00:00:00--(Interview begins)--
NIMMER: Okay, we're recording. Go ahead.
ERVIN: It's October 31, 2022. We're interviewing Ted Adams within the Memories
of Mountain Drive exhibit at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. The
interviewer is Chris Ervin. Ted, how did you come to be in Santa Barbara?
ADAMS: My family moved to the Santa Ynez Valley in approximately 1955. 56,
bought a little ranch over there, walnut, 30 acres of walnuts, and, and
established themselves. At that time, I was living in Arizona, finishing up high
school, and I had a job over there. So I didn't get over here until about 1957.
And, so I moved to the valley and I got a job at the at Lake Cachuma as a boat
patrolman. And those days, Lake Cachuma was big because it had just
00:01:00filled. And so there's a lot of action over there and that was a lot of fun. Had
a good time with that job. And so that's kind of the answer.
ERVIN: So. Now, when did you first come to Mountain Drive?
ADAMS: Well, I came to Mountain Drive in the summer, spring, summer of 1964, I
believe. Yeah.
ERVIN: Uh huh. And can you describe the community when. What was it like when
you first arrived?
ADAMS: Well, I had been a been involved with Mountain Drive for a couple of
years at that time. So I was I knew of of the community and the way it operated
in their celebrations and Bobby Hyde, obviously, who was the progenitor of that
whole situation. And so it was, it was a unique community. But I have
00:02:00grown up in a pretty liberal environment all my life. And so a lot of the things
that Mountain Drive embraced was something that I had been involved and felt a
part of most of my life. And because I was I when I lived on the East Coast
before I came west in the early fifties, we had we still have a piece of
property in the Adirondacks, Upstate New York. And during the war there were not
many men around because they were all in the service. And so we would go up
there in the summertime and and early July, usually after the black fly season,
and we had a beautiful piece of property up there. The lake was five miles long
and two miles wide. And it had been in my family since the 1880s,
00:03:001840s, excuse me, in the 1840s. And it was very isolated. And so the women were
very casual about their attire. No one wore clothing. We all swam without
clothing. The maintenance fellow would have to call in on the crank telephone to
notify us he was coming in to into camp. And the women were all put their
blouses back on, you know, kind of that situation. So Mountain Drive was not,
not that unusual. What was unusual was the party atmosphere. My parents and
during the war, I mean, everyone drank at that time. So the drinking wasn't
appalling. But it was it was unusual that it was so, so much libation and so
much party. And Bobby had set the tone for that with all these different
occasions that Bobby Burns's birthday party, Twelfth Night, I mean,
00:04:00there were a bunch of throughout the year, there were special days and weekends
and things. And so there was always a party to be either anticipated or
involved, you were involved in. And on weekends everybody would go from one
house to another where there was a potluck and a party and that sort of thing. So.
ERVIN: So now who actually introduced you to Mountain Drive? You know, someone
you must have known somebody from Mountain Drive?
ADAMS: Well, I knew quite a few people from Mountain Drive because I was
interested in in that whole bohemian environment, plus the fact that I started
smoking marijuana in 1960. And that was kind of a, in those days, it was very
much of a, I would say a kind of a clubby thing. You know, everyone
00:05:00was very covert about it because it was so illegal and there was so much
attention on it then. And so if you were actually someone that partook in that,
there was kind of an underground connection with a number of people where you
could, or you would give and get and share with the pot and people would go to
Mexico and buy kilos. In those days, that's where it all came from, these kilos
of brown, blue paper, and it was shoe boxes and shoe lids and you'd have to get
the seeds out. Anyway, there was a whole ritual about the way you prepared it
and also about how you shared it, because you were very careful about who knew
that you knew that this was going on. So through that network, I got to know a
number of people on Mountain Drive.
00:06:00
ERVIN: I see. So now you lived on Mountain Drive. On Coyote Road?
ADAMS: On Banana Road.
ERVIN: On Banana Road.
ADAMS: Yeah. Banana Road. I lived right below where Gene McGeorge and Pauline
had a big house, and we lived just in the canyon to the west of there. And it
was a property called Dethleifsen property, and it was a nice adobe house there
with, we had three bedrooms and a big kitchen area and it was an incomplete
house which got completed later on. But it was very comfortable and the whole
environment was very comfortable and welcoming.
ERVIN: And so you rented you were renting. Exactly. And you had roommates?
ADAMS: I did have a roommate at that time. Marty
Birdsell was my roommate. We moved up there together
and then we had other roommates as as time went on that we shared.
00:07:00Claire Gottsdanker. In those days, it was Claire Marx at that time, and then she
married Jerry Gottsdanker later and settled in there. But Claire, I think, moved
in just as I moved out, which was in 1965 when I moved to Painted Cave.
