Love Walk: Tales of a Flower Child and Her Marine

By Mary Stewart Anthony and John Anthony

Love Walk is ...

the unlikely story of what happens when a Flower Child marries a Marine!

In Book One, Love Song of a Flower Child, Mary chronicles her journey as a rebel from New York to Berkeley and then to Big Sur, California in a desperate search to find purpose and meaning. She has a dramatic encounter with God that forever changes the trajectory of her life and the lives of her children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664207202

Mary Stewart Anthony

New Book Two reveals an extraordinary love story, written in two separate voices, told by two broken people who risked it all to cross the boundaries that separated them and begin a brand new life. They learned to walk in grace and heal each other from the emotional wounds of two marriages and horrific scars of war.

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Copyright © 2021 Mary Stewart Anthony with John Anthony.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0721-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0722-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0720-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020918698

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/7/2021

CONTENTS

Preface

Part 1. The Flower Child Meets Her Marine (1974–1980)

Back Story

Chapter 1 The Seas of Yesteryear

Chapter 2 A Taste of Home

Chapter 3 Salty Grace

Chapter 4 Kissed by God

Chapter 5 Taking Jesus to the Streets

Chapter 6 Sown into the Earth

Chapter 7 You Are the Temple

Chapter 8 Rooted and Grounded

Chapter 9 Moving Mountains

Chapter 10 Testing the Waters

Chapter 11 Unchartered Waters

Chapter 12 The Lady Lights Her Lamp

Chapter 13 The Lady Takes Her Liberty

Chapter 14 Courting Everest

Chapter 15 The Lady Gets Her Wings

Chapter 16 The Canopy of Love

Chapter 17 Honeymoon Cocoon

Part 2. In the Belly of the Beast (1949–1980)

Chapter 18 Just a Country Boy

Chapter 19 Trained to Kill

Chapter 20 Good Morning, Vietnam

Chapter 21 The Walking Dead

Chapter 22 Dukes of Hazard

Chapter 23 Highway to Nowhere

Chapter 24 The Ultimate Frontier

Chapter 25 Playing the Game of Life

Chapter 26 City of the Gods

Chapter 27 Brotherhood of Fools

Part 3. A House of Healing (1980–1998)

Chapter 28 Growing a Family

Chapter 29 Roots Down and Wings Up

Chapter 30 Stretching the Tent Pegs

Chapter 31 Dangerous Encounters

Chapter 32 Becoming a Fruitful Vine

Chapter 33 The Muir-a-thoners

Chapter 34 Growing Pains

Chapter 35 The Vine Goes over the Wall

Chapter 36 Breaking Up the Dock

For

Aimee and Lucia

Our precious daughters

PREFACE

As you know not what is the way of the wind, or how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a pregnant woman, even so you do not know the work of God, who does all.

(Ecclesiastes 11:5, Amp)

This love story of two broken people who dared to cross the boundaries between them is the primal stuff undergirding all human history. The discovery of another human being whom we had no idea ever existed and who has just discovered us describes the mildly insane experience of falling in love. This brief insanity turns the life we once knew upside down as the power of love overtakes us.

Once we meet a lover and friend along the way and become part of one another, our journey diverges into a new continuum, and we track a different path. The synergy emerging from covenantal marriage creates one new man who has infinite potential, making possible what once seemed unattainable. Surely this is one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever receive in their lifetime.

Stories, like stars, are born and die unnoticed unless love intervenes to raise them out of ignominy and neglect. Many other stories have lent their starlight to us along the way, opening new pathways in our love walk by enlarging the steps beneath us. In a much broader sense, God, the weaver of our days and seasons, has written us into His Story, an eternal history comprised of all our beginnings and endings, underlining the fact each life has a unique significance.

By remembering those whose stories have been woven into ours, we declare to generations yet unborn, I know that whatever God does, it endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. (Ecclesiastes 3:14, Amp)

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PART 1

The Flower Child Meets

Her Marine (1974–1980)

If knowing answers to life’s questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it- for this is a journey of unknowables, of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and, most of all, things unfair.

