'Buckwheat' Bob Harrison

Web address:http://buckwheatbob.com

Bob Grew up in the Sierra foothills in Northern California, fished and hiked in the rugged granite canyons of the Feather River country. His family on both sides emigrated from Midwest in the middle 1800s. As a kid got pocket money mowing lawns with a push mower in 100 degree-plus temperature, then later worked knocking almonds, bucking hay bales, picking peaches, and swamping boxes. He also worked as a tail-off man in a sawmill and in a fire suppression crew on the middle fork of the Feather River. He was interested in all things electronic and had a ham radio license at age 14. Failing to graduate from engineering school, he got married, and went to work for IBM. After leaving IBM the marriage broke up and he went through some bad patches. Eventually he went to work for the State of California Franchise Tax Board. At the same time discovering the Beat Generation and jazz Got heavily into eastern mysticism. He became a programmer and systems analyst, and at the same time began writing poetry and growing a beard. At the Trips Festival at the Longshoreman's Hall in San Francisco in January 1966 Bob discovered hippies. Over the next several years he and his second wife spent some weekends in the Haight-Asbury visiting hippie friends. In 1970, at thirty three years of age he and second wife Polly dropped out and took off in their VW van. They lived with fishermen friends in Newport Beach for several months and the marriage started breaking up. His atavistic urge directed him to think about communal life in rural Oregon. He had invested a lot of time in the civilized world and wanted to go back to the country and live a spiritual life. On his way to the Vortex I Festival outside Portland Oregon, fate escorted him to Takilma in the southwestern part of the state, and that set his life for the next five years, and the start of fifteen years without money, property, electricity, a vehicle or potable running water. After several years he realized the tribal movement had ended in the U.S. His only desire was to get totally away from civilization and learn to live off the land, or as close as he could come to this ideal. Canada was the place. He ended up with partner, Mara, and her two children, Bret and Maia, on Lasqueti Island in the British Columbia in the Gulf of Georgia. They were Americans, without permission to stay in Canada, not unusual in those days, had several hundred dollars. and didn't know a thing about the country. After five years he began playing music for a living. Returned to the Island for five years then returned to the U.S. and spent thirteen years working for the State of California. Now retired he spends most of his time performing and recording music and writing on various subjects.