ERVIN: I see. So you mentioned Marty Birdsell, and as and he was no doubt a
friend of yours and who and, and Claire. Who other males and females were your
friends when you were living on Mountain Drive or in the Mountain Drive
community on Banana Road.
ADAMS: Right, right. Well, I have to say that, that community was so close that
they all were very, very friendly. I mean, Michael Peake was was a friend and
had got to be a friend throughout my life until he passed away last
00:08:00year, I believe. And, let's see, who stands out. Well, John Lazell lived just up
the hill with Ruthie, and they were living because their house had burned down,
they were living in underground in a big cave up there. And then, of course,
Gene and Pauline lived just right next door. And I mean, those of us that... But
we were so welcome in everyone's house, you know, that it was just it was a very
close community. And, and we all, it was the social thing was was really the
binding force there. I mean, it was very, very close and unusual that people
would be so close that way.
ERVIN: Right. So. Some people have described their introduction to
00:09:00Mountain Drive sort of required some vetting by Bobby Hyde because but I think
that maybe wasn't true with you because...
ADAMS: You say betting or bedding?
ERVIN: Sorry, you had to be approved.
ADAMS: Vetting.
ERVIN: Approved. Yeah.
ADAMS: So all those things were probably true, but with different individuals.
ERVIN: But that's if you were buying an acre from Bobby Hyde, which you were not doing.
ADAMS: But not at that time, not bought. I bought ten acres from Bobby Hyde
little later in 65.
ERVIN: Right, in Painted Cave. So, but but no doubt you ran into Bobby Hyde
there on Mountain Drive. And what were your, what were your initial impressions
of Bobby Hyde?
ADAMS: Well, Bobby was a very vibrant personality, very well read, very
interested in metaphysics and social dynamics. And he always had a
00:10:00book that he was reading and a subject that he'd like to talk about. And we used
to meet downtown town for a cup of tea and we chat about that his current
interest and Martin Buber, whoever he was reading you know, and then he had, he
loved to to build and to participate and in construction and kind of experiment
with construction. And he built some very questionable habitats at that time.
And I mean he he had an interesting little story about and I'm sure this story
has been told many times, but in Painted Cave, he bought 91 acres in the early
sixties and and he, with that 91 acres in Painted Cave every quarter acre had a
share in the water company that was appurtenant to was on the deed. So when he
bought 91 acres, he actually bought the lion's share of the Painted
00:11:00Cave Water Company, which gave him an entitlement to quite a bit of water. And
so he decided that he was going to bring water up onto the land. And at that
time he was was applying for a building permit with the county of Santa Barbara.
And they made it very difficult for him to get a permit. And so he had this idea
that he inquired of the building department whether or not they had any
considerations about a houseboat. And they said, no, there were no no coverage,
no consideration of a houseboat. So he decided to build the lake and build a
houseboat on it, which he did. And it was up there for a number of years. And I
lived quite close to the lake. The property that I purchased from him and the
land that I had rented was on the road that goes up to the lake. So I would see
Bobby going back and forth and we talked and he had a bulldozer that he liked to
move dirt around and make flat places and create space. And he had
00:12:00this incredibly expansive imagination and able to picture the way that it could
be and and often how it should be. And and he had that same kind of a feeling
from my perspective anyway, about social dynamics and how the community should
be constructed so that everyone felt participating and everyone had a voice. And
there was no actually structure. There was no, there was no board of directors
or meeting. It was more a consensual consensus situation where he would be he
would be asking you about things that he was concerned with and whether or not
you agreed or how you felt about that subject. And he was constantly kind of
surveying what people thought were in his community up there.
00:13:00
ERVIN: Right. So did you actually see Bobby scouring out the the lake bed? Were
you there? With his bulldozer?
ADAMS: Absolutely. He created about four little lakes up there. And he built
these berms around these areas because that that were up where his focus was was
fairly flat. And so he was able to build these bermed lakes and and then use the
water, of course, from the Painted Cave Water Company that pumped out of the
canyon below. And the thing the thing that was problematic was that he didn't
line the lakes with any kind of membrane or anything like that. He would just
build them up and fill them up with water. Well, the water, of course, attracted
ground squirrels, which we have a tremendous population up in that area. We have
some gophers and mostly it's ground squirrels. And they they would just riddle
these berms with their their nests. And of course, they were
00:14:00constantly blowing through and draining. And, you know, he was always working on
trying to keep the water in the lakes. And sometimes it lasted for long periods
of time and often it did not. And so he he had this one main area where he did
build his little houseboat, and it was pretty much just a platform on top of
half a dozen, 50, 55 gallon drums that were sealed so that they would hold air
and that would float. And he took doors, salvaged doors that he got. And he
built this this room out of doors with glass everywhere. And I think he put some
corrugated metal on the roof and he had a little potbelly stove and a table and
a couple of chairs and stuff. So you could have his tea and and you sit in his
in his houseboat. But it was very small and it wasn't actually
00:15:00anywhere where someone can actually reside, you know, it was more like a little sanctuary.