Madam Guyon

BACK STORY

What first drew me to embrace the wild wonders of Big Sur was the fantasy of a renewed relationship with my first husband, Jeff. Despite the failure of our early marriage in Berkeley, my heart ached for a future that included him. Since I had given him my virginity, it had created an emotional bondage I could not escape.

Three years earlier, just after our daughter Aimee was born, our life in Berkeley ended. Jeff had been involved with another woman, had not been present for the birth of his daughter, and I had reached my emotional limit. When he finally showed up, I pointed to the bag I had packed, and asked him to leave. There were no words spoken between us then, only the sound of the door closing behind him. From then on, I tried unsuccessfully to create an alternate life without him.

In the early Sixties, Aimee and I were living on the family ranch where Jeff and I had been married. His mother Kitty was the matriarch of this forty-acre property. One day, his younger sister Leslie ran to warn me Jeff was coming for a visit along with his Big Sur entourage. She was conflicted by mixed feelings of love and anger over her big brother’s irresponsible life style. My own reaction was also mixed: a heart that leapt upon suddenly seeing him again, and a psyche scarred with memories of our past. Yet, somehow I sensed his coming was my way of escape, but into what? When I asked about joining him, he smiled, nodded his head, and mumbled Beautiful! to seal the deal. By then, LSD had slowly swallowed up his vocabulary into just a few vague code words.

And so it was, leaving everything I once had gathered for a life that never materialized, I jumped onto his bandwagon. I don’t remember who was in that station wagon, except for Jeff, his friend Ron and wife, Storm, their firstborn son, River, Aimee, age 3, and me.

I could tell Leslie was disappointed by my decision, but Kitty might have been relieved. Leslie later married, had a daughter, and after Kitty’s passing, remained on as caretaker of the property.

Our long car journey culminated at a place called Point Sixteen on Big Sur’s South Coast. It had become a gathering place for artists, musicians and druggies. Bill Weijahn, a tall gaunt, jazz pianist, was the caretaker at that time. He graciously received Aimee and I, these awkward, uninvited mystery guests. I finally met Jeffrey’s paramour and the mother of their newborn daughter. Carol was a dark-haired robust beauty, very sophisticated, and very at ease with their bohemian quarters in an abandoned greenhouse. During the drive, I got to know Storm a little. She was a beautiful woman whose cup of life was dancing. Ron played the drums along side Jeff, while Storm danced, and others joined them with guitar, flute, bells, and violin to create a New Age musical band.

After a week or so, it became clear Aimee and I didn’t belong to a drug-based commune, and fitting into Jeff’s harem was not the kind of relationship I could accept. Locked into the drug-spun world he had created, he never once expressed any affection for little Aimee, or acknowledged our presence. When I finally asked him, Who is your wife? he calmly said, I have no wife! That was my cue to exit.

I quietly packed our belongings in a wooden box, said goodbye, took Aimee in my arms, and stood under the cross of the Camoldolese Hermitage just opposite of Pt. Sixteen. A young truck driver saw my distress, and stopped to give us a ride. He drove us to Nepenthe where I spoke to Lolly, the owner, about our situation, and she offered us a corner in her huge sewing room. We had a safe place to stay, food to eat, and where I could find work.

My seven-year sojourn in Big Sur had just begun.

* Read Mary’s complete story in Book One, Love Song of a Flower Child.

CHAPTER 1

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The Seas of Yesteryear

Our ride was bumpy and silent, except the radio playing music. I found myself humming along at times and wringing out a smile from George, who had driven over two hours to rescue us. He’s probably wondering if I’m another one of those Big Sur crazies coming to get straightened out in Salinas, I thought. After all, how can I explain why the words You’re not going to tame me! had erupted from my mouth when he picked us up? If it is true that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34b, NIV) I must have a scary black hole hidden somewhere deep inside me.

