Sent via the Displaced Films (Sir! No Sir!) listserv:
Dear Friends,
Below is a beautiful tribute to Lindy Blake, one of the Presidio 27 mutineers, written by his friend and comrade Randy Rowland (who, along with Keith Mather, told the story of the Presidio 27 in Sir! No Sir!). Lindy died recently at his home in Canada, where he has lived since escaping the Presidio stockade in 1968.
Lindy’s Great Escape
It was 40 years ago. We were all young. Facing a potential deathsentence for singing “We Shall Overcome,” the 27 “mutineers”held a meeting in the cell block of the Presidio Stockade. Everyone who could escape should, we decided. We were not cooperating with theBrass, not even to participate in their kangaroo court-marital. Notlong after, some of the Presido 27 did escape. Walter Pawlowski, theguy who stood up during our sit-down, to read our demands to thecommandant, was one of the escapees. Keith Mather, one of the “9-For-Peace,” and the contact I was supposed to meet up with when Iarrived in the stockade, was another. They were recognizableringleaders in the stockade protest which became known as thePresidio Mutiny. They had good reason to leave. Even before the sit-down strike, both were already facing many years in prison for GIresistance to the US invasion and occupation of Viet Nam. Now theyfaced additional charges of mutiny, the most serious of militaryoffenses. Military regulations simply say “there is no maximumsentence” for mutiny.
Later, Lindy Blake and I, both “mutineers,” were cell mates in theprison ward of the post hospital when the first mutiny sentences camedown, for 14 and 16 years, given to the first two of the 27 to becourt martialed. I was the third ringleader, sent in to the stockadeby the movement after a guard had killed a prisoner. My mission hadbeen to learn what was going on inside, and find out what could beorganized to take the prisoners’ struggle to a higher level. Lindywas a free spirit from LA, a lanky, blond hippie dancing to his owntune through the stockade experience. He had refused to go to VietNam, and was facing five years at hard labor. He was quick to flash agrin, knew some yoga postions, and could sing all the words to everyBob Dylan song there ever was. In the photo of the sit down wherePawlowski stands up to read our demands, I can be seen directlybehind him, with glasses on. Lindy sits in front of Pawlowski, armslinked with Mike Marino and Ricky Dodd, looking over his shoulder atthe camera.
Now we were in this cell together, with the mandate to escape if wecould. Lindy and I decided this was as good a chance as we werelikely to get. We were outside the fence, but heavily guarded. Ourcement-walled cell was one of several lining both sides of a shortcorridor. A guard, who held the keys to each cell, was stationed inthe corridor. Another guard manned his post outside a locked gate notfar down the corridor, which separated the prison wing from the restof Letterman General Hospital. A third guard, a rover, armed with a .45, patrolled back and forth outside, covering both sides of theprison wing. We had an outside window and decided the best escape wasthrough its bars, so we arranged for a hack-saw blade to be smuggledin, and began to saw.
We only worked at night. One of us would stand watch at the celldoor, straining at the barred inspection port to catch the firstsight of an approaching guard. The other guy would saw, timing hisefforts to correspond to the 5 or so minutes when the roving guardwas on the other side of the building. To cover the sound of sawing,whoever was watching at the cell door would call down the corridor,asking the guards to turn up their radio. It was San Francisco, 1969.The guards were young too, and at night they tended to sit on eitherside of the mesh that separated them, listening to the FM. If theywere nice guys, they would turn up the music when asked, which keptthem from hearing the sound of our saw blade working the metal bar.If they were jerks, the lookout at the cell door would loud-talkthem, with non-stop begging or verbal abuse. Most of the time theywould turn it up just to drown him out. If they didn’t, his constantnagging provided the sonic cover needed to mask the sound of sawing.
The bars were fairly big, and the going slow. Each morning, when weknocked off for the day, we’d fill in the saw marks with soap, thenblend in the soap with dirt from the floor to make the bar lookwhole. It was tense work, stressful enough to give you the bad pit.If we were caught, it would mean many years of additional charges ontop of all the years we already faced. We only had one chance to getthis right, so we were determined, methodical, and very, verycareful. Finally we had one cut completed, and began on the next. Ourblade was already dull, but eventually we could take the big barcompletely out of the window and then soap it back into place tocover our progress. Each dawn we’d fill in our night’s work withthe bar of soap, dispose of the night’s debris, hide our saw bladeand collapse wearily into our bunks to sleep until the turn-key wouldkick us awake for morning count.
When we were about a week away from being done, I got a visit fromthe Catholic priest who served as my connection to the movement.“We’ve been talking it over, Randy,” he told me, “and wedon’t think you should escape.” His reasoning was sound: the otherrecognizable ringleaders had already escaped. If I fled as well,those still in custody would be left with no solid connection to themovement. He had a moral argument as well. I had been sent into thestockade to organize the protest and if I ran away, those who hadanswered the call to resist would be left to face the drum rollalone. It was the moral equivalent of the captain being the last oneoff the sinking ship.
I wasn’t eager to spend my life in a penitentiary. I was young andnewly married. I had put a lot of work and many tense nights into ourescape plot. But I immediately knew that the priest was right. Icouldn’t go. Back in the cell, I explained to Lindy my decision tostay, and pointed out as cheerfully as I could that there was nothingin the new situation that said that I couldn’t help him escape. Sothat night we started up our old routine, one at the cell door, onesawing at the window.
