My mother decided I should enroll in another school, Encina High, located in a neighboring school district. We used the address of a close friend of hers who lived just across the district line, and I enrolled in that Fall of 1966. I was actually grateful for the change. It was as clean a slate as I could hope for, and over time it turned out to be a wise move.

I interviewed with Mr. Jack Basset, Encina’s Vice Principal, who knew my story from Mira Loma and urged me not to get too far out of line, whatever that was. He said he knew about the “movement” at Haight-Asbury, to which I just shrugged. I thought he was referring to some obscure beat poet, not the media sensation that I would later read about in the pages of Life magazine. For me, the so-called “movement” had an entirely different complexion and character, having been deep inside it. Those who ogled like voyeurs from the safety of the perimeter set up by the media called them “hippies.” We who were deeply embedded at the core, living out our dream in the crash pads and coffeehouses, called them “teeny-boppers.”

We referred to ourselves as freaks, not flower children.

Mr. Bassett would be a friendly adversary over the next 3 years, encouraging my freedom in some ways, hemming me in others, giving in as they all did eventually to the temper of the times. Encina became my home for that very reason. Like my mother, Encina would bend with the times, which, as the song goes, were a-changing.

Like any high school, Encina had its share of reactionary jocks, tight cliques, and zealous ultra-conformists. It also sponsored a number of music and arts programs that I was more than willing to take part in; and there were plenty of fellow phantoms roaming the halls between the art, drama and music departments. They were easy to spot, and even easier to befriend. Most were girls. The school even had an orchestra, in which I took part for a brief time as a badly out-of-practice violist. I was more attracted to the choir and the drama classes, and these I enrolled in after my first semester, dropping the viola altogether and never looking back.