Friday, August 26, 2005

Charlie Jones, RIP


FRIENDS ~ Longtime Isla Vistan CHARLIE JONES has passed on. Below, in the order they were sent to many of us, are some edited recollections of Charlie. More memories are in the Comments section. Please add yours by clicking "comments" at the bottom of this posting. To add comments: scroll down to the end of this memorial posting about Charlie. There is an orange hyperlink titled "comments." Click on that link and then, scrolling to the bottom of the posting page that opens, click on "Add comment," add your text, and then "login and publish."

(Image of Charlie courtesy of the Isla Vista Free Press, 1988)

(more images at http://homepage.mac.com/rhobbs67/charlie/)


From Farfalla, 8/24/2005:

I am writing with the sad news that Charlie passed away in his sleep last
Wednesday. I just heard today, so perhaps you've already heard. I've
written to Arthur to ask if a gathering is planned and will let you know.
If you already have information to share, I'd appreciate hearing back.

Peace,

Farfalla

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From Cheri, 8/24/2005:

Thanks, Falla. Here is what I know: there will be a wake for him on Aug. 30, Tue, from 5pm - ? At his apartment: 332 Elwood Bch Dr #10, Goleta 93117.
Cards or letters can be sent to his partner Maia at the same address, except #9.

According to Harriet Eckstein, he died from long-term Epstein-Barr.

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From Ed, 8/25/2005:

I was a friend of Charlie back in 1974-75, when he was the sweetest anarchist you could ever know. Of all the people that I knew then I may have respected his opinion the most. He was a island of calm in an ocean of ferment and chaos. The world is a worse place for his no longer being in it.

As a side note about the cause of his illness, while I am sure that Harriet Eckstein was doing her best to accurately state things, Charlie could not have possibly have died from "long-term Epstein-Barr." First of all, Epstein-Barr is the virus that causes mononucleosis. About half the country carries antibodies for it because they either caught the illness or were exposed and developed an immunity. There is no such disease as "long-term Epstein-Barr." Some people mistakenly believe that Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is the cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but the connection was made in a long-discredited study. There is no link between EBV and CFS. Finally, CFS is not fatal unless the person commits suicide because of the pain and other disabling effects (something that unfortunately happens too often). There are no recorded cases of death that can be attributed to CFS outside of suicide despite studies going back to the 1980s.

I say all this as a former member of the Board of Directors of The Chronic Fatigue & Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association, the largest national group focusing on CFS (aka CFIDS). I was also President of CFIDS-Albuquerque and founder & first President of CFIDS-New Mexico. I have had CFS since December 1990.

I am cc'ing this message originally sent to Macolm to Cheri Gurse... in the hopes that she can (a) pass this along to Harriet and (b) send a correction to those she has E-mailed. While obviously her concern is for Charlie and not whether CFS is fatal or whether EBV is a disease, I think it is important that people know the facts rather than learn and perhaps innocently spread misinformation. This disease is bad enough without people thinking it can be fatal. (BTW, it affects approximately 650,000 Americans, which qualifies it as a serious health issue even if it isn't given the research resources it deserves).

I am also cc'ing Carol Cuzner and Larry Padway, the former being Charlie's roommate in 1974 and the latter being a friend of Charlie's in the same time period...

Ed Isenberg

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From John, 8/24/2005:

I think I know Charly--ddin't he work at the original Kinko's next to the Hamburger Habit? Didn't he have long hair down past his shoulders and wore John Lennon glasses? I would like to know. Thanks, John I. Gilderbloom


From Malcolm, 8/25/2005:

Hi, John ~ Yes, that was Charlie. Always kept his hair long even after many of us cut ours -- many times. Charlie took real interest in the health of the IVRPD, worked for the district for a period of time, and was also a well known juggler. His smile was infectious. ~ Malcolm


From John, 8/25/2005:

Thanks! If you ever heard the corporate version of Kinko's starting-- Charlie got zero air. But who knows if Charlie was not at Kinko's would the "Alternative" become the corporate giant? I would still like to find out what happened to Murv Glass-- so much talent and energy. I cannot make it because I am in Louisville and just got back from Isla Vista. Give my best regards to everyone. John

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From Ed, 8/25/2005:

I was just told he was a lawyer and that he supported progressive causes. I think I heard about him through Malcolm (how I know him is truly an odd story). I may have heard about Charlie being a lawyer when my old friend Steve Logan died, and I was communicating with several people in SB. I just don't remember.

