This is a post I made to a large facebook group Merry Pranksters.
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A few days ago I mentioned in this group how at age 12 my Aunt Jean took me with her and my mom to the 1966 Watts Acid Test. I would like to tell a story I think may be of interest here about where my aunt Jean ended up five decades later. In her 60s, in the early 90s, as she was preparing to retire, she met someone and moved way out into the boondocks to live with him, in a one room house he had built into a hill, off the grid, for the next 20 years. This man had previously achieved cult status fame as one of the leading manufacturers of MDMA on the West Coast. His name was Darrell Lemaire. He was featured in the Vice Channels show ‘Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia’ season one, episod 6, The Lazy Lizard School of Hedonism. You can watch that episode for free here, using a ‘free pass’ https://www.vicetv.com/…/the…/5840a304fbf03dab2226759b  Or rent it on YouTube for 3 dollars here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gx6zsuQGec

If you have seen this episode then you know that Darrell Lemaire was a bit of a genius when it came to manufacturing experimental psychoactive compounds. His biggest claim to fame was operating a secret underground lab, in an old lava tube, to manufacture MDMA, in the hills just outside of Reno. That lab never got busted and over the years he operated it, it put out vast quantities of very pure ecstasy for people to partake in. He also experimented with dozens and dozens of psychoactive compounds that he created. He always tried them out on himself first, and he took meticulous notes on the effects and any side effects of each one. I got to see his notebook one time, it was amazingly detailed. In the late 80s he decided to retire to a little piece of property up in the hills. He had lived there a year or two when my aunt met him and moved in with him.

In the mid 90s I helped my aunt Jean move to this little bitty speck of the town, Doyle, on a road leading north from Reno, back into California. Darrell had built a house off the grid that was very small but very very comfortable. They had fresh spring water and solar power with battery backup. The south-facing wall was all windows and the rest of the walls were buried into the hill. They had a walk-in pantry at the back that was so far underground it stayed a constant 60 degrees year round. He told me one time his entire utility bill was $10 a month, for propane. Over the next 20 years I visited my aunt and Darrell as often as I possibly could. Their house was about a 7 hour drive, one way, from the Bay Area and the last few miles going up into the hills out of Doyle were as steep as a paved road could possibly get.

For the first handful of years my aunt lived there she did not even have access to the internet. She did have a friend in the town of Doyle and she would go all the way down the steep hill and use his computer from time to time, and catch up with the rest of us by email. For the first 10 years they lived there I was very puzzled as to how they could be so freaking happy with no TV, no internet and hardly any radio. I finally figured it out and it was amazing. They were just tuned in 100% to the harmonies and the frequencies of the sagebrush and the coyotes and the birds. My aunt did spend a little money on bird feed and she had a flock of about 100 quail that would come eat in their front yard twice a day. She told me once that they could go days with hardly even speaking to each other. Darrell used some edibles and my aunt had her pipe, and they had the natural scenery and that was all they needed for years on end.

My older brother Forest had found this property and purchased it but was unable to keep up the payments so our cousin who knew Darrell arranged for Forest to sell it to Darrell. When my brother passed away from a heart condition in his forties we had a little ceremony at Darrell and Jeans property and spread his ashes under a tree there.

The pictures with this post are a sampling of the ones I took, or ones I received from my aunt. My aunt passed away about 4 years ago and Darrell passed away a couple of years ago. Future blog entries on this personal blog section of this site will feature more stories about my Aunt Jean and how she earned her PhD in parapsychology by doing brainwave synchronization telepathy experiments.

Peace, love and may the force be with you,
Storm