ERVIN: Gotcha. Is, are there any remnants of the lake or the houseboat left?
ADAMS: There are, the current owners of the property. They actually have the
lake and the berm and some of the parameters of those little lakes are still
there. Some of them are not. But of the lake where Bobbie's houseboat was
actually still holds water when we get a good rain. But it permeates and the
succeeding months. It doesn't hold water and no one keeps trying to put water
into the lake any longer.
ERVIN: Right. The house, has the houseboat survived at all?
ADAMS: The houseboat is long gone because it it just came up became a pile of
detritus after a number of years. And so the owners took it out of there because
it was unsightly and sure was just not appropriate any longer.
00:16:00
ERVIN: Well, getting back to Mountain Drive. Did did you ever meet Floppy Hyde?
ADAMS: And what Floppy was was a part of the Mountain Drive to a great extent,
and she was kind of the administrator. She took care of collecting the monies
that they were getting from people because everybody that had a piece of
property there was paying 50 to 100 dollars a month for those properties. And
Floppy had this whole bookkeeping system. And she had, interestingly enough, one
of the eccentric things that that Bobby had done was in their house at that
time, they were living, well, they lived a couple of places as I knew them over
the years, but they always had a table you know, about a six foot square, five
or six foot square table, like a big card table. We're all their,
00:17:00their data was all the administration, the books, the accounting, all that was
all laid out. And they just left it. And then they had pulleys. It went up to
the ceiling and they would just wheel it up the ceiling. So when you went into
the living room, if you looked up, you'd see this table up by the ceiling. And
then whenever they had an occasion to do any bookkeeping, they would lower it
down and have it right there at the fingertips. It wouldn't have to have any
kind of... Which reminds me of another thing that Bobby used to do, which was
interesting. And this was mostly at Salsipuedes Street. That he didn't. He was
always looking for shortcuts on how to do things. So one of the things that he
did is he got these trunks of trees that were probably 20 feet long and they
were all limbed up. And he had three of them at the time that I saw
00:18:00it that he had carried into the living room and they had stuck the narrow ends
into the fireplace and that he would start a fire. And then as they burned, he
would just kind of feed them into the fireplace. And so you were always climbing
over these logs when you were in his living room. And he was like, he would be
pushing the wood into the fire, which is quite attractive in an interesting sense.
ERVIN: Right? So did you ever participate in a Wine Stomp? Did did you?
ADAMS: I did you? Several times. And of course, the most memorable one was the
one that was in the movie Seconds with the Rock Hudson and and Frank and John
Frankenheimer doing the directing. And that was a very surreal setting for those
of us that I mean, I think I was 23 years old at that time. And to have and The
Manchurian Candidate was a very famous movie at that time, and we had
00:19:00all seen it and it was compelling. And then here we have this fabulous director
and he's filming us at one of our parties. So that it was a very interesting,
illuminating and self-involved situation. It was it was quite, quite something.
And I took took, Rock Hudson. They asked us to, I don't know if you know the
story I've ever seen the movie. You most likely have. But the idea is that he
has an old spirit and a new body and he's experimenting with a new body. And so
they wanted us to introduce him to the hot tub, and he was kind of shy and
reluctant. So he had they had us, Frankenheimer had us grab him out of the crowd
and carry him to the the big vat of grapes and put him into the grapes to the
grape stomp with all these lovely ladies that were stomping around in
00:20:00there. And, and that was it was interesting to. And he was throughout that
movie, he was a little bit reticent, you know, because he was kind of a shy
person. And he was outgoing in his roles. But but really, he was quite a shy
guy. And so that was very interesting. But we did every year they would go up
and gather grapes from different vineyards and bring them back, and we would do
the grape stomp. And gradually it settled into the York Mountain winery. Would
what do a lot of the grape processing and and then we would get York Mountain,
we'd make Ed Schertz had an old Chevy panel truck that had open sides on it and
he would go up and get pony kegs of wine like seven and a half gallon kegs with
one and bring them down and deliver them around the community. And I
00:21:00think we I think we paid $10 or something like that for a keg of wine. In fact,
in that Mountain Drive book, if you look in there, you see myself and I'm
decanting the wine into...
ERVIN: Ah, decanting. The caption says, siphoning, I think.
ADAMS: Well, we were siphoning, but it's really decanting because you had to
keep the, off the bottom of of the keg if the keg had sat there, because there was...
ERVIN: ...sediment...
ADAMS: ...sediment in the bottom and you didn't really want to put that into the
bottle and there was a little something to it, you know. But yes.