When I knew Charlie in 1973-75, he was living at Das Institute, which was a former fraternity house in Isla Vista that about 20 people had taken over. I was co-owner and News Editor of the Isla Vista Town Crier, was involved with a woman who lived at D.I., and was very old friends (and still am) with another woman who lived there. I did a big expose about an FBI informant who was the biggest heroin dealer in SB County, but kept being freed by the FBI. He (the dealer/informant) started stalking me and almost shot me twice (once in public at a restaurant). Lots of fun staring at a .45 pointed at your face at point-blank range... Anyway, D.I. was made up of two groups, one of which was quite radical and expected Nixon to declare martial law at any moment, and the other basically just typical left-leaning Isla Vistans. I became friends with the more radical element, which included Charlie (who described himself as an anarchist). We loaded our own bullets and had lots of guns, and often went target practicing up in the San Marcos Pass area. At one point Charlie offered to beat this guy up, but when it came to it and he had hit the guy and knocked him to the ground, Charlie said he just didn't have it in him to hurt someone so deliberately. Eventually the crisis with this guy passed (I told one of his junkies, my next-door-neighbor and once-girlfriend, that I was carrying a gun and would shoot the informant on sight, claiming self-defense and mental impairment). However, I stayed friends with Charlie and the others, and if I remember correctly went bowling with him on many occasions at midnight. I lost track of him when I moved away from the area in November 1975.

If you knew Steve Logan I have many stories to tell about him, as he was my best friend for several years and my roommate in the early 1970s. I was so sorry to have missed his funeral, and now I have to miss Charlie's as well. :-(

There was one more story that involved Charley. On the night after this informant hit me in a restaurant while flaunting his gun, we heard a rumor that he and his drug dealer friends were going to break into Das Institute and shoot everybody. Since these guys had beaten up others to the point of hospitalization, it seemed a plausible threat. So my girlfriend and I moved into a vacant room at the end of the hall, and "non-combatants" moved to the second floor while everyone on the first floor was armed with a weapon. I had a shotgun leaning up next to the door. In the middle of the night, one woman got up to go to the bathroom, and tripped over a bicycle that we had put in the hallway as something that would make noise if someone broke in. All I remember is suddenly lying on the floor with my shotgun, head and arms out the doorway into the hall, aiming at the dark silhouette that was screaming "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" with my finger on the trigger. After what seemed forever someone turned on the hall light and there was this woman, stark naked, frozen with her hands up high, and guns, rifles and shotguns pointing at her from every doorway! If one person had started shooting we all would have, and she would have been cut to pieces. We were so scared we all got out of bed and sat around the kitchen drinking coffee (of all things) trying to calm down. That was when I moved back to my apartment and decided to threaten the dealer. Anyway, Charlie was one of those with a gun that awful night, Saturday, February 9th, 1974, my 23rd birthday.

Those were such bizarre times. I lived in a 4-plex on Pardall Rd right next to the University. The next-door-apartment was home to a stripper and also a heroin addict who as I said had been my girlfriend for a few weeks. Downstairs were Campus Crusade for Christ. Across the street was the Women's Center where several fiercely Lesbian women lived. Upstairs were my cocaine supplier friends and in another apartment someone who would later become a lawyer and has been friends with me and my wife for over 31 years. The woman I mentioned in Das Institute who was my old friend we still see at least once a year, and have been friends now for over 34 years. And if Steve Logan was still with us we would be celebrating our 35th year as friends (I saw him last just a few months before he died).

I have often said, those were not the happiest times of my life, but they were definitely the most intense. The same thing people say about their time spent in a war, which is what we looked at it as being at the time...

Ed

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From Carol, 8/25/2005:

... I am sorry to hear of Charlie's passing. I had no idea he was still living in the Goleta/IV area. I like your description of him as a "sweet anarchist" and an "island of calm" - very true.