The rain had stopped as the truck slowly wound its way down the steeps of Big Sur. Our eyes turned to the ocean shimmering in the late afternoon sun under the exploding clouds. This meeting place of earth and sky, this vast Pacific Ocean, a wonder in itself, seemed to generate an endless life of raw power and beauty. The dark green waters beyond the shoreline writhed in a tangle of kelp fronds, hiding an enormous trench with cold, plankton-rich depths that spawned an upwelling often veiling the horizons with fog.

The ocean had been a vital part of living the Big Sur life. Its vast expanse, the familiar smell carried by damp winds, and the constant roar formed a dramatic backdrop for the years of our sojourn there. Aimee and I had been content to watch otters nonchalantly lying on their backs and cracking open abalone shells for lunch. We had often cried out with delight when a pod of whales saluted us with spumes of water as we walked the ocean’s southern edge near Lucia, where our little Lucy was born in a cabin underneath the dramatic surge of cliffs and mountains around us. I looked back at my girls huddled together in blankets against the wind, wedged between our meager possessions piled into the back of George’s truck. Their faces wore a modicum of sadness as we left this dear companion of our days. We continued to gaze at the waves bidding us farewell.

Soon after we passed Carmel Valley and Monterey, the landscape filled with buildings, shops, and traffic lights, and we quickly became part of another stream of life as the traffic thickened and thinned on the highway. All the exits and road signs we passed didn’t register until we saw Salinas, our newly adopted hometown. Approaching the fertile lowlands, we entered an immense valley that held field after field of lettuce, green onions, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and strawberries. Suddenly, a pungent perfume of black earth mixed with green onions came through the mist from the evening watering. We watched a ballet form from the crystal sprays pluming out of rolling metal spines that went back and forth over the crops and soon washed over the front of the truck. I heard the girls scream and laugh as some of the spray reached them.

George smiled, embarrassed. Sorry, I didn’t see that coming.

That felt so good, Brother George! I laughed for the first time in days. Your truck really needed a bath after leaving the mountains, don’t you think? Pointing to our dusty, wrinkled clothes, I added, We could use a proper rinsing ourselves. I realized we must have looked like the proverbial mountain folk. George nodded his head, grinned politely, and kept looking out the window. Both our responses to this unexpected baptism broke down the wall of silence and started me commenting on everything I saw and asking questions.

Is this where you grew up, George?

Yes, Sister Mary. This has always been my home.

These fields are so immense, so lush! I gasped, noting how the folded green hills rose and fell all around them like living walls. Surprised to encounter such beauty, I added, They seem to go on forever.

George was quick to inform me, This is one of the most fertile valleys in the whole world! That’s why it’s called the ‘salad bowl of America’!

What a delicious description of a place on earth, I thought. That’s great! Why so?

We grow so much stuff here we could probably feed the whole planet! Every place you can think of has some of our crops, labeled ‘Shipped from Salinas, California’!

I had no idea Salinas was so famous, I replied, taking some pride-by-proxy in this rich farmland’s reputation. This isn’t so bad. How green is my valley! I chuckled silently. I was just beginning to accept this heartland as my new home, when the Lord whispered a mysterious message to my heart: You will be sown into the earth here and bring forth fruit that remains. My first reaction was fear, wondering if he meant I would die and be buried there. When we actually drove by a cemetery, I scarcely looked. Again, his voice reassured me: Don’t be afraid, the plans I have for you and your children are good.

I clung to these words as we watched farmlands on the outskirts of town disappear and change into a barrage of advertising signs, followed by row after row of storage units, small business shops, and factories with tall smokestacks, until colorful houses, apartment buildings, stores, markets, and small shopping malls lined the gray city streets and roads. Given a Spanish name meaning Salt Flats because of its proximity to the ocean, Salinas seemed like any other small American farming town in 1974, except it had staked a prestigious claim for fame on John Steinbeck, born there in 1907. The Nobel Prize Laureate spent his boyhood growing up in a simple Victorian house, which was refurbished into a charming restaurant where devoted women now cooked and served elegant luncheons, to raise money and to keep the legend alive and the tourists coming.

