I went to San Francisco in 1966. The flower child invasion was just getting started. I was only 17, but had long wavy blond hair that came nearly to my waist. I worked at the Psychedelic Emporium, a head shop on Haight Street. It was an amazing time. Brotherly love was everywhere. It was thicker that the San Francisco fog; you could cut it with a knife. One day in early fall a couple of friends and myself decided to go up to a little private cove just south of Stinson Beach to play in the water and sun ourselves.
The cove was unofficially called “Acid Cove” by the small number of people who knew about it. It was not very large and had a sandy beach that was at the bottom of a 40 to 50 foot cliff. We hung out and laughed a lot, then ate a picnic lunch. After that we were all tired so we laid back in the sun and took a nap. What we didn’t know was while we were sleeping the tide came in and cut us off from the path that wound its way up the cliffs to the surface. My friend and his lady woke up first and shook me awake in terror. The reason for their fear was incoming tide was so high there was hardly any dry land left.
The waves were dashing against the cliff wall making a deafening sound. We looked the situation over and there was only one way out, but it was extremely dangerous. There were some hand and foot holds that would let us climb straight up about 25 feet above an undercut in the cliff. Once we got above the undercut, there was a way to traverse to the left, and crab our way out of the cove. We couldn’t see where it went from there but we felt certain that if we made it that far we could probably find a more gentle slope and climb the rest of the way up to the car.
It didn’t look very stable so I told my friends to go on ahead. Not because I was a coward, but because I was a big guy, not as big as I am now but still I was 6’ 3” and weight about 240 lbs. The overhang was more likely to give way under my weight than theirs, and if it did we would all three be trapped. Bob probably weighed about 140 lbs and Eileen couldn’t have weighed more than 110. She went first and Bob followed her after she was safely across. Then it was my turn. I was afraid of heights so it wasn’t easy for me, but I carefully climbed the cliff. Then I slowly inched my way across the overhang until I was about three-fourths of the way to freedom when the rocks under my feet crumbled and fell away, leaving me hanging by my fingers. The cliff was undercut by about six feet so my legs were hanging in space and there was nowhere to get a toehold. I could not pull myself up.
My friends were crying and shouting for me to try harder. If I slipped I would drop straight down into surf that was at least 10 feet high which was violently crashing over the jagged rocks. When the cliff first gave out, I felt afraid, and I tried to get my feet on to something solid but when I realized it wasn’t possible all my fear just faded away. I didn’t pray. I didn’t have to. I felt a warm peaceful, blissful, loving presence. I knew then that I was going to die, and it was somehow OK. I looked over at my friends and told them that I loved them and I couldn’t hang on much longer. I told them not to worry about me. It was cool. Then my fingers lost their grip. In slow motion I saw the rock wall moving upward, like descending in an open elevator. I saw the wall move away from me as I fell past the undercut. Then all of a sudden, it felt like someone body-blocked me from behind, like when I used to play football. The force was so powerful it slammed me into the rock wall under the overhang. Suddenly my feet were firmly planted on a narrow ledge with my hands gripping a crack in the rock face. From there I was able to creep crosswise to just below where my friends were waiting. They tied their shirts together and lowered them down to pull me up to their level and from there we all climbed out together.
There is no explanation for what the force was that slammed me into the rock wall. It was breezy that day but that could not account for what happened. With as much as I weighed, falling straight down, it would take a huge amount of wind to push me six feet into the undercut with that much force. It wasn’t wind and it couldn’t have been a high wave because I was still dry. I believe it was the hand of God.
Jerry