My main Charlie story is that he was my "guide" when I took acid for the second and last time, with E [Carrol], in late autumn in, I think, 1975. He was with E and I for the first few hours, which was the best part of the trip - he did tarot readings for us and we talked and hung out. E and I then went out walking for a couple of hours, and did other activities I don't remember now. The trip went on too long for me, and by the time we got home to our apartment on Pasado in the evening, I was really tired of it and wanted it to be over. I also remember Charlie being a calm and rational presence at Das and at the credit union, his juggling, and lots of other tarot readings he did - he was the one who first interested me in tarot.

"I was particularly impressed that Charlie used an Aleister Crowley deck that he had studied carefully and learned to use with Light energy intention, instead of the Dark energy Crowley's deck was notorious for.

I lived at Das Institut (it had a longer, Germanic name, created by the founders, who were associated with Rich Applebaum, a professor in the Sociology Department at UCSB - but the name was usually shorted to Das or D.I.) from July 1974 to December 1975. Ed described Das as having a general left-leaning IV-activist faction, and I would expand on that a little by describing it as the radical arts group. This part of Das participated in local street theater, such as the Gorrilla Theater presentation in support of Isla Vista's application to the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission for cityhood. We once put on a production, in the Das courtyard, of Aristophanes' THE BIRDS, and I believe Charlie was in the cast, along with Emerson, Dean Kennedy, Dan Slick, Stan Hoffman and others. Charlie was also one of the organizers of the famous (or should I say infamous?!) F.O.D.I. Balls ("Friends of Das Institut") that we held at Halloween for a couple of years to raise money for local causes. I remained friends with my Das comrades and worked with Charlie on the Board at the credit union until I left the area in November 1977.

A final memory is of Charlie arranging a memorial service for a girl named Patti, a really sweet person, who had volunteered at the credit union for only a few months, when she was picked up at a bus-stop by someone who raped her, killed her and left her body in a canyon east of Santa Barbara. I will never forget Charlie telling us at the C.U. that Patti's school backpack had been found in the mountains and our all realizing what that must mean, and shortly afterward her body was found. That's a sad memory, but it was typical (in my experience of Charlie) that he cared enough that after she went missing he helped the police and was in contact with her family, and then he organized the local memorial service.

Thanks for letting me add to the memory book on Charlie Jones."

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From Marc, 8/25/2005:

Hi everyone... I wish I could attend his memorial service.

I remember Charlie as the only guy who worked at the Park District longer than I did, at the time, as he stayed on long after I left. He was both friendly and prickly, outraged and warm. We worked together to wreck the community center (sorry Carmen) "Save Little Acorn" election. We opposed each other's choice for IVRPD General Manager. He wanted the blonde woman and I wanted Jim Crandall. We both got our way, eventually. He was a force to reckoned with, that's for sure.

Hugs,

Marc Borgman

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From Carmen, 8/25/2005:

Marc,

It's so good to hear from you. And it was wonderful to see you at the 12/10
bash. Charlie was a potfull, that's for sure.

I visited with Jim Nicholas yesterday in SF. I don't know if that was your
IV generation or not. He was IVCC's Admin Asst in the mid-70s and was a
really good contribution. He has a Burning of the Bank Award that Mike Gold
lettered up, before Charlie starting doing them.

Regards,

C.

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PLEASE SEE COMMENTS, BELOW. Click on "Comments," go to the bottom of the page and read. If you'd like to add a memory of Charlie, click on "Post A Comment," enter text, enter your "identity," then click "Publish."

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21 comments:

  1. From Patti Crandall, 8/26/2005:

    ... Jim and I were both sad to hear Charlie passed away. I have very fond memories of the Isla Vista community (I was there from 1975-1985.) I remember Charlie as a very sweet guy who always had a twinkle in his eye as though he were slightly amused at the rest of us. Here's one of my favorite stories about Charlie, who was the Park District's bookkeeper and had to deal with the county's accounting bureaucracy: During one of the required annual audits, Charlie had reconciled all the numbers, but was off one cent, so being the conscientious bookkeeper that we was, he taped a penny to the report. I wonder if that penny is still in the county files somewhere...

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  2. From Michael Katz, 8/26/2005:

    I always remember Charlie's softness, and the way he
    looked at me when I spoke to him. It wasn't often
    that we spoke, but when we did I felt him being very
    present with me. I was so glad to see him at the last
    Jugglers festival and hear his love and appreciation
    for Maia's support.

