Charles Manson
Charles Manson was born in 1934 and enjoyed a brief career as a song writer, which had been influenced by a chance association with Dennis Wilson, drummer and co-founder of the Beach Boys. But the devil soon took hold and he became the master of the creepy and the macabre. By the time he strolled into the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco during the Summer of Love, he was already a seasoned criminal.
One day in 1967, I drifted down from my apartment on the corner of Hayes and Stanyon to investigate the latest goings-on. Standing on an orange crate in the Panhandle was this scruffy, wired dude preaching and singing on the merits of an all-white society. Four wide-eyed girls gazed at him with this far away look as if he was the next coming. But for the rest of us, the name Charles Manson meant little. He was nothing unusual at the time. After all, the Haight was full of castaways, leftovers, and drifters of every species. And then there was the summer along the banks of the Russian River where everything started to get twisted for Mr. Manson. (more…)