Kulczyk - California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts: True Tales of California Crazies, Crackpots and Creeps

California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts

True Tales of California

Crazies, Crackpots and Creeps

David Kulczyk

Fresno, California

California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts

Copyright 2013 by David Kulczyk. All rights reserved.

Published by Craven Street Books

An imprint of Linden Publishing

2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721

(559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447

CravenStreetBooks.com

Craven Street Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-61035-213-0

135798642

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kulczyk, David.

California fruits, flakes, and nuts : true tales of California crazies, crackpots and creeps / David Kulczyk.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-61035-194-2 (paperback : acid-free paper)

1. Eccentrics and eccentricities--California--Biography. 2. Dissenters--California--Biography. 3. Artists--California--Biography. 4. Criminals--California--Biography. 5. Inventors--California--Biography. 6. California--Biography. I. Title.

CT9990.K85 2013

920.0794--dc23

2013028344

This book is dedicated to

Alison Milne Shurtleff

(19582012)

crime aficionado, editor, friend

Contents

Acknowledgments

Alison Milne Shurtleff edited my earliest drafts of this book. Sadly, she died of cancer on February 22, 2012. Her knowledge, humor, and enthusiasm for the macabre, the criminal, and the odd were unsurpassed. I miss her every single day. I would like to thank Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, who picked up the ball after Alison died and edited this book. I would also like to thank Lorraine Clarke, James Kulczyk, Luke Suminski, John Massoni, Susan Kendzulak, Richard Sinn, James Van Ochten, Nick Miller, John Russell, Mark Staniszewski, Jaguar Bennett, Kent Sorsky, Tobi Shields, Brett Sadam Lempke, and professors Joseph Palermo and Joseph Pitti of California State University, Sacramento. And, as always, I thank my wife Donna for giving me the time, space, and patience to do this project.

Introduction

Why are Californians like a bowl of granola? Because what isnt a fruit or a flake is a nut.

Anonymous

T hat little chestnut about the citizens of California has been around since James Caleb Jackson invented the tasty whole grain cereal back in 1863. You always had to be a little crazy to move to the Golden State. Mountains, deserts, and the Pacific Ocean render it geographically distant from the rest of the world. It borders the large and empty states of Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada, where even a gas station can be more than a tank of gas away. California attracts those who dare and those who are willing to take a risk.

If we were to accept some historians sugarcoated version of the nonnative founders of the Golden State, you would think that the pioneers were all Bible-reading Caucasians of good personal hygiene who brought civilization to the wilderness. That scenario could not be further from the truth. The majority of people who swarmed to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 were single men, under thirty-years old, came from all over the world, and represented virtually every race, creed, and color. They arrived exhausted from the long journey to California and had little opportunity for personal hygiene. Most found themselves working in unsanitary conditions, and the only safe liquid to drink was alcohol. Combine drunkenness with youthful exuberance, a lack of responsibilities as a result of being thousands of miles away from home, and freedom from social stigma, and you have a recipe for zaniness. Paupers became millionaires and millionaires became paupers, but, in the long run, most forty-niners were just lucky to break even.

Many of the migrants noticed that there were countless opportunities to make money in California. If you had some sort of education, or pretended you knew what you were doing, the sky was the limit in the Golden State. It is still that way.

There have been multiple gold, land, job, and health rushes throughout the Golden States history. Today, lenient marijuana laws are starting a Green Rush to California, as Americans swarm to the state to cultivate Californias number one cash crop. California is the place where the bubble is first filled, and if something is going to be discovered, it usually happens here.

There is no shortage of fruits, flakes, and nuts in California. The Mediterranean climate encourages immigration, the cities welcome it, and, for the most part, the people overlook it. The immense geographical size of the state is sufficient to house every brightly burning bulb in the world. The brightest bulbs sometimes burn out the fastest, but there is always another ember waiting to be reignited.

In this book, I chose not to write about the well-known California nutjobs like Emperor Norton, Sarah Winchester, and Charlie Manson, as their stories have been widely told. I wanted to write about the obscure, the scandalous, and the infamous: the Bohemians and inventors who were laughed at during their era; the beloved actors, musicians, and artists who are admired despite their questionable personal flaws; the criminals whose horrifying deeds have become forgotten as their victims loved ones pass away.

Despite all the hoopla, there is not a place on Earth where you will find so many people of different cultures living side by side, in relative harmony, than in the great state of California.

In Los Angeles, all the loose objects in the country were collected as if America had been tilted and everything that wasnt tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.Saul Bellow

Pioneer Crazies

B efore anyone knew there was gold in the hills of California, you could count the nonnative, non-Californio population on your fingers and toes. Then, within two years, thousands of people from all over the world came to the Golden State to try their luck in the search for gold. Most came up empty, but stayed anyway, doing whatever they could to make their way. Thousands of miles away from home and family, some achieved success, while others fell into a dark abyss of insanity, violence, and crime.

Chapter 1

Grizzly Adams

John AdamsArnold, Calaveras County

W hen people think of John Grizzly Adams, they usually think of the television program, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, which aired on NBC from 1977 to 1978. Adams, who was portrayed by stuntman, animal trainer, and actor Dan Haggerty, goes about his mountain man business, accompanied by his tame grizzly bear, like a Gold Rush version of Saint Francis of Assisi. The handsome Haggerty depicted Grizzly as having a psychic connection with all of the animals in the forest. The reality was much different.

Born, raised, and buried in his home state of Massachusetts, Adams was a middle-aged cobbler who worked for his father. In 1849, knowing there was a demand for leather boots in the Wild West, Adams, with help from the family business, crated up a load of shoes and boots to ship to St. Louis, the last vestige of civilization before the wilderness. Unfortunately for the Adams family, the entire shipment was destroyed by fire while being warehoused in St. Louis.

Adams used the fire as an excuse to travel to Missouri to inspect his damaged commodities. He continued traveling west, abandoning his wife, children, and his fathers shoe company. Adams took the torturous southern route to California, through Mexico and the Sonora Desert, arriving in Stockton in 1849.