    I can still see Charlie sitting at the platform tables
    at Borsodi's. I can't remember if he was a small
    salad in a large bowl guy or was it a pot of tea with
    refills of water or POC. But I remember him sitting
    there and spending some time, smiling. I love you
    Charlie, and please bless us from where you are.

    Love,

    Michael Katz

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  3. From Susan Swift

    Charlie and I had a special relationship.(Wouldn't everyone who knew him say that?)

    I still have a hand drawn and hand-colored Tarot deck that Charlie made for me, circa 1978. I keep it in a cedar box and don't look at it often, but it reminds me of the "Full Moon Readings" that Charlie would preside over once a month, usually in the grass area behind the "Cag pad."

    I don't consider myself a superstitous person, and my spirituality is most often stimulated by awe-inspiring natural beauty, not any specific practice or tradition. Still, in the presence of Charlie, I felt in touch with what is enduring and deep, beyond words and before science! Our community Tarot readings seemed prescient and valuable personally & politically.

    I visited Cahrlie a couple of years ago when I traveled to I.V. and S.B. to catch up with a few people whose memories haunt me this many years after leaving that hotbed of activism for this one (SF BAy Area).

    We took a slow walk over to some dunes near where he lived. Walking was tiring and perhaps painful for him, but the visit was such a validation of my recollections of his good, kind and gentle nature. I think he enjoyed the visit too.

    I was interested to see that he occupied himself with "minatures." His apartment floor and all surfaces seemed filled with little markets and houses and villages. I learned that Maia shared his same dis-ease, and that she lived just a couple of doors away.

    Charlie was a regular at Borsodi's Coffeehouse, where I waitressed briefly, and at La Jicora Mexican Restaurant, where I waitressed for almost a year. He worked at the Credit Union when I worked at the Credit Union. I think he was also involved in the Tenants' Union when I volunteered there.

    Charlie was a free spirit, he was never owned by material reality. I miss you Charlie, may your spirit and memory live on. Que Viva!

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  4. Yes, Susan, I too, had a special relationship with Charlie, and I agree with your sentiment--Charlie simply did not have relationships with people that were not special. (double negative used for emphasis)

    I feel such a sense of loss, and I'm sure all who knew him will agree that the material plane of our existence is a much poorer place without Charlie.

    I cannot begin to assemble my memories of him right now, for those memories are being tossed in a tempest of grief and outrage that he has been taken from us.

    I will say, though, that the person "Ed" has described above is not Charlie Jones. As I was reading Ed's post, I was thinking to myself, "that doesn't sound like Charlie," and by the time I finished reading the post, I knew it wasn't Charlie.

    Charlie never lived at Das Institut. (He and Emerson were too busy establishing themselves as the first residents of Tipi Village.) I think Ed has made a mistake that used to be made commonly, in mistaking a certain other person for Charlie. Charlie and this other person were often mistaken for each other because they both had long hair, they both wore similar style glasses, and they could both be frequently found among the books at Homefront.

    I'm not identifying this other person by name because he is alive and well, and he might prefer that some of the details recounted by Ed (assuming they are true) not be revealed to the world at large. In any event, some of you will undoubtedly know of whom I speak.

    Back to the topic at hand: Charlie was my friend, but that seems like such an ineffectual description of all he meant to me. I don't think I've ever known anyone with the integrity of Charlie Jones. Beyond that, I know, with certainty, that he was the most gentle, loving, caring man I have ever known.

    In truth, Charlie's body was only a vessel holding his spirit. Now, that spirit is free--free to commune again with Patty Laney, with Red Gaffney, and with the other spirits he loved that were freed before he was.

    I loved Charlie, and I miss him. More than anything, though, I feel unbelievably lucky to have known him, because he enriched my life immeasurably before he passed on.

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  5. From Laura Price, 8/26/2005:

    A Goodbye to Charlie Jones

    My first encounter with Charlie Jones was when I started working with The IVRec and Park District in about 1987. I remember him sitting at his desk, in the messy, non-renovated, old service station office with a gentle smile for all. His long hair and wire rim glasses symbols of something past.

    A quiet and dignified person, I always admired Charlie’s’ unapologetic determination to use public transportation and his insistence on good and thorough public process. I had much to learn from him, but I wouldn’t admit it at the time. His use of calligraphy and astrology were intriguing to me, and I later developed an interest in astrology partially in thanks to Charlie.