Steinbeck is rightly revered for being a socially conscious truth-teller, and his work was sometimes banned for its raw language and realistic portrayals of earthy men and women. During his Stanford University days, he even supported himself by working as a laborer, which gave him an authentic voice in Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men. His literary classics were about migrant workers who followed the harvests from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to the Central Valley of California and who had been unfairly treated by the labor barons of the early twentieth century. I used to sneak these very books from my father’s bookshelves as a hungry-to-know-about-life high school student, when Salinas seemed like a fictional backwater town to my New Yorker center-of-the-world mentality. Naturally, my father’s caution to wait until I was older to read Steinbeck’s stories went unheeded. When I joined the Salinas Public Library weeks after arriving in the town, I was startled to see a bronze statue of Steinbeck displayed on the front lawn. The sculptor had dressed him in artistically disarrayed clothing and shown him with habitual cigarette in hand, defining him as a man of the people and not merely a literary icon.

By the time we arrived in Salinas, the city had slowly been filling out with pockets of Mexican workers and their families, who had taken over the backbreaking work of tilling the land and harvesting crops, now mostly eschewed by the white middle class. We would soon get used to seeing both men and women working the fields, uniformly dressed in long-sleeved shirts, baggy denims, and baseball hats worn over colorful handkerchiefs, shielding their face and necks from the sun. They hoed and scraped the rich black earth, bent over ripening tomatoes and strawberries to pack them into boxes, sliced off frothy lettuce heads, cut off artichoke and broccoli stems, or plucked and tied up bunches of green onions and garlic. They tossed everything into trucks lining the fields, waiting to transport the freshly harvested crops to women packers who prepared them for the marketplace.

Though George had become an elder in the fellowship, I watched him morph into a charming homeboy, eager to tell me all the local trivia, as we drove into his town. Ruddy cheeks and an engaging smile brightened his boyish face and hid the scars of his former descent into the world of drugs. Yeah, I used to score heroin on these very streets, he admitted. My poor mother lit many a candle for me in that church. His face contorted with shame as he pointed out the white adobe building on the corner. Indeed, Salinas had a much darker side; its underbelly became a channel for drug distribution under the control of Nuestra Familia, the Mexican mafia. I sensed how hard it was for George to speak about his addiction, so I didn’t press him for any more details on that.

How did you meet the Abbotts?

"They had a small coffee house called Youth for Truth where a bunch of us hung out. They gave us books to read and showed us movies about Jesus. It was The Cross and the Switchblade that really got to me. You must have seen it by now."

Oh yes, we all have, I rejoined with gusto. Most of us had seen Dave Wilkerson’s story by then, and listened to his tape The Vision. The Abbotts had made sure of that. They lit their torch by the flame of Dave’s passion for souls and were Teen Challenge’s first house parents. Daily, evangelists went out on the streets to bring in youths who were trapped by violence and fear, hiding in back alleys and bars, the untouchables, viewed as hopeless by the rest of society. Teen Challenge had its humble beginning in New York before it became a highly respected global ministry for drug rehabilitation.

George continued his testimony, laced with a smile or two. Well, one night they asked me if I wanted to know Jesus personally. I really didn’t understand what that meant, but I said yes. That started me going to Bible studies in their home. I had no idea who Jesus was until I read the Bible. And here I am! George flushed with joy and amazement, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. It seemed like the perfect segue way, so I gave him a shortened version of how the Lord had rescued me on Pfeiffer Ridge a few years back. Afterward, we enjoyed an easy repartee about books and tapes that had impacted us in the early days of our Christian walk.

