A tragic tale dedicated to my old friend, Casey Farrell.

As the sun went down, we got stuck in Watsonville, the artichoke capitol of the world. It grew cold, and a strange fog rolled in. We hitchhiked both sides of road, but, no one would pick us up. They felt it too, the urgency to get out of artichoke town. Finally, we gave up. We took refuge in a all night laundry. We threw our coats in a dryer, and fed the machine all of our money. When the sun came up, we were broke. It was kind of like Reno, but, there was not a lick of fun to be had by anyone.

Many years later, after the folks in Watsonville got tired of laughing about them three hippies they left stranded out on the Main Street, Castroville, the town down the road, started competing for the title. Those scum-sucking pigs – have no shame!

The folks in Watsonville were up in arms when the Castrolites made Marilyn Monroe their town mascot.

The Watsonville sheriff kept getting tips, that the chokers of Castroville were growing weed out in their fields. They even had a vicious dog guarding their plants

By the end of the season, folks wouldn’t buy a Watsonville choke. An old timer said it was those three hippies who put a curse on their crops. There was not a dry eye in town when the Big Choke was loaded on a semi, and taken to Castroville.

When the Big Choker rolled into Castroville, the Green Monster band played ‘C’mon Baby Light My Fire’.

A town meeting was called for, and Old Art got up to speak; “This town lost it’s heart a long time ago, the night we left them three hippies stranded. We got some bad karma we got to get rid of. “Shut up Art! Take your Bhuddist crap to Castroville! After Art moved to Castroville, Watsonville was never the same. In two years it was a ghost town.

http://www.redmanhouse.com/history.shtml