    His involvement with the Men against Rape group was extraordinary. What a wonderful example he was! and I always felt comfortable in his presence. His historical perspective was invaluable and I was always glad when he attended the IVRPD board meetings.

    I remember thinking how “stubborn” he was about insisting on using the MTD to go downtown for bank transactions – but now I realize he was a person far ahead of his time, a person of principle, and certainly the best example for all of us in these current times of $2.60 per gallon gasoline.

    The last time I saw Charlie was in 2002, and it had been some time since we’d last seen each other. We were celebrating an event at one of the Isla Vista parks. He gave me a nice hug and I’ll never forget how good it felt to hold him in a friendly embrace.

    Good luck to you Charlie, peace, and I hope to see you some day soon. Thank you for all your generous contributions of work, time and witness to the Isla Vista community.

    Love, Laura

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  6. Somewhere in my life my heroes changed from mythic figures from the sports pages to real people. I'm not sure whem I realized it, but for a long time I have looked to Charlie as a model for becoming a better person. I have used examples from our discussions to illustrate concepts that I'd like my sons to adopt as guiding principles in their lives.

    Charlie had a way of finding the good in everyone. The most important lesson I learned from Charlie was how much we grow and gain by finding the good in others and how much we lose when we try to build our selves up at the expense of others.

    While I didn't always agree with Charlie, I have always admired the strenth of his convictions. Like many in our generation, I think I grew up confusing toughness with strength. Charlie was as gentle a man as I know and yet was very strong.

    I can't really tell any stories that really match my memory. I remember his principles, his laugh, his ability to see tremendous complexity and subtlety in situations and his ability to articulate them. And of course, his juggling.

    I think most of us are given a few glimpses at the grace of the universe. I suspect Charlie was given a grand view.

    I miss you Charlie

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  7. I am sorry to hear about Charlie's passing. He was one fucking beautiful person and anarchist. I feel truly blessed to have shared so many experiences with a person with such a big heart and so little ego.

    I saw Charlie a couple of years ago when I was down visiting my Mom. We spent a nice couple of hours together catching up and rehashing old memories and war stories. I promised to write and keep in touch but as so often happens with old friends life just kept pushing it to the back burner.

    I have been talking with some of the NorCal IVers, Mike Rawson and Susan Swift, and discussing the possibility of having some kind of memorial get together honoring Charlie's friendship and memory. I am willing to act as a clearing house for those of us in Northern California that would like to get together and spend some time talking about Charlie and the good old days. If you know people in NorCal that aren't on this email list already please have them contact me if they are interested. I would especially like to hear from Jim Starke and Carolyn Myers.

    So far I have seen no discussion of our Anarchist effort to drive Kinko's out of business. Charlie was a leading force in Xerxes Copyhouse and our technical expert. Few probably realize at one time we were Kinko's largest competitor. Ooohh if things had worked out differently. What a crew that was; Charlie Jones, Carolyn Myers, Jim Starke, Willie Marquardt, Linda Scotia, Liz ___, Tip ____, and myself as copy moguls. I still remember our meeting with Xerox and Charlie convincing them that we could actually pull it off. We were crazy enough and fearless enough to believe anything was possible. I think Xerox got Charlie and this guy Xerxes confused. For years after we closed Charlie would periodically get a piece of mail addressed to Xerxes. He would dutifully reply, Charley was even better letter writer than Anarchist, that they wanted the other Xerxes named Bill Xerxes.

    Anyway if any of Charlie's old comrades from Home Front, the Credit Union, Tenants Union, Xerxes, IVCC, or any of the other endeavors Charlie was involved in to make the world a better place are interested in getting together in Northern California please contact me at this email address or by phone at 510-832-5012.
    Louis Quindlen

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  8. He was a good man and strong in his quiet way.

    Greeting to all the IV alumni from here in Fort Lauderdale. Best wishes.

    David Hoskinson

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  9. Charlie was an incredible soul, as many of you have said, He was an anarchist in the what I consider to be the very true meaing. He lived his values, he exemplified the behavior he wanted from others. He was kind but firm, patient. He had a great laugh and a great sense of humor, but not when the humor was at the expense of his values.

