Milkman Mike’s Personal Story Part II

Milkman Mike’s Personal Story Part II
Life in Never Never Land
Places I never never want to see again
Part II

From 1964 to about 1970 my timetables are all out of whack. What I’m going to share in this next segment of my life may not coincide with the times or even the sequences that they happened. I was still 17 when I moved to the big city, and so many things happened so quickly, that a lot of it was hard to realize when it happened, only that it did happen.

A few notes added from before I left home:

I didn't meet my real father until I was about fourteen. My brother took me to see him in Hayward. He was an alcoholic and an addict. He died from a stroke at the age of 42, from his alcoholism when I was 17 years old. I met my other two brothers and sister at that time. I've seen them periodically through the years. The two boys were also alcoholics and addicts, but I believe that they are clean today.

My mother is Catholic, so my brother and I attended catechism, making our communion and confirmation. We attended church regularly by ourselves until I was about 15. After that, I remember only going to church on Christmas and Easter Holidays. I believe that during these times in my early youth, I believed that God had abandoned me by taking me from my life with Lou. After a while I either accepted it or blocked it out of my mind. I don't know which. I do know that I have forgiven my mother and Tony for what I believed that they did to me. My mother loved me and did what she thought was right and what she could handle during those years.


Being from the suburbs, I probably wasn’t as “street wise” as those that had grown up there. Things are done a lot different; people grew up hustling and living off the streets, whereas I had a home to go to for my sustainable needs. I did have some experience though, as I had been around some of these “street folk” in jails and institutions.

San Francisco had many places that were like magnets to youngsters like me, with North Beach and its coffee houses, night clubs, and people of the night. The Tenderloin District with the clubs and all night hangouts and more street people. Not having any direction in my life, I fit right in.

In the 60’s San Francisco was a place where “runaways” came, drawn into a “new freedom”, away from their families and places where they felt they did not fit in. When we’re young, we think we’re “bulletproof”, and not afraid of anything. Most were willing to try anything. For a lot of the young, in order to survive turned to prostitution, both male and female. Although San Francisco is now known for it’s Gay communities, in the 60’s, most were still in the “closet”, and a lot of them fell prey to those trying to survive.

The tenderloin had it’s after hour clubs where they served alcohol (under the table) and a lot of drugs changed hands there also. With the after-hour clubs came the need for “speed”. Not only to stay awake, but to prolong drinking. For the young of the times, adapting to this new lifestyle of freedom was quick. What a lot of the youngsters didn’t know, was that the predators were waiting for us all. The sex predators, the hustlers looking for new blood to support their habits, and then those that just liked to hurt people.

The North Beach area and Market Street were also places for the runaways and street people to hand out. The coffee houses and strip clubs and bars were such places. There were the all night restaurants, doggie diners, pool halls and a lot more. I hit them all at one time or another. With these new hangouts came new “friends”, people from the street; the bikers, druggies, alkies, the gays and more. We all seemed to be looking for “something else”, but what that was, I’m not really sure.

I lost my job at the Insurance company about a year after moving to the city. I had already moved from the little apartment to hotel rooms, paying by the week. Living from place to place, from Mason St. to Ellis, back to Stockton St., and then to the bottom of Nob Hill. Had run into some guys that I had been in the Boys Ranch a few years earlier that were more street wise than me, and I got more “education” from them as well as the people I had met. I lasted one month at the Nob Hill apartment, getting booted for having a continuous party that lasted almost a month. Lost my work clothes (suits and sports clothes of the times) after letting just about anyone in.

When I lost my job, I hitchhiked to Russian River resort area (Rio Nido), got a job cleaning up the beach and remodeling cabins that paid for a cabin and meals, with a small wage that went for cigarettes and booze. There were others just like me doing the same things and we were known as the “River Rats”. It was a party every night, drinking and doing drugs continuously.