Late summer through early December of 1969 was frightening to those of us up in Bel Air, the gated Los Angeles community for the financially fabulous. It was the dark season of the Manson Family homicides and paranoia ran high; the “Acid Is Groovy” murderers were still on the loose and appeared to be attracted to upper income neighborhoods.I would often drive, all alone in the middle of the night, on upper Bellagio, Somera, Mulholland, Sarbonne, Roscomare, Stradella, Linda Flora or any of the other narrow, serpentine roads I routinely traversed, through gothic fog so thick I crawled rather than...