ERVIN: So, so you were involved in the process of distributing the wine.
ADAMS: I helped Ed. And, you know, mainly everything, nothing had the feeling of
work about it, you know. And when Ed was building one of the first
00:22:00houses he built up there, when I first got to Mountain Drive, we would go up and
help. We were making adobe bricks. And we were mixing the adobe and then putting
them into forms and then letting them sit in the sun, and then we would jiggle
them and pull them off and and the bricks would stay in place and then they
would dry and we could use them in construction. Well, while we were doing that,
every, I think it was early after, I mean 12:30 or so, we would stop working and
we would all gather. And his lady at the time, Mary Lynn, would bring out this
incredible feast of all the fresh bread and cheeses and and olives and cold cuts
and and of course, red mountain wine, which was all part of it all. And we would
sit out there on that hillside above looking out at the Channel Islands from up
there and eating this wonderful food. It was just a it was a magical time.
00:23:00
ERVIN: So did you ever participate in Sunset Club?
ADAMS: I never did. It's interesting. I never did get to Sunset Club. I would
hear about it. It was the good old boys club, you know? I mean, it was mostly
the people that had, the men that had lived there. This was a very male oriented
society on Mountain Drive. I mean, the women were were the ones who did all the
work and the men were the ones that talked about it. And it was and they had
they had a cannon that they would fire off periodically and horns that they
would blow. And, you know, but I was never invited to participate because that
to a certain extent. Being a young, fairly attractive young man. I was
kind of their competition when because it was super focused on the
00:24:00ladies and who the new ladies were and who was conquesting whom and all that
sort of thing. And so I always felt that there was kind of a little standoffish
thing because I represented the younger generation and I was always involved in,
you know, playing the games with the ladies that they were in competition for
and stuff.
ERVIN: So that's really interesting. I hadn't heard that because it had always
been presented that Sunset Club was just open to all the men and they were well,
that came and went and...
ADAMS: I was always reticent about going places that I wasn't really invited to.
And I'm sure that if I had gone down there, I would have been completely, you
know, completely welcome. But I never felt. I mean, there were some personality
things between myself and some of the men, the older men. And because I didn't
have a lot of affinity for some of the ways they treated the women. I
00:25:00mean, I don't know how far you want to go into those...
ERVIN: Like Bill Neely, Bill Neely had quite the reputation.
ADAMS: Well, Bill and I never got along. We just didn't. We didn't get along. I
didn't like the way he treated. And actually, I was involved with one of his
paramours, Ivana Noel. And Van and I lived together up on top of the mountain,
in a little cabin right above Mountain Drive.
ERVIN: Who was that?
ADAMS: Ivana Noel at the time. Ivana Gardner. I mean, she's had a number of
husbands. And so at that time, she was Ivana Noel. And, you know, I mean, there
are certain things that we're not. You know, I don't know how much you really
want to.
ERVIN: Yeah, well, Bill Neely had a strong personality, And he tried to, He was
he was in a self proclaimed leadership role there.
00:26:00
ADAMS: And he was always in competition with Bobby. And, you know, for for the
attention, he was quite the narcissist, you know, he was never wrong. He was
always, you know, he had he didn't really bend to anyone else's will. And he had
his own way about him. It was...
ERVIN: Right. How about Frank Robinson? Did you...?
ADAMS: Frank was much more inclusive and jovial, and, I mean, he didn't have
that compelling. The ego problem that I saw. I didn't feel it from
Frank. He was very welcoming. He was a great host. His
house was one of the places where we would we would go and party and stuff. And
I always admired him.
ERVIN: So Frank, being an architect and a house builder...
ADAMS: Did you not an architect? I don't know whether he ever actually got his
architect. He may have later on. But in those days he was just a
00:27:00designer, just the house designer and so.
ERVIN: And builder.
ADAMS: And builder. And he did a great deal of alternative. And he actually he
and Bobby worked together on some projects. And then there was some other people
that were involved on the Drive that worked. John David was also a very much
involved in the building aspects, and John designed a number of houses as well. But.
ERVIN: Were you involved in any of the construction?
ADAMS: At some I did construction. As I said, I was working on on Ed Schertz's
home and I did, you know. But I was not a very good worker. I was more a more of
a player than I was a worker. You know, I'm sad to say, I had a job and I would
go to work during the week and then on the weekend, I wanted to wanted to play.
And I joined into some in some of the projects because that's that's
00:28:00where the play was. But I never really worked for anyone up there.
ERVIN: I see. So now. How about the hot tub scene? Were you involved at all when...
