Hollister Ca., 1973

By kiki

On the Memorial Day weekend of 1973, we took a trip to Hollister, Ca. to visit Mom & Pop's, friends. We packed my pickup/camper with over 18 people, primarily small kids. The adults were my sister Annie, brother-in-law Willie, Mom, Pops, my brother Mando, my daughter's boyfriend Mike and Connie and I. We left our house early Saturday morning and headed north on State Highway 99 to State Highway 152; on State Highway 152, we turned west, drove over the Pacheco Pass, and dropped into Hollister. It was about 7:00 PM when we arrived at my parent's friends in Hollister. We all met and said hello to the friends, then Mom, Pops, and their friends started talking about the old times, so I said to Mando and Willie.

"Let's walk around town and find a bar."

"I was wondering when you were going to ask," said Willie

Hollister is a tiny town, but they might have more bars than downtown L.A. So we hit a few of the bars, had a beer here and there, then we found the "The One," I don't remember the name of the bar, but this bar is where you'll find all the action you can hope to find in a small town like Hollister, it's on the north end of the main drag, which is only about eight blocks long. We walked in and saw that they had pool tables in the back. So after ordering some beers, we walked to the back. I leaned against a shuffleboard table to watch two guys shoot pool, and as I was leaning against the shuffleboard table, a lady, and here I used the word "lady" loosely, walked up to me and gave me a shove causing me to spill some of my beer.

"Out of the way," she yelled at me.

"Lady, if you want to use the table, just say so, and I'll move; no need to shove me," I said.

She then got in my face and said, "Get out of the way."

She then proceeded to spit on my cordovan's, I had just spit-shined my shoes the night before, and the "Lady" spat on them! Dang, that got me pissed! I looked at her face and my cordovan's; the next thing I knew, my beer was running down her face.

"Call the cops," she yelled at the bartender.

"You guys better leave, she will call the cops, and she about runs this town too," another lady said.

We proceeded to walk out with Mando in front, me in the middle, and Willie covering my back. 

Cops arrived as we were walking out, and one asked me. "What's going on in there?" "Some asshole is raising hell," I replied 

As the cops ran inside the bar, we ran like hell down a side street and found another bar - We were sitting at the bar having a beer when Pops walked in.

"Where the hell have you guys been?"

"Don't ask Pops; you don't want to know," I said

"I been looking all over town for you guys, you know what time it is!? It's midnight, and those people want to go to bed."

We left the bar and walked back to the friend's house; everybody was in the camper waiting for us, Mom and Pops said goodbye to their friends, and we drove off. By this time, everybody was pissed at us.

We drove seven miles south on State Route 25 to Tres Pinos. Now Tres Pinos is so small there isn't a stoplight or stop sign in town, nor do they have sidewalks; we found a place to park and sleep for the night; some of us rolled out sleeping bags, and Willie set up a two men tent and sleeping bag, close by was a bar. Mando and I went in for a beer while Willie went to sleep inside his tent; as we returned from the bar, I could hear Annie yelling at the top of her lungs.

"Damn you, Willie! Where the hell is you at!?"

At the same time, she is poking Willie's tent with a broomstick.

"What?" said Willie as he poked his head out of the tent.

After cleaning up in the morning, we drove five miles south to the Paicines General Store to buy some provisions (beer); afterward, we went back to Hollister and took Route 25 west to the San Juan Bautista Mission; Mom wanted to see the mission. Mando, and I just wanted to find the wine tasting room. We tasted just about every kind of wine they had. Finally, the wine server asked us: "Are you guys buying or just drinking?"

"We haven't found a good one to buy yet," said Mando

"Well, you're not tasting any more wines."

We bought a bottle, went outside, and sat under a tree with our bottle of wine.

By the time Mom had finished touring the mission, Mando and I (Willie didn't drink wine, he was a beer guy) had finished the wine, so we headed south on California's Highway 101. It was getting late, so we pulled into a rest area for the night; we rolled out our sleeping bags on the lawn; dang! Just as we were going to sleep, the automatic sprinklers came on, and we had to move into the bathrooms to sleep. The ladies and the kids slept in the camper, and Pops slept in the truck's cab.

The next day after cleaning up as best as we could in the bathrooms of the rest area, we headed south on 101 again, but not before Pops told me, "Mijo, no more drinking, okay?"

I was driving with Mando and Willie riding in the cab with me. Willie was out of beer and wanted to stop to buy some more, but pops had said, "No more drinking." 

Going up a slight hill, I could see some stores at the top of the hill; I said to Willie, "Willie, I'm going to stop up ahead and pull into the parking lot of those stores; I'm going to pull up the hood of the truck, so if Pops wants to know why we stopped, I'll tell him the truck is running hot, in the meantime, you run to the store and buy your beer."

Pops gets off from the back of the camper.

What's wrong, Mijo?' asked Pops.

"Nothing much pops, the truck just running a little hot"

Pops went back to the back of the camper just as Willie was coming back with his beer.

We got back on 101 and drove straight home without any more stops.

I can say that not everybody was a happy camper by the time we arrived back home.