for a champion athlete to accurately hit a motionless ball. The new floating billboards are fifty feet longer than the old blimps, and can take off and land like a helicopter, making life easier for ground crews.

The thing that is not changing is the popular reference: they will continue to be known as Goodyear Blimps, because, “Goodyear Semi-rigid Dirigible doesn’t roll off the tongue.”

Phil Campbells Helping Phil Campbell

Phil Campbell Alabama began with a nineteenth-century railroad builder. A businessman in northwest Alabama persuaded Phil Campbell to build a depot nearby, promising, if he did, to name the town after him. He did. Although Phil Campbell never lived in Phil Campbell, the town still carries his name.

Phil Campbell of New York City, aka Brooklyn Phil, organized a Phil Campbell convention. The initial gathering in 1995, brought together twenty-two Phils – and one Phyllis – for a weekend of getting to know one another and their namesake town. Most all the Phils and the townspeople had fun, but it didn’t catch on as an annual event.

Some years later, Brooklyn Phil, while perusing Wikipedia’s Phil Campbell entry, decided that in the age of social media, he would try again to gather together the Phil Campbells of the world. The event was scheduled for June 2011. A devastating tornado hit the town on April 27, killing twenty-seven residents. Instead of cancelling the convention, it became a relief project, “Phil Campbells Helping Phil Campbell.”

Phil Campbells came from around the country, Australia, Scotland and England, too. They spent several days clearing and cleaning up the wreckage of the pavilion and swimming pool where the first convention took place in 1995. They also raised $42,000, enough money to fund construction of a Habitat for Humanity house

If your name is Phil Campbell, you might want to mark your calendar for 2021, when the next gathering is scheduled. In the meantime, you can watch the documentary film about the Phils, people and town, that was released in 2014.

 

Travel Tip: What Your GPS Doesn’t Know

Highway 99 traverses the Pacific Coast from the Canadian border, at Blaine Washington, to Mexico, at Calexico California. Upon completion of Interstate 5 in 1972, 99 lost its designation as a “U.S.” highway. Much of it is now labeled State Route 99 in California, Oregon Route 99 – splits into 99E and 99W from Junction City, near Eugene, to Portland – and SR-99 in Washington. (It continues as Highway 99 in British Columbia.)

With decertification came loss of identifying signage. There never really was any definitive identifier informing a motorist when crossing the unofficial border between northern and southern California. As you travel the highway, keep an eye out for the pine tree and palm tree adjacent to each other in the median between northbound and southbound lanes. It’s a few miles north of Fresno, at about milepost 150. The fir represents the northern sector of the state; the palm tells you are in southern California. Your GPS won’t tell you this.

If you feel the urge to travel historic 99, you’ll want That Ribbon of Highway guidebooks.