chumley.dan
Undelivered Mail, I thought there would be more time..... Facts and Myths Questions Unanswered.
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Dear Free
Several weeks ago I heard you had given over to hospice care. I was struck that I did not know if or when I learned about your battle with cancer. To think of you casting off the mooring cables and deciding to drift into whatever comes next, shocked me, left me starting to write to you, then stopping because I found myself trying to communicate the full history of me knowing you. Intersections in Cambridge and California, on tour across the country for the SFMT. Too much about me to send.
Delete I said I did not send it to you. But here I am trying again because I want you to understand how much your cool, non believer attitude and the sound of your sarcastic laugh helped pull me out of my utopian hippy mindset.
As Charley D.'s (Class of '66) cousin (?) you brought me a kilo of Mexican Red to Harvard, showed me how to break it down, clean and weigh out $10 lids which gave me an income in that institution that was really all about money. You told me (if memory is fact and not myth) that the baggage handler passing you your suitcase said "Wow what you got in here? Bricks?" I imagine you saying like " Books man Books" and walking cool away. Some of the Mime Troupe men, on tour with L'Amant, Ronnie, Peter C.,Charley D. Daryl E. came to my room in Adams House to smoke. The strong smell was countered by the patchouli oil they all wore. Your connection made the connection to the first day in the rest of my life.
When we connected in SF at the Mime Troupe 964 Howard St. studio in late 67, Charley who was in La Mant the anti war show they had toured to universities across the country, instigating student demonstration/ riots after many of the performances, invited us to the gathering. We watched Charley in post tour semiparty/ semi tour evaluation-discussion mode. Art and politics, passion and wit, argument to make change. I wanted to join the Troupe right then but I remember you in your shaggy but not hippy hair, well worn sports coat leaning against the wall; taking a "the beatnik maintains a critical distance" pose.
But a couple of months later, after the LA tour I did tech for, you showed up at the Studio on Howard talking to RGD and Sandra. While you were driving a cab for money, you became Ronnie's go get or find out or see about it, guy. Mystery is coming and going, no explanation. When Peggy and Peter Snyder (the Troupe's new tech / design team) finally came free from a pot bust while driving their school bus on the bridge, you easily connected with them maybe because of shared New England background. Later I realized they saw you as someone who could get things done, not just talk about it like the throng of hippies getting high that hung out for a while that spring.
After the Spring tour to LA provisional new members were invited into the rebuilding Troupe since most of the '65 to '67 ensemble left because of Ronnie fatigue. You moved or visited frequently enough to be a resident of the house in the Oakland hills. The place was owned by the lawyer who had defended Peter and Peggy in the pot bust. I stayed in the bus or on a deck outside. Go to sleep with a view of the whole Bay, wake up in the dripping fog.
Peggy had a VW sports car, a Carrmingia ? When we went to SF, you drove. We sardine packed five passengers and Cass their sweet dog, taking turns breathing across the Bay Bridge with you in cab driver mode. If anyone complained you'd say "You gotta drive like you want to get there" We took the same car to the top of Mount Tam, dropped acid in the early day exquisite sun, it was one of those days the fog waits till you are ready to come down. We loaded up. You drove formula one style leaning into the curves. I must have looked freaked out because you turned and said "Tire adhesion" "What?" "Tire adhesion. The rubber heats up and glues you to the road." We kept shifting like the crew of a sailboat to keep the Gia from rolling.
So many years around each other... You stayed at Joan H's $99.00/per month apartment on Montgomery St. right? You did help me move the Wedgewood range/with a wood burner, that Joan could not leave behind when a rent increase forced us to move to the edge of the known world, Bernal Heights. We carried that cast iron and steel monster down the dirt path and up three flights of wooden stairs into the back yard where we sprayed it for cockroaches, Easy Offed the grease and tried several times before getting it back together. That day was proof that for all the cool you presented once you were in the battle you did not shirk or bail.
The last time we toured together we drove the truck with Sophie riding between us on the motor housing, unsafe at any speed. Maybe what they say about pot and LSD is true, that is that they affect memory. I have tried to get back there to pull up stories of your youth or learn the philosophies that guide you, but I can't recall. I know all the miles we traveled I should have learned more.
Years later you took a job as a stationary engineer at some building in downtown SF. I guess that set you up for the Berkeley High school job you got because of that and your skills and experience as an independent electrician. You said you wanted benefits. I guess you proved you could be Free and think like an adult. You told me you would write your autobiography and title it My Life On My Knees, the electrician's tale. I wish you had written it.
I know that the fault is my own for not trying to connect with your story while we were driving. I talked about my own thoughts way too much, sang off key to the point that you had to say "Straight up man, STOP singing".
Your myth was what I got from others: Your famous Dad who had a building named after him and how you hotwired an earth mover at Cornell? and did some landscaping till the campus police caught up with you. You never suffered over ups and downs. You did what you were doing. There were things I only witnessed, you and your cohort breaking bad in the basement of a Bernal house, the crew from Dohr street garage rebuilding muscle cars, myths?memories? You did get an ID for our friend Nora from Basel. You knew somebody who....
I hope you will narrate/record or someone who knows the true history of Jeff Free will put it down in some form. I think it will be important for young ones to catch your cool way. For me, it would help me get my facts straight because you really influenced me. I could not always pick up what you were putting down but I know that the semi truth of myths can sustain a culture. What we lived, sometimes together, should not pass without record. I would love for others to know you better than I do.
I love you Jeff.
