{"id":46864,"date":"2026-02-24T11:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=46864"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:37:32","slug":"a-writer-went-investigating-a-homicide-case-instead-he-found-an-sf-relic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/a-writer-went-investigating-a-homicide-case-instead-he-found-an-sf-relic\/","title":{"rendered":"A writer went investigating a homicide case. Instead, he found an SF relic."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Doug Kari discovered a journal that belonged to a Merry Prankster who went by the name Cool Breeze<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FILE: Ken Kesey, on top of the Furthur Bus, holding a flute with some of the Merry Pranksters in 1967 during a rollicking trip to San Francisco from his home in La Honda, Calif. Joe Rosenthal\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Doug Kari<\/strong> Feb 22, 2026 (SFGate.com)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid a stack of old books in an antique store<\/a> in Utah sat an edge-worn journal filled with handwritten spiritual musings and psychedelic drawings. \u201cWhose journal was this?\u201d I wondered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer, as I would learn, linked the journal to legendary 1960s San Francisco counterculture group Ken Kesey\u2019s Merry Pranksters. The group, which included Grateful Dead associates and author Neal Cassady, is best known for evangelizing LSD on a cross-country road trip in 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t travel to Utah looking for books \u2014 instead I was investigating a homicide case. As a true-crime writer, I wanted to visit places where Ashlee Buzzard, accused<\/a> of killing her daughter during a road trip through the West, stopped for gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This quest brought me to Panguitch, population 1,788, near Bryce Canyon National Park. As I walked down the city\u2019s main street on a chilly winter\u2019s day, the warm glow from the windows of Smokin\u2019 Hot Antiques, an antique store in an old firehouse, lured me inside. Under a pile of hardcover books sat the journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I turned the cover to find a note from \u201cLee Anne\u201d to someone named Rodger: \u201cMay this journal bring you many hours of happy reflection.\u201d Rodger had filled the following pages with fountain pen writings and surreal watercolors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of his earliest entries: \u201cI will be like a violent beautiful man of the West bearing a great sack of precious jewels.\u201d Other entries suggested he was high when he penned them. \u201cIn the evening\u2019s sunset the orange through the oak trees reaches my soft smiled lips,\u201d read the calligraphy script. \u201cIn the romantic promenade of the angels of mercy my own body caresses the currents among the All.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intrigued, I sought out the antique store\u2019s proprietor, Beverly Howard, who was adorned in turquoise and wearing a denim skirt. She told me the journal came from the estate of a woman who left behind a house crammed with eclectic belongings. \u201cShe was kind of a hoarder,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cBut the things she had were interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

After buying the journal for $24, I drove another hundred miles to Torrey, Utah. Inside my hotel room, I leafed through the journal and admired the intricate artwork. Tucked into the back of the journal, where the yellowed pages remained blank, was an envelope addressed to Rodger Williams c\/o Joan Kohl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This led me to connect with Kohl by phone. She said that her brother Rodger Thomas Williams, born in the South Bay in 1945, was a childhood friend of Ron McKernan, later known as Pigpen<\/a> \u2014 an original frontman for the Grateful Dead. As a teen, Williams moved to Haight-Ashbury and became part of the burgeoning hippie scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward the end of our call, Kohl said: \u201cBy the way, my brother\u2019s nickname was Cool Breeze. He\u2019s mentioned in the book \u2018Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For a moment I was speechless. When I attended UC Berkeley as an English major, \u201cThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,\u201d author Tom Wolfe\u2019s account of Ken Kesey<\/a> and his band of Merry Pranksters, was required reading for one of my classes. The book opens with a scene where Wolfe and Cool Breeze are riding down one of the city\u2019s steep hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCool Breeze is a kid with three or four days\u2019 beard sitting next to me on the stamped metal bottom of the open back part of a pickup truck,\u201d wrote Wolfe. \u201cBouncing along. Dipping and rising and rolling on these rotten springs like a boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams was tied up in legal problems during the summer of 1964, when Kesey and the Merry Pranksters embarked on their LSD-fueled trip across the country, in a Day-Glo bus named Furthur. \u201cHe got caught smoking a joint,\u201d Kohl recalled. \u201cBack then, even a small amount of marijuana could land you in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

When Wolfe wrote about careening down an SF hill, Williams, aka Cool Breeze, was on probation. \u201cRight now Cool Breeze is so terrified of the law he is sitting up in plain view of thousands of already startled citizens wearing some kind of Seven Dwarfs Black Forest gnome\u2019s hat covered in feathers and fluorescent colors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the hippie era faded, Williams moved to Tahoma, on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. He worked as a handyman, although his passion was art. \u201cHe never sold any of his drawings,\u201d Kohl explained. \u201cHe said the art was for itself alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kohl confirmed that the journal was \u201cdefinitely his writing and sketches.\u201d The breakup of Williams and his first wife, mentioned in the journal as a recent event, places the timeframe as mid-1970s. Kohl said that Williams lived for a while in Utah and maybe that\u2019s how the journal landed there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Williams, a long-time smoker, died in September 2025 with COPD. In keeping with his background as a Merry Prankster, he believed there was more to human existence than everyday life. \u201cLift us up to the bright track \u2014 vast, unlimited, the domain of one\u2019s thoughts,\u201d wrote Williams in his journal. \u201cThey go towards a beauty, a region of the firmament.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Got a tip? Send us the scoop.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DO IT NOW<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor’s note: This article was updated at 10:30 a.m., Feb. 23, to correct Pigpen’s role in the Grateful Dead.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doug Kari is a true crime author and investigative journalist who covers crimes in the west and divides his time between SoCal and Las Vegas.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More at: https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/sf-culture\/article\/lost-san-francisco-journal-21369669.php<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Contributed by Gwyllm Llwydd)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doug Kari discovered a journal that belonged to a Merry Prankster who went by the name Cool Breeze FILE: Ken Kesey, on top of the Furthur Bus, holding a flute with some of the Merry Pranksters in 1967 during a rollicking trip to San Francisco from his home in La Honda,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46867,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46864\/revisions\/46867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}