ADAMS: You could not be on Mountain Drive as a resident without being very
involved in the hot tub scene, because everyone had a hot tub and they, I mean,
everyone that entertained it, most everyone had a hot tub and. Well, what would
happen is that you would go to a party and you would be drinking and then there
would be the eating that we'd have a big feed of different kinds. And if it was
a specialty party around like Twelfth Night or something like that, there'd be a
haggis that George Greyson will have prepared and that
sort of thing. But after the evening meal, then there'd be more
00:29:00drinking and then everyone would get into the hot tub, or most everyone would.
And so that pretty much every time there was a party, there was a hot tub and
there was always people in different states of dress and undress. And it was
just it was accepted behavior. It was just what it was. And there was hanky
panky, you know, under the surface of the water, you know, and all that sort of
thing. But never there was never like any overt sexuality, really. It was that
was an interesting part of it. I mean, the orgy kind of thing was never really
happening. At least I never saw it. And I never talked to anyone that really saw
that. That was kind of. You know, kept under more conservative. You know, it's
difficult. But now that I think about it, you would think without all of that
openness that, but you can see people pairing up, you know, and that
00:30:00sort of thing. But not in the overt action in that area.
ERVIN: Right. So now you mentioned 12th Night. And so it sounds like you
participated in Twelfth Night. Were you ever the Bean King?
ADAMS: No, I never, I competed, but I never was selected. And then I can't
remember whether it was Twelfth Night or whether it was Bobby Burn's birthday
party. But Bill Robinson, I don't mean I mean Bill Richardson would do the sword
dance, you know, and he would wear the outfit and there would be that bagpipe
players and it was all very colorful. And Bill was an accomplished dancer and he
knew how to all the steps and things. And that was a high point. You know, when
Bill would do his sword dance. And, you know, I don't I'm trying to recall the
other I know there were several kind of highlighted parties.
00:31:00
ERVIN: Like Bastille Day.
ADAMS: Bastille Day was one of them.
ERVIN: So the storming of the castle. Did you participate in the storming of the castle?
ADAMS: No, I didn't so much. I mean, and Lysistrata. They did Lysistrata a
couple of times at Bobby's house, and I was there for that. That was...
ERVIN: Were you an actor?
ADAMS: No, I wasn't really. I was just a witness, you know, And that was one of
the few times that the women were really highlighted because, you know, the
story and and the women rebelled against the men going to war and they stopped
sleeping with the husbands to stop the war. And in that whole story. And so
there were quite a few of the women that had roles, which was unusual and and
kind of refreshing. It was a cool thing.
ERVIN: Yeah. So now costumes were a big part of the parties. And
00:32:00these these regular annual events on Mountain Drive. Did you have a particular costume?
ADAMS: Well, we would you know, we would wear appropriate attire, you know,
because the Pot Wars would happen like every couple of months that we would have
a big Pot War. And that would move around according to I think what happened was
that the populations of the Pot Wars kept getting bigger and bigger. And so we
were constantly looking for places to have them that would accommodate all the
people. Plus there were more and more artisans that were showing their wares.
There were more potters. Of course, it was all about the potting. There are lots
of potters on Mountain Drive or affiliated with Mountain Drive. And the whole
idea of the Pot War was if you didn't sell your items, then you would start
breaking the pots. And then of course that would attract attention and then
people wouldn't want you to break them and and so they would purchase them. But
that, that's kind of where the Pot War idea came from. And...
00:33:00
ERVIN: And I also heard that that some of the pots when you purchase them came
with a little shot of wine inside them.
ADAMS: Well, that was more leftovers. That was actually and people would buy
cups or pots to consume wine from. That was that people would sell these cups
and then you'd buy it and the libation would be would be forthcoming, you know,
and so it was just a vessel that contained it. And we had some really good
potters. Ed Schertz was a good potter, and Bill Neely
was a good potter. There were I can't remember some of the names. That's one of
the things about getting older. The names...
ERVIN: Gerry Friedman is a name that has come up as a potter. Did, were you
familiar with Gerry Friedman?
ADAMS: I did know him. And, you know, I've had contact with him. I
00:34:00didn't know him well. I'm trying to remember the one. There was one that lived
up on West Camino Cielo, fairly close to where I live now that was quite popular
and would bring his wares down and sell them, quite a number of them. And of
course, the, I'm trying to remember the last name of the folks that started the...
ERVIN: Renaissance Faire?
ADAMS: Renaissance Faire.
ERVIN: The Pattersons.
ADAMS: Pattersons?
ERVIN: The Pattersons.
ADAMS: Right. The Pattersons.
ERVIN: Phyllis Paterson and...
ADAMS: Phyllis, and I forget what his name. Anyway, they were a part of the
Mountain Drive Pot War situation for quite a long time before they got the idea
of actually turning it into a public event. And and you were mentioning the
costumes and and one of the things that inspired them was the fact that we kind
of wore period costumes, you know, blousey shirts and maybe you throw
00:35:00out some piece of fabric across, you know, and tuck it into our belts and that
sort of thing. And it was fairly random, but at the same time there was a
continuity to it that was interesting. And, usually if we were, if we weren't
manufacturing something or assisting someone that was at their table during the
Pot War, you know, to be part of it and helping them sell and move and whatever,
assemble and all.
