Prankster babies

I grabbed a Lyft today (long story) to head down to the VA on Old Middlefield and fell into a conversation with an animated, tie-dyed, trim-gray-bearded fellow named Max as he drove me to my destination.

I forget how we got onto the subject, but it turns out Max is the son of one of the Merry Pranksters, in this case Steve “Zonker” Lambrecht. In the course of my chat he told me something I had always imagined to be true: Gary Trudeau and his dad carried on a bit of a correspondence in which Trudeau confirmed that he had named his iconic Doonesbury character in homage to Max’s dad.

He mentioned doing something with Ken Kesey as a kid and I ended up telling him about stories John Cassady had told me about Kesey and other Pranksters showing up at his middle school in orange day-glo boots and capes to take him off to an “important family emergency” that turned out to be the day’s Grateful Dead show.

That reminded him of when he used to be babysat by Wavy Gravy at Dead shows as a kid. We traded stories about Calico and other Prankster-adjacent folks I have met.

Somehow this just felt apt right now, and brightened up a day for me that was turning into a bit of a slog.