    I worked with him for many years at the IVRPD. Perhaps, I flatter myself to think it was not a typical employee and employer relationship but there were so many rough times when his thoughts and advice carried real wieght for me. Though I often went the other way, I always knew that this was not a step to be taken lightly.

    What I really respected about Charlie is that while seldom spoke out, when I asked (which was often) he always had the decency to tell me what he really thought, and even when he knew his employer was going to go the other way. I always knew that his advice was consistent with our values.

    Though his ill health has been known to me for many years, his death hit me hard. I wish I could be with you all at the memorial. Not only to stand with Charlie one last time, but to hug, hold, and feel the bond I have with all you.

    Warmest regards

    Glenn

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  10. Mostly I remember the midnight full moon tarot readings. As a wanna-be hippy, UCSB student in the mid-80s, I felt like I was living a dream when Janet and I would go out to join the circle and hear Charlie talk about the cards. I was also on the Park District Board for several years and got to work with Charlie. He was one of very few people at the time who was always thoughtful, kind and supportive, even if he disagreed. I've never met anyone who lived such a hypocrisy-free existence. When I left the Board, I got a letter from Charlie, which allowed me to feel as though we had a special connection, because, as others have said, with Charlie, every connection was special. We are less for Charlie's passing. May his spirit live on in all of us.

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  11. My memories of Isla Vista are all glimpses and feelings at this point. The stories of Charlie (the ones that were REALLY Charlie) were wonderful to hear because they are my memories too, scraped out of the grey matter by your words. POC Charlie at Borsodis....He sat up on the upper platform (not P1, p2, p3 or p4) by the window sipping his coffee and intriguing the waitstaff with his continuous writing, and his twinkling eyes. I also finally got to know Charlie, after many years of filling that coffee cup, and going to midnight tarot readings, by working at IVRPD. He had a way of laughing at the absurd, the ugly and the insane in a way that made me feel better. "Don't let stuff get to you," was what his laugh always seemed to say. What a lovely man. Here's to Charlie!

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  12. [ Excerpted from an email to Malcolm from Gina ]

    ... A bummer to hear that Charlie is no longer walking the earth with us. He sort of balanced things out. That came to me revisiting paradise for the first or second time after moving from there in 1984.

    I coasted into Isla Vista after a long drive south from San Francisco...IV wasn't my destination. I don't know if it ever was so much a destination as much as a free state of mind. I was driving my car which felt bogus, but I pulled along side the curb at the Fud Coop to fill up on food and drink before continuing my journey south.

    I come out of there and who - Charlie Jones, sitting on the fence or whatever, and explosion of hugs and how are you's and catching up, and updates. I suppose you knew his opinion about incorporation. We jawed about it for quite a while. He brought up valid points. He spoke plainly.

    Charlie spoke like an anarchist. Who needs government anyway? Let the roads fall apart. Among those who welcomed the decay of IV's inorganic fixtures was Charlie Jones. The worst he could imagine would have been to let those dominant types on the IVCC rule over the IV plebeians.

    My days at UCIV, '79-84, witnessed organizing the organized, then organizing those into more organized organizers. Charlie Jones was his own man. He sort of balanced things out a bit.

    Ciao,
    Gina

    Maybe youth let's you get away with negative freedom -- reacting to the ill acts of authority instead of acting consciously.

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  13. I was remembering Patty Laney when I ran across this sad notice. Charlie was very helpful in my spiritual growth, and I still work with a Crowley deck that he helped educate me on.

    The full moon readings and the great "trips". He will be missed.

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  14. Hi- I was surfing the net when I came across this page! Amazing! I remember Charlie from the old IV/ tipi village days. I was involved with the gorilla theater had a CETA job at the women's center and worked at the youth project, it is so great to read the memories and see that people are still around. I remember Charlie as such a sweet, sweet man and who could ever forget the Stromboli's!.
    God bless you Charkie!
    Katherine Koselka

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  15. I only spoke to Charlie once, at the Day of Reflection after Take Back the Night last year. He came and talked to us for a little bit, and I remember listening to him and knowing in my heart that he has a caring and compassionate spirit. I feel proud to carry on the legacy he helped begin, and this year will hopefully do justice to his memory.
    Sincerely,
    Jessie (Co-Chair of Take Back the Night UCSB)
    tbtn_ucsb@yahoo.com

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  16. It's many months after Charlie's passing, and i feel like thinking of him again. I wasn't nearly as involved in IV politics and organizing as so many of you who've posted were, but I was there. My energies went to the rape crisis center and women's center all those years, from 1974 through the 90s.

