I was afraid of that: :floorlaugh:
I was living in Simi Valley, California and had 4 year old twin boys. I was a member of the Simi Valley Mother's of Twins Club which was a philanthropic organization. I also worked as a grocery checker in Chatsworth, which was just "over the hill" from Simi Valley. One of my regular customers was Mr. Spahn and what I assumed was his wife and red-headed daughter. They were always together as Mr. Spahn was blind. Mr. Spahn owned the "Spahn Ranch" which was used for many western movie sets.
Simi Valley was about to get a 4 lane highway to connect to the San Fernando Valley. The current road at the time was a deadly 2 lane mountainous road, so this was a BIG DEAL. There was going to be a big celebration including a parade. The Twins Club decided to enter a float and elected me head of the committee to design and build the float. (Yeah, I know, ask the divorced gal that has 4 kids under 4 years of age, a 40 hour a week job and goes to real estate school at night to take on the biggest fund raising project of the year. :floorlaugh: ) Anyway, my idea for the float was to portray Simi Valley coming of age from the wagon trail era. For this we needed a buckboard. I knew Spahn Ranch had buckboards. The next week when Mr. Spahn and family came in I asked if we could borrow one and he said yes and we agreed upon a time for me to come out and make the arrangements.
It was early summer and didn't get dark until 8:00 or 9:00 pm. But Mr. Spahn asked me to come out about 7:30. I took my friend, Eunice (also a mother of twins, misery loves company) and off we went to the ranch. When we got there they were eating dinner at a very long "table" made from rough building studs. The house looked like it had never been cleaned, EVER! It was a wooden structure made from old barn wood, just like in the old movies. There were about 10 people at the table. They made the introductions. We met Tex Watson, a girl named Squeaky, a few others and…a Mr. Charlie Manson! This whole bunch were the dirtiest motley crew I'd ever seen in my life. The "serving dishes" were dinged up pots that the food had been cooked in. Tex asked for someone to pass him a certain pot just as the dog came to his side. He lowered the pot for the dog to take a few bites then he spooned some onto his own metal plate and passed it along.
uke: At about this point, Eunice grabbed my hand and she never let go. I'm sure our eyes were big as saucers and I was hoping the "family" couldn't see the hair standing up on the back of our necks. We wanted to leave but we were told Charlie would take us out to select which size buckboard we needed when they finished eating. (Thank God they didn't offer us a plate!) The sun was starting to go down by now.
As I said in my original post, it's not a riveting story. We got our buckboard but when they offered to deliver it we gave the address of the school. (We didn't want them knowing where we lived.) And we did win 1st place with our float. Also, Eunice and I learned to imbibe alcoholic beverages. But we actually cried like babies when we learned what happened to the Tate/La Bianca families. We felt the EVIL just being in the same room with them, watching them eat a meal. I can't imagine the terror those poor people felt when that bunch began murdering them.
So you ask me if I know Charlie Manson? Yeah, I "had dinner" with Charlie Manson.
Here's a link for you KIDS who don't know who Charlie is:
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/t/tate/tate_murders.htm