Pawnticket: Living The Dream Life

This will be a paraphrased, sort of jumbled remembrance of an eulogy I gave for a friend I had known for 37 years. Barn died back in December but J. who is managing his estate had to cough up all the cash in advance before Xmas to get Barn prepared for his final resting place, and to top that off, hire a lawyer for $5,000 to process the whole thing through the courts. So, she waited till now to make more money to have a service at Cartmell Funeral home in Plymouth. I suspect if Barney had been dirt poor, the lawyer would've done it for far less, but that's the way things go when they found out he inherited his Dad's helicopter company and own land next door to Plymouth Plantations. Looks like the Plantations will buy it now, as they always hit him up to sell it to them and J. has no use for it now except to convert it to cash. I decided to tell a few stories of Barn's life that amazed me. I never lived that kind of life being a Pawtucket native.

“Good morning, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Ron M. from RI and that'll explain the accent. I met Barney back in 1985 as he walked into a student lounge at Rhode Island College. He was decked out in tennis clothing, carrying a racket, a bandanna around his forehead and was sweaty as hell. He plopped himself down to chair next to me and started talking to other students there. “I'll shouldn't play against 18 year olds!” he says. As he is talking to the others, he glances at his watch and says, “Well, better get to class, I'll be teaching Medieval peasant diets today.”

To which I turn to him and incredulously ask, “You're a professor?” Because he sure didn't look like any of the ones I had there at RIC.

He, a bit miffed responds, “Yes..I am...what are your four degrees in and are they from Holy Cross, Vanderbilt, the University of Bologna and perhaps Champagne/Urbana Illinois?”

I tell you, I never imagined a college professor like this, showing up after a tennis match, snarky and covered in sweat ready to discuss peasant cabbage recipes to history majors.

I'm good for that, getting off on the wrong foot. However, we became the best of friends in time.

Barney returned to the Navy after being decommissioned as a lieutenant commander to a civilian contractor. He told me of a port of call he made where he hobnobbed with some KGB officers in Russia. The ship he was on stopped at Archangel, an arctic port in Russia when the US and the Soviets were talking. They allowed the officer class to leave the ship and tour the city and since even if you're retired Navy, your rank still holds sway so he got to tool around Archangel for a bit .

Barn tells that he was walking down the Main St, looking around when he noticed a black sedan slowly following him about 50 feet back. He figured it out quickly as the ship's commander had warned them of being followed or spied upon, so watch what you say to anyone. He then ducked into a small bar and using the little Russian he knew, orders three shots of vodka. He drinks one and then tells the bartender to bring the other two out to the two men in the black sedan parked out front. He does this. Barn then stays to chuck down more shots and after thirty minutes leaves. He passes by that sedan and notices two empty shot glasses on the dashboard and he taps the fender, pointing at the glasses and says in his tourist Russian...

“Не за что” (You're welcome!)

They gave up tailing him after that.

Barn also was a member, for a bit in the early 70s, of a hippy commune in Berkeley California after his stint with the Navy. He had made his way from the Navy base in San Diego after being discharged (a year before he was hired back by the Navy as a civilian) up to San Francisco. Apparently he would try anything once if he was curious and the hippies intrigued him. He said the other members of the commune was this guru type of guy who would clang finger symbols all day long going “Ommmmmmmm” to himself to find and attain transcendence. There was Paula, a 16 year old runaway who made her way in life as a high priced whore to the businessmen who lived across the Golden Gate bridge in Marin county and Diana, a Massachusetts comrade who he stayed in touch with when he returned to Plymouth. Others would come and go as they could chip in for rent. His description of Diana was this: “Her whole day could be ruined if her shoelace broke in the morning, her ability to deal with stress was awful. The commune sort of helped her get through a day.”

He tells me, “Next door to our commune was another, called the Peking Man House due to a Chinese sculpture that was in front of it. It was set off a bit from the other homes and shared a courtyard with ours. I rarely saw the other members but two hippy girls, Mizz Moon Solytnik and Nancy Ling Perry who would come over and hang with us. They never ever did discuss who the others were in their home. More than a few times we'd go down to the college and the girls would sell clothing, food, beads anything for a few dollars to support their particular commune.”

“Well, one day they all disappear w/o a goodbye in the middle of the night. Several months later, the LAPD and the Symbionese Liberation Army, the ones who kidnapped Patricia Hearst, had this massive shoot out. When they published the names of the dead, I saw those two girls I knew at Peking Man, Mizz Moon and Nancy, both shot to pieces and burned up.”

“Ron, believe me, I had NO idea that the Peking commune was the SLA safe house. Those two girls I talked to just seemed like two lost young hippy girls, and there were a zillion of them in Berkeley then. But how those two carried themselves...you'd never know what they were really up to.”

I asked, “Was Patricia Hearst there?”

“I bet, probably locked in a closet before she went loony and joined the SLA. The only other safe house they had was the one in LA, the one where the shoot out occurred...and Patricia was not at that one when it went down. The FBI showed up at Peking Man afterwards to investigate and said that it was the only other hideout, Patricia had to have been there.”

Damn...you KNEW two members of the SLA? How freaky is that!”

“I didn't know they were SLA! I knew two girls who really hid themselves well apparently. I never knew what was going on in that house...still amazes me to this day. Hell, they did a great job keeping themselves and Hearst quiet and then managed to convert her to their cause.”

There were a couple of times Barn lamented to me about not having a regular, stable typical life others had. For him it would've been a tenure track position at a Boston college, a home, perhaps kids. But instead, he spent most of his life traveling, hitting every country except Nepal, Uruguay, Paraguay and missed a few islands in the Caribbean. I had to remind him most career types would be insanely jealous of his life. I was in a way. I never traveled like that. I am amazed at times the balls he had to just take off with a backpack and say, hitch hike his way across Australia for a summer, and then get seeded at the Australian Open to try his luck at tennis, which he did.

So, there you have it folks, you all are now FOUR degrees of separation from Patty Hearst. You to Barn to the SLA finally to Hearst.

These are the two he hobnobbed with w/o even knowing what was up.