[Dixielandjazz] The Big Bear Tavern - Oakland/Berkley Hills - USA

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

OK OK ALL:

I will drive through the beautiful hills out my back door and go see if it is 
still there or not and will report back to you by Monday, If it is still 
standing which I doubt, I will make some photos as well.  I should have done so 
long ago, but in those good old days it was just another dive biker bar that I 
played, we were youngsters and had no idea of any historical significance of 
the joint, much less who Lu Waters was, did he play with the Rolling Stones or 
was he a Beatle,  oh no now I remember he played clarinet with the Grateful 
Dead right?  :))

I live on the Orinda side of the hills, in the West coast version of the 
Bermuda Triangle, Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda Valley.  The hipsters like to refer to 
it as "Lamorinda" it has been called the safest city in America, mostly 
because nobody knows where it is, and we kind of like it that way.  Our crime rate 
is about 1 reported crime per 1000 people per year including traffic citations 
and dog leash law violations.    As Dave Richoux mentioned on this thread 
yesterday, there is also a really well hidden little town even further back in 
the hills between Orinda and Oakland called "Canyon" where most of the residents 
are former hippies, and non conformists of one sort or another which we like 
to refer to as ecclectic folks, a few still living in their old converted 
school bus mobile homes from the early sixties, growing their own veggies and 
herbal medications in the woods around them, eating off the land etc.  A nice 
funky place to live if you want to be unnoticed by most of the world,

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
I am the only known criminal still living here:

"Gangster of Love"  :)