Donald and Florence Abbott had adopted George as one of their first spiritual sons, and he lived with them in a rented house during the early days of his conversion. George had come from a Catholic family (as so many of us in the fellowship had) and was advised to have minimal contact with them. His new church family became the center of his world, and he seemed happy with the arrangement. His mother was basically thankful to see him snatched from the jaws of heroin addiction or from becoming the prey of gang warfare after a drug deal went sour. When visiting her son, she bristled a little with resentment, though, at having her parental authority usurped by these strangers.

George was one of many young men the Abbotts rescued from the bondage of drugs, alcohol abuse, and sex trips. After their time in Teen Challenge ended, Don and Florence had been invited to take over a small coffeehouse ministry called Youth for Truth, so popular in the days of the Jesus movement. They quickly separated the sheep from the goats, those who were just adding Jesus to their bag from those who really wanted a changed life. Because the Abbotts meant business, young people responded positively to them, sensing they were the real deal and not some wimpy socially programmed do-gooders. The Abbotts’ in-charge ministry style had been framed by working many years with Teen Challenge, a very disciplined program known for successfully producing spiritually transformed lives. After ministering in Dave’s New York model home for drug addicts and gang members who had given their lives to Jesus, the Abbotts went on to open Teen Challenge centers in both Chicago and San Francisco.

As George drove us into a small neighborhood, a delightful smell unexpectedly greeted us. Chocolate? I said the word out loud, hanging my head out the window to savor it. Am I really smelling chocolate?

He laughed. Yes, you are . . . It’s for real! There’s a Nestle’s chocolate factory in town. All the school kids get to go there on field trips. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone there! Now, aren’t you glad you came?

I turned around and shouted the good news to the girls. They clapped their hands and hugged each other for joy. Truth be told, we were all three addicted to chocolate. I would stash chocolate chips in the woodstove to hide them from the girls so that I could savor them for my midnight snack. Once they discovered my ruse, the family joke was on me. Mom, where did you put the chips this time? It’s not fair! they would cry. I was shamed into handing them over. Town was a million miles away then, and chocolate was precious cargo. Now, we would have access to a real working factory, not one like Charlie’s fantasy.

CHAPTER 2

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A Taste of Home

George had been asked to deposit us along with our things at the home of our Big Sur friends, Stan and Diane. His truck finally came to a stop in front of a quaint yellow house on a street sheltered by poplar trees. It was only a temporary shelter for my girls and me until someone figured out where we should settle. After all, we had arrived out of necessity, not by invitation. George unloaded our things on the porch and took off, not wanting to engage in more conversation. His job was done for the moment.

Diane, a tanned, energetic, sun-bleached blonde, who moved quickly and gestured continually, greeted us with squeals of delight. Hey, you made it! Look at your darling girls, so grown up! How old are they now?

Aimee is ten, and Lucy will be five in January.

Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Come on in! They must be freezing after riding in the back of the truck! She grabbed me by the hand and said, Take a seat by the stove and have a cup of tea. Stan will be home soon for dinner. He knows you’re coming. She helped us store some stuff on her porch.

We followed her inside, deeply grateful for a genuine welcome. Then she whispered to me, We heard what happened at Amelia’s place! I always thought she was a bit strange. I hope she didn’t spook your girls too much, poor babies.

"Terrified would be a better word," I quickly answered, remembering the look on their faces.

Well, they’ve come to a safe place. Ready for some home cooking, Big Sur style?

Wow, Diane! Are you kidding? We are starving! Her warm words flowed like refreshing rivers on my soul, and I slowly relaxed in her presence, offering to help with dinner.

Diane had two handsome blonde boys named Adam, age five, and Levi, a baby with the clearest sky-blue eyes. He must be still in touch with the angels, I mused. My girls immediately played with Levi, but Adam couldn’t be bothered with this onslaught of female company at first. By the next day, though, all the kids were playing hide-and-seek in the grassy backyard where Diane had planted a small vegetable garden. This little touch of the