Grant Johnston:
CLASS OF 1962
Monrovia-Arcadia-Duarte High SchoolClass of 1962
Monrovia, CA
Duarte High SchoolClass of 1962
Duarte, CA
Andres Duarte Elementary SchoolClass of 1958
Duarte, CA
Beardslee Elementary SchoolClass of 1956
Duarte, CA
Caddo Heights Elementary SchoolClass of 1956
Shreveport, LA
Grant's Story
Life: My life A. M. (After Monrovia)
I survived the Sixties by living in Berkeley when I was not out hitch-hiking around. My live in lady and hitch-hiking buddy at the time was Naomi Ruth Eisenberg. She played in a band named "Dancing Food & Entertainment" that has been over-looked by rock historians. see MySpace/dancingfood
She later became the hottest of Dan Hicks Hot Licks. When the Dan Hicks band broke up she moved to Austin and played around with the Outlaws. In July, 03 I designed a CD cover for her, 'About Time,' on her own label, Cat-O-Log Records. Most recently, from 2007 to 2010 she rented an apartment from me in downtown Chico.
There are a lot of other great stories and memorable people from that time. I was friends with Max and Jane Scherr, the folks who started the Berkeley Barb. Max actually paid me to write. The payment usually came as free copies of the Barb. To get my pay converted to money I had to sell the papers. Max was a smart man. Google Max Sherr to find out about him. Life was good at that time. I'll always think of Berkeley -- not Monrovia or Duarte -- as my real home town. I was over 18 when I moved there but I still had a lot of growing to do. Berkeley gave me room to grow.
I married twice, including a beautiful mad artist named Cathy Carl from Duarte High School Class of 1965. I have 4 kids and 6 grand kids. I also have a live in companion, Darla Novak, for the last 35 years. She has 2 daughters, my step-daughters, so I also have 5 step grandchildren. Eleven grandchildren is a lot of Christmas shopping so I just give them money. Writing checks is easier than keeping up with kids stuff.
Darla and I do a lot of music events, mostly Bluegrass music, and I enjoy rockhounding and RV'ing. We also do a radio show together, bluegrass, folk, old country with somebody like Sting or Dire Straits thrown in for varity.
I'm self-employed as a college town landlord and a part time concert producer. I can't really retire since I own the business. But my oldest son is my property manager now so I do have free time.
Now Darla and I can do what we want to do. Things haven't changed a lot since the Sixties. I travel in a motor home now rather than hitch-hike but I haven't made many concessions to old age.
Life is fun at 67. I remember Jimmy Buffett's song, "A Pirate Looks At 40." Oh no, I'm past 65 and still flying the Jolly Roger. I'm still sailing "Against The Wind." (apoligies to Bob Seeger) I'm a pirate looking at old age and I'm still loving it. This life is like a motel, a tempory stopon a long highway. When it's time to move on I'll just check out.
I hope growing up, growing wild, and growing old has been fun for you too. I also hope you all had as much fun as I did. Back in 1958 we used to say, "I'm having a blast." I'm still blasting.
I'm in the phone book -- Chico, the college town, not Chino, the place with the prison. A lot of people thought I was destined for a place like Chino, with numbers not a name. But a lot of people were wrong about my future, even me. I never went to prison. I wound up with letters after my nam...Expand for more
e,(BA, MS) not numbers. When I was in Monrovia I may have been more wrong about my potential than any of the others.
I've posted pictures of my two best friends, Darla and Naomi, below.
Grant W. Johnston, MS
School
I went to so many schools I had plenty of chances to not fit in ---and I did a good job of it.
College
I started at P.C.C. about 1964 but I never finished a class there. I took some photography and darkroom classes at Ohlone College (in the Bay Area) at one time. For many years I lived in Berkeley and I enjoyed being in a college town. It took sometime before I learned to enjoy being a college student.
About 1979 or 1980 I started taking classes at Shasta College -- near Redding. I was about 35 years old by then and suddenly I enjoyed going to college. I transferred to CSU, Chico and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1984. I was 40 years and 2 days old when I got my BA. My good grades were probably because I was over my party days and enjoyed school.
I transferred to CSU, Sacramento and got a MS in Counseling in 1986. I found out I didn't enjoy Sacramento -- or counseling -- so I moved back to Chico and began buying old run-down houses. I like old houses and enjoyed fixing them up. Most of my rehabilitation has been directed to old houses. Renting houses to college students in Chico has been pretty rewarding.
I guess I'm retired now, except for collecting rent, playing in the stock market, and following the music. My life has always revolved around music -- and pretty women.
Workplace
I've done so many things I probably don't even remember all of them. I've been a carpenter and a concert producer, a gold miner and a college town landlord. I was even a powder monkey -- setting of explosives --in Arizona for a while. I've written for newspapers and I've sold newspapers on street corners. Mostly I've just been a foot loose hippie, looking for a good time.
I get bored easily and when I get tired of something I quit doing it and try something else. I put in 7 years at college bcause every semester they let me study something different. I've been a folk music programer, a DJ, on KZFR Community Radio for years.
I've been pretty lucky, 45 years in the counterculture surrounded by drugs, and I've never felt addicted. I even quit smoking tobacco. I have wine and booze in my house but I don't normally drink any. If I do open a bottle of good wine I usually forget to drink it.
I've acquired a nice portfolio in real-estate because I would rather own houses than sell them and spend the money.
For 50 years I've been hanging out with fun people and doing fun stuff. I'm to old to quit. There are not many things in my past I would change. However, there s that Willie Nelson song,
"I know just what I'd change
if I went back in time some how
but there's nothing I can do about it now."
It's been fun but a few things in my past could have been done better. I was not a good father but my kids can say their dad was always doing something different. I lived in a place called Dooms Day House and got shot in a roit in Berkeley.
Military
Draft dodger - 1964 - 70.
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