ERVIN: Right. So it's, I understand that the first couple of years that the
Renaissance Faire was done by the Pattersons, it was done as a fundraiser for
radio station KPFK in Los Angeles, that the Mountain Drivers participated also
in the, would drive down to L.A...
ADAMS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was very much a part of of living on Mountain
Drive. And I went to the first couple of Renaissance Faires and then
00:36:00I went to some later on. But they turned into such an incredible circus. And
what was happening at that time was that the psychedelics were being introduced
into into the social, especially the bohemian or the fringe fringy kind of
folks. And so those Renaissance Faires were incredibly magical. And I mean, it
was a very, very, and there were like thousands of people and these people were
built it was kind of like an LA-based. Oh, what do they call that thing that
they do in the desert now?
ERVIN: Oh, Burning Man, yeah.
ADAMS: The Burning Man. Exactly. Very much like that. I mean, clothing optional,
kind of very loosely draped and lots of costumes and face painting
00:37:00and hats with bells on them. And all this imagination that came forth from
ingesting some of the substances that were loosening up people's inhibitions and
their creative abilities.
ERVIN: On Mountain Drive, we've talked a little bit about the women and the sort
of the gender roles that were there. But were there were there women on Mountain
Drive that stood out? There were the kind of discussions the women end up taking
a back seat or lesser role. But were there women that you came across on
Mountain Drive who stood out as being really special and influential?
ADAMS: Well, I think the women that that I remember that stood out
00:38:00were women that embraced their roles rather than rebelled against them. Peggy
Lane is one of the great women on Mountain Drive, as
well as Floppy, Florence Hyde. And there were many of the women who were
involved with the key players on Mountain Drive. They accepted their roles and
actually expanded on them. They were good cooks. They were happy. Lots of
laughter and humor, good humor. And by and large, the women were were not really
I mean, today I don't think that we would be able to have the same sort of
thing, because I think many of the women would rebel against it because they
would feel that difference in the roles and things. But at that time,
00:39:00it was all good fun. And there wasn't a whole lot of that. I did a couple of
times that felt from some of the women that were, were not so involved in the
pageantry of Mountain Drive. Kind of pressure. You know, I'm not even sure I
want to go into some of these things. I'm not sure how much you want to hear
because there's kind of a dark side to some of the things that were going on on
Mountain Drive.
ERVIN: We'd love to hear that.
ADAMS: Well, what's happening is that being a young, young man with all these
older guys, you know, but but being a young man who is kind of free and
interested in stuff, there was there were some of the women were a little bit
predatory and would try to get you in a corner, you know, and you had
00:40:00to kind of be aware of that because it was and I was never one that was very
that that much aggressive. I mean mostly it was, that's just not my nature, in
the sexual role is to be that aggressive. And I certainly took advantage. But at
the same time, I was not really looking for that. So these women stood out to me
and I just made sure that I stayed in the brighter lit places so that I wouldn't get...
ERVIN: So what drove that predatory nature?
ADAMS: Well, I think because their husbands were were actually taking advantage
of the young ladies. And and at that time, of course, the IUD and the Pill and
all of that had just come along. And so women were discovering a freedom that
they hadn't really had before. And so there was a lot of permissive
00:41:00behavior that you wouldn't have ever seen before. And so that there was kind of
a quality that it was kind of coming into order and that women were discovering
that they had as much ability to be promiscuous or outside of the relationship
as the men. And I think there was a proportionality between how much your man
participated and how much you felt that you wanted to and that sort of thing.
And of course, all the you know, everyone's personality is different in that
area. And I think some of the women were were less excited about exercising that prerogative.
ERVIN: Right. So you were a young man, but there were children all around
Mountain Drive. And what was what was it like for children to grow up on
Mountain Drive?
ADAMS: Well, that's a subject that I have given a lot of thought to,
00:42:00and I think I might have mentioned it to you before, but I felt and I don't know
whether you would be able to substantiate this, but I felt that the children
came up short. They got the short end of the stick because the adults were so
involved in their their pleasure and drinking and the hot tub and that sort of
thing. And the children are kind of left to their own devices. And often times
they just went to sleep when they were tired and woke up the next morning and
found their way home kind of a thing. And I think there was an emotional vacuum
there, although, you know, and many of the people embraced the idea, well, it
takes a village to raise a child, but from my perspective, the village has first
got to be paying attention to the children in order to participate.
00:43:00And very often, I think they got left out. And I think that was hard on them
emotionally and and showed up later on in different ways.
