KESEY A CHARACTER TO REMEMBER

This could prove to be one cocktail of a story, because I was forced to mix
together completely different ingredients - yet identical in one sense -
for a desired effect. Here goes.

With regret, I admit I missed the Veterans Day ceremonies recently held at
McMinnville Civic Center. However, in the Nov. 14 edition of the Southern
Standard, by way of a story by editor James Clark, I was able to touch base
with some of the events. With that reading, there was the mention of Warren
County native and Vietnam War veteran Ken Kesey, who, by the way, as noted
in Clark's story, pulled two noble tours of duty in Vietnam. Hats off to
Ken Kesey and others like him!

Now, let's back up a bit. This past Monday, I sat down and put together the
following story, one I had absolutely no intention of submitting to the
Standard. It was, and is, about the Nov. 10 passing of ... believe it or
not ... celebrated author and "Merry Prankster" Ken Kesey, who, at age 66,
died after undergoing surgery for liver cancer.

Over the years, many have become aware of the irreverent genius of the
departed Kesey via his classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," be it
novel form or movie adaptation of the same. Interestingly, the movie "One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which won four Academy Awards, also served as
a springboard that helped vault actor Jack Nicholson to the level of true
superstardom.

Kesey experienced a degree of success with other works, most notably his
novel "Sometimes a Great Notion," which also was turned into a motion
picture starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman. But, again, it was "One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's that Nest" that Kesey best will be remembered for - in a
literary sense, that is.

However, the 1 percenters of psychedelia more than likely will better
remember Ken Kesey for being the patriarch of the "Merry Pranksters," a
group of colleagues and friends, a hip mix of various walks of life, whom
Kesey took on a legendary, "LSD-fueled, cross-country bus trip" in 1964.
That long, strange trip, in fact, served as the inspiration and blueprint
for yet another literary classic: Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test."

Driving a multi-colored bus was a "street cowboy from Denver named Neal
Cassady," who had been the focal point of Bohemian-beat writer Jack
Kerouac's "On the Road," another classic in its own right. Embarking from
San Francisco in June 1964, Kesey and his Pranksters, indeed, arrived in
New York sometime in July 1964, New York being the site of the 1964 World's
Fair.

In 1965, Hunter Thompson, another well-known journalist, introduced Kesey
to some members of the notorious Hell's Angels. Interestingly, one proved
to be compatible with the other, and Kesey invited the bikers to be the
guests of his first official Acid Test, held at Kesey's home in La Honda,
outside of San Francisco. After a night of what most would label as social
incorrectness, the Hell's Angels got on their bikes and rode away without
further ado.

Literary genius or drug-induced maverick, writer-prankster Ken Kesey had an
irreversible effect on American pop culture, and for that his death and
works are worthy of mention - as are the deeds of Warren County's own Ken Kesey.