    Here's how I met Charlie. The RCC was holding our second or third auction ("wouldn't it be nice if the pentagon held a bake sale...???"), at Trinity Episcopal church on Micheltorena. I was prez of the board at the time so I was on stage a lot, and..I noticed this very quiet man sitting alone, in the back. He stayed there throughout the auction. It was probably 1979.

    As the clean up post-festivities took place, I couldn't keep my thoughts from this man who looked so...lonely to me. I took him a basket of flowers. We didn't exchange any words at all, but he accepted them, and left.

    A few days or weeks later--I really don't know the time frame--a small note came to the RCC addressed to The Flower Giver--me! He'd written a little note to thank me for the flowers and for the welcome he felt, and told me his name: Charlie Jones.

    I honestly don't remember the rest--of how we must have gotten together eventually to talk. We told each other our "stories" of why we were at the auction...meaning, why we felt the ways we did about rape and violence against women, and ending the pain and hurt. From that day forward, Charlie became one of the most connected, committed "volunteers" of the RCC. He attended national conferences with mixed groups of us who were volunteers, friends of staff, staff. And of course we met Maia (who I knew as Carole, first, from the Womankind days!).

    I feel like we all encircled one another--Maia, Eva, Charlie, Harriet, Chuck, Barbara, Marsha, Marnie, Jackie Roy (who just passed away, last month, from ALS). So many others.

    Does anyone remember the march downtown to then-senator Omar Rains' office to DEMAND more bus routes (after the murders of Jackie and Patty)??

    Charlie called me the flower giver, but in truth I felt that he was the giver, of space and time for Patty and Jackie, and the third woman who was murdered by that man (I know his name, but I'm bummed I cannot recall the 3rd woman's name). Charlie kept their memories alive, that's for sure.

    Charlie and Maia. Gentleness and patience. Conviction and fire.

    Before I sign off, I must ask one more question: does anyone remember a fellow named OL who worked for the credit union? Know where he moved on to?

    Peace to all.
    Cheri Gurse

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  17. If ever there was a generous and loving spirit who lived so lightly and delicately on this earth it was and is Charlie.
    I was blessed to have spent six months in France with Charlie on Foreign Study in 1967-68.
    I never knew anything of Charlie's family and would very much like to know where he was originally from. I know that he attended Shady Side Academy in PA since I, too, was a product of private school and we would tease each other about our experiences.
    If anyone has any information about his family and survivors or would just like to share memories of Charlie, I would very much like to hear from you.

    Cynthia

    curreygilpin@sbcglobal.net

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  18. hi charlie...where is jesse ortiz and dean kennedy?....miss you

    jackie

    p.s. i emailed carolyn....thought i could speak this time

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  19. Wow, I just found this page, As a long time IV resident on sueno rd I knew Charlie mainly from his work at the credit union and work with the parks dist in IV. Over the years he was always a good person to see in any situation. I knew that any time I had a yard sale, he would be one of the first to come by and check out the wares. All the comments certainly brought many good memories of my wonderful exciting years in IV. Borsodis, Tepee Village, Das Inst. Jugglers Fest. and many many more ...Question does anybody have an Email address for Jim Starkey (Wolf)? would appreciated. Good remembering of Charlie. Norah Bierer still in Goleta

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  20. I remember Charlie working at Kinko's... next to Carmen Lodise and Linda Borsodi, Charlie was a symbol of old Isla Vista, where I lived from 1972 to 1977... regards, Jeffrey Bell, now known as Jeff Zekas, Veneta, Oregon

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  21. I remember Charlie, from the Parks District and Kinko's... along with Carmen Lodise and Linda Borsodi, he was a symbol of old Isla Vista. Miss the good old days, Tee Pee Village, surfing Sands, chasing girls (and even the not-so-good old days), always regretted that I got there after Kevin Moran and the bank burning (lived in I.V. from Sept 1972 to March 1977)... regards, Jeffrey Bell, now known as Jeff Zekas, in Veneta, Oregon...

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