1960: The first time I came upon the California beach was at night. I rode with a guy who called himself Earl the Squirrel. Earl picked me up hitchhiking. We’d been up for two days traveling west. Without a moon and clouds blowing in off the Pacific, the night was blind black. We turned onto Highway 1, the scenic route and a fog set in. Earl pulled into a rest area for the night. I got out to look for a safe place to bed down, a spot where a car wouldn’t run over me in the night. I headed toward the sound of crashing waves, thinking the shoreline would be the same as Virginia Beach with plenty of sand slightly graded toward the sea. That’s the picture I had in my mind. From the sound of the crashing waves on shore, I figured the sea was about two-city blocks away. I distanced myself away from the parking area. Suddenly I couldn’t take another step, so I threw down my bedroll and crawled in. I thought about taking a swim the next day and hanging around as long as I pleased.
Before daylight, I had to pee. I forgot to relieve myself before going to sleep. Listening to waves crash ashore, I thought I’d get up and take care of business in that direction. I planned to run toward the ocean to relieve the discomfort, letting the tide wash it away. I was close to doing that, but the warmth of the sleeping bag and the waves crashing in the far distance lulled me back to sleep.
I awoke a few hours later to sunlight and seagulls hovering above. The sound of the waves still invited me for a swim. I raised my head to blue water in the distance and tasted salt air. But there wasn’t a sandy beach in sight. I sat up for a better view. It took a few seconds to figure out that I had slept six feet from the edge of a hundred foot cliff above a rocky shoreline. I gathered my senses. My mind rushed back to the night before. Who stopped me from certain death?
If I had taken three more steps the night before I would’ve met my end. Had I left my bedroll meant the same, death. Shaken, I stood and felt the salt air rising from the ocean below. I saw where I would have plunged among the rocks below. Was it the warmth of my sleeping bag that held me, or the crashing of waves that lulled me back to sleep? Or did the Great Spirit watch over me?
When Earl saw my knap-sack next to the cliff’s edge, he had a bout of vertigo. There wasn’t a guardrail at the edge. The earth had broken away and the steel railing had fallen onto the rocks below.
“There’s one answer,” I said to Earl. “The Great Spirit stopped me.” Earl was shaken. He squatted and crawled away on his hands and knees. I felt like crawling too, but I felt something else that made me stand by my sleeping bag. From the height I had an urge to get down fast. Seeing Earl crawl brought this feeling on. It was crazy, but I wanted down from the elevation so much I was willing to go over the edge to get it. I believed I could fly like a bird. Earl stood and called me from the notion of flying. Earl said the cliff could break away at any moment. I picked up my bedroll and walked away. 