ERVIN: And some of those children are still living on Mountain Drive or or their
children. And Kathy Neely told me just the other day that she has great
grandchildren and she's still living in the Neely home up there. So it seems
like there's some shred of the original, something's holding people there.
ADAMS: Well, I think that the I think not only the traditions that Bobby
embraced and they're still having those traditions, the Twelfth Night and the
different, I think they still try to do that. And also because it, the
topography is still there. I mean, many of the houses have burned
00:44:00and, you know, and many of the people have moved on. But still, all those
memories remain. And I think that creates that cohesive environment where
people, you know, they what they know. And they've been down that path into the
canyon like a million times. And and it's evocative for them, you know, and I
myself, I've lived in the same place now for almost 60 years, or 55 years or
something like that. And that that whole thing is very it's a it's a very
interesting feeling to have the familiarity with the piece of land and a
topography and and a view and that sort of thing. And and it creates a certain
envelope around us that it's very secure. And and my situation I feel
00:45:00very privileged that it hasn't changed so much. We haven't had the devastating
fires in Painted Cave, and we may well have them, but we haven't yet, that got
Mountain Drive.
ERVIN: Right. Well, the Painted Cave of 1990, the Painted Cave Fire of 1990...
ADAMS: ...1991, I think, yeah.
ERVIN: And, did that, it got the name Painted Cave Fire. But did it not, it
didn't affect Painted Cave.
ADAMS: No. It only burned one building on the Joe Cocker property, the Willy
Wood property, and what we call lower Painted Cave, and it came up out of the
canyon there and burned down the studio building. It didn't really burn it down.
It just burnt the contents pretty much. We were very fortunate, I think, that
the Coyote Fire of 1964, which was the first fire that really devastated the
front country and from that direction behind Montecito.
ERVIN: And you were there on Mountain Drive for...
00:46:00
ADAMS: I was there. I fought that fire, but I was living on the Bliss estate at
that time. But I was driving back from the University with a friend of mine, and
we saw the smoke. And so we went right up there and started helping out. So we
did a lot of work on that fire. And that was the first forest fire, wildland
fire that I've been involved with, and I've been involved with the wildland fire
ever since. Pretty much has been one of my...
ERVIN: You bought land from Bobby Hyde, but you bought it in Painted Cave, not
on Mountain Drive. Was there a reason why you chose Painted Cave over Mountain Drive?
ADAMS: Yeah, actually, I was. I wanted to get away from the Mountain Drive ethic
or aura or something because it was it was going through a transition at that
time that was a little bit too radical for me because of the influx
00:47:00of some of the drugs and the way that were affecting people's personalities. And
people were kind of vying for power. And I was conscious of that might have been
my own ingestion. I mean, LSD changed my life and it changed a great deal of my
values. And I didn't take it very often, but I did have some incredible
experience with it. It really got to my core. And so I really wanted to be
somewhere that was freer and less constrained because Mountain Drive was getting
into kind of... It was, in one way it was very freeing, but at the same time the
mores were kind of constraining as well, you know, because they had all of this
and these rituals and things that they were involved in, and I just
00:48:00didn't want to be that confined. And so I bought my property in Painted Cave.
And that also changed my life a great deal to have that ability and...
ERVIN: The Painted Cave have some of the good aspects of Mountain Drive or...?
ADAMS: It did in that it was very it's a beautiful place to live for one thing.
Very large view. I mean, I can see Catalina Island from my from my bedroom, you
know, at certain times when it's clear enough to do that. And it was actually
the views are actually more expansive and much larger because quite a bit more
elevation than Mountain Drive has. The community itself not so much because the
people there were more, they were individualists and they were escaping from
living downtown, but at the same time they were doing... Mike, I'm
00:49:00busy. I can't answer his phone right now. I'll talk to you. I'll give you a call
while. Thanks. Sorry. The...
ERVIN: They were more individualistic on Painted Cave.
ADAMS: Well and Painted Cave, it also was very alcohol-centric. Most of the men
in the community were older. They had moved there because they wanted to live
their lives without some of the constraints that society, normal society, is
putting on them. But they didn't have like a cohesive reason. I mean, there
wasn't the thing that that bound Mountain Drive together, which was Bobby's
philosophy and all of that sort of thing. And so what you had pretty much was,
was some some alcoholic guys who are trying to exercise their their
00:50:00power over the rest of the residents. And that was not a pleasant thing. I mean,
I had to they told me I couldn't have access to my land and they had a big cable
across my driveway and I had to go down and research at the Hall of Records to
find out that what they were calling their easement was actually my easement to
my property across a piece of land that belonged to the water company. And so I
had to go and get a cable cutter and cut the cable across the driveway and start
using my driveway and telling them what was real. And, so, but there was,
because of the distance from town and the Highway 154, and the winding road to
the area and stuff, and the threat of wildfire, there are a number of things
that bring the community together. And over the years we have actually worked
with those things in order to build a community there that is
00:51:00self-aware and protective and all of those things and extending that to the
larger community across California. Really getting into that.
ERVIN: Right, which is what you do today with your work on the on the Community Alert.
ADAMS: And and I'm a longtime director of the Santa Barbara County Fire Safety
Council, which now is changing radically because we're getting a lot of funding
from the State of California, the federal government, and we've got lots of
grants that we're administering and hiring people to administer those grants
because we're all just volunteers that don't really know enough about, nor do we
want to care that much about, the nitty gritty of administering the grants. And
anyway, it's a different subject.
ERVIN: So it's been said that Bobby Hyde was a utopian. He wanted to create this
utopian society, at least within his little sphere of influence. Did
00:52:00you, would you say that he was successful at that or...?
ADAMS: I think he was actually. And in that he created an environment where
people could could buy a piece of property for very little and join into a group
of like-minded people that were very cooperative and more or less
self-sustaining because he cultivated the artist situation and everyone
cooperated building each other's houses. And it was a very nurturing environment
that we don't see in other aspects. A lot of times people are competitive,
they're not really cooperative. And I think that he showed that there's a lot of
positive and gratifying rewards to being in an environment, social
00:53:00environment that is cooperative rather than competitive.
ERVIN: Okay, well, I think that'll do it.
ADAMS: Okay.
ERVIN: All right. Well, thank you very much.
ADAMS: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
ERVIN: Yeah. I'm happy to do that. I'm really pleased that you're able to talk
with us today.
ADAMS: I hope this proves to be something that be of value. And. And I mean,
there are so many stories, you know.
ERVIN: Are there any you want to continue to share?
ADAMS: Well, it takes. It takes discourse to bring those memories back.
ERVIN: Right.
ADAMS: And something, I don't know if you know that Bendy White, or do you know
who Bendy White is?
ERVIN: I know who Bendy White is. Yep.
ADAMS: So Bendy and I organized, a couple of years ago, a get together that we
had, I think five or six times where we hired a videographer and we
00:54:00invited a bunch of people from from Mountain Drive and from Painted Cave to come
and talk and give their stories. And I don't know if you've ever seen any of those.
ERVIN: I've heard of them. And and I've heard that, unfortunately, COVID stepped
on some of that. And but yeah, I was certainly as an archivist, I'd be very
interested in in being able to see them and perhaps even...
ADAMS: But what we do, I think I could make it available to you. I'll talk to
Bendy about it. And so that because I think there's, there's probably 20 hours
in all.
ERVIN: To be wonderful to help round out. We're we're continuing to collect
Mountain Drive. And as, you know, as evidenced by your presence here today.
ADAMS: Yes.
ERVIN: We're still trying to capture all of the stories.
ADAMS: Well, of course, I don't think you'll ever get all of them.
00:55:00But I think that you've already done a great job of getting the flavor of and
obviously the popularity of the show that you have, has, you've done a great job
of capturing that.
ERVIN: Well, thank you and appreciate that.
ADAMS: Whoops. Water. Is that the table that has the...
ERVIN: The newsletters. The Grapevine?
ADAMS: Grapevine. I thought that was a great asset. I think there's a lot of
really touching, interesting things. And I know that when I looked at it, it was
only going between a couple of issues. But I think you've got a lot of issues
there. We have been Marty's because I know Marty collected most of them.
ERVIN: Yeah, we don't we don't have a full set, but we do have a good selection
of them. Who we got them from their photocopies. So we photocopied someone's
collection. And but that information, unfortunately, we didn't seem
00:56:00to capture very well. So...
ADAMS: But. Well, I think that that what it gets known and and I think that you
can solicit a lot more material because I think there is still a lot of it out
there. And of course, it's disappearing. A lot of it disappeared in the couple
of fires that burnt through Mountain Drive, sadly.
ERVIN: Right.
ADAMS: But at the same time, it makes that that is still available, that much
rarer and more interesting to people. Right. So.
ERVIN: Yeah. Was there anything else you wanted to share with us, Ted?
ADAMS: No, I don't think as I say, I I'm not inspired, you know, I don't, you
know, and I might come back some time, you know, if I have.
ERVIN: It would be wonderful.
ADAMS: I think it's really important to capture these things because. I
think that it's a disappearing phenomena. I think that uniform,
00:57:00uniformity is overtaking us and the people are more apt to be, to follow rather
than to express themselves in these social environments. And plus, economically,
I think it's more difficult. I think it's important to accept the importance of
these situations. And. And and good for you.
ERVIN: Okay. Well, thank you, Ted. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
ADAMS: Thank you. I'll just find my...