One time we thought that the plot was exposed. Thinking back, Ican’t remember why we thought that, but to get rid of the evidencewe ditched our hacksaw blade in a laundry hamper, hidden in our dirtysheets. Almost immediately we realized that we had panicked. But nowour blade was across the corridor in a little utility room. Somehowwe conned the turn-key into unlocking the cell to let one of us getinto the utility room barely long enough to retrieve the blade, whilethe other distracted the guard momentarily. That clown act blows thetop off any stress scale ever devised. Once back in the cell with ourprecious blade, and with the turn-key returned to his chair down thecorridor, we danced wildly, between the bunks, out of our minds withfear and excitement. Even now, I can hardly believe we managed toretrieve our blade, but somehow we did, and the work went on.
Then one day, not too long before we figured to be done with ournightly sawing, the guards put another prisoner into the cell withus, a guy we didn’t know. Since we didn’t know him, and didn’thave contact with the general prison population to get anyone else tovouch for him, we decided not to risk the plot by bringing him in onit. His presence in the little cell added a whole new level ofcomplexity to our efforts. We would be as boring as possible eachevening, and he would eventually drift off to sleep. Once he wassound asleep, one of us would take the cell door position, and calldown to the guards like usual, asking them to turn up the music. Onlynow, if they wouldn’t do it, we’d have to wait, because the plan Brazz we had used in the past to cover the noise of sawing would mostlikely wake our cellmate. But often enough the guards would turn uptheir radio, and whoever was at the window, minding the roveroutside, would begin to saw.
The lookout at the door had to watch for the guards in the corridor,and keep another eye on our cellmate. This guy turned out to be asound sleeper, and although he woke up a few times, he neverdiscovered our plot. It was incredibly tense, with the lookout jobthe worst, all worry and no activity. Sawing through steel with ahacksaw blade is tough but the guy with the blade had only to saw andto keep an eye out for the rover. Somehow, the act of sawing seemedto dissipate the tension. On the other hand, the lookout had to puthimself into a state of hyper alertness, to watch our sleepingcellmate, watch for the turn-key in the corridor, and count theminutes before the rover would most likely return to our side of thebuilding. We took turns in each position, not so much to relieve thesawman’s aching fingers, but to relieve the lookout’s stress.
Progress slowed down, but eventually the big night came. I don’tknow how we were able to bore our cellmate to sleep. Finally, at theappointed hour, in the wee hours of a dark night, we waited for therover to head to the other side of the building. Lindy stripped, toavoid having his clothes hang up on the jagged metal. I helped stuffhim through the hole. He dropped to the ground below. I handed down apillowcase full of broken window glass and other debris, threw himhis pants, and he scampered off, naked, into the darkness, sack underhis arm, pants over his shoulder, heading for a pre-arranged placewhere a car was supposed to be waiting to pick him up. That vision ofLindy, sprinting nude into the night, making a break for freedom, wasmy last look at him for many years.
Soaping the big bar back into place, I stuffed his bunk to make itlook like somebody was in it. The longer it took for the guards tonotice he was gone, the greater Lindy’s chances of making good hisget-away. Pleased, but already missing the company of my comrade, Isat for a while on the edge of my bunk. We had pulled it off! Filledwith both a big sense of victory and a huge empty place of sadness, Ifinally curled up and went to sleep.
The next morning, as usual, the turn-key opened the cell door andcame in, kicking each bunk to rouse the prisoners for morning count.At night they just periodically shine a flashlight through theinspection port to count bodies sleeping in bunks, but each morningthey made you get up. This particular morning started off as usual.The guard kicked our cellmate’s bunk, “Get up, get up!” hebarked. The cellmate stirred. The guard walked over to Lindy’s bunkand kicked it, repeating his command. Then he turned to my bunk. Therasp of his key in the lock had put me instantly awake, but I feignedsleep. He kicked my bunk and I pretended to be groggy. Lindy had beengone for hours, but there was no way I could know for sure that hehad been picked up by our co-conspirators on the outside. Determinedto stall as long as possible as a rear-guard action, I took extratime waking up. Finally I was dangling on the edge of my bunk whenthe guard turned back to Lindy, who had not moved. Kicking his bunkwith greater force, the guard yelled “Get up!” and yanked backLindy’s covers, only to realize there was no body in the bed.
Turning to me with a nervous look, the guard growled, “How manyprisoners are supposed to be in this cell?”
“I don’t know, you’re the turn-key,” I shrugged.
Nervously looking around the cell, he retreated back into thecorridor to consult the gate guard. I could hear them swearing downthe hall. In a couple minutes they both came into the cell, aviolation of prison protocol for the gate guard to come inside thegate. They didn’t know what to do. The roster listed threeprisoners, but the cell looked intact. If they reported a missingprisoner, and there was only supposed to be two of us, then theywould be laughingstocks, at best. If they failed to report a missingprisoner, on the assumption that the paperwork was wrong, they wouldbe in deep shit.
They nervously talked to each other while looking around the cell.After all those nights of high anxiety, I was calm. The cellmatereally didn’t know what was going on, but prisoners always enjoyseeing guards get some of their own medicine, so we just silently saton our bunks enjoying the show. The guards were ramping up, searchingthe cell now. There wasn’t really any place for a prisoner to hide,but they searched anyway. They looked under all the bunks. One ofthem walked over, picked up a towel off the floor, as if he expectedto see Lindy hiding beneath it. They were really nervous now, surethere was supposed to be three prisoners, but with no explanation forwhat might have happened. They went back out and consulted the rover.Soon enough all three were in the cell, demanding to know where thethird prisoner was. The cellmate truly didn’t know, and I playeddumb, offering them nothing to ease their situation. The rover, whois never supposed to come into a prisoner area with his weapon, wasnevertheless smarter than the other two and started methodicallyshaking the bars, determined to find an explanation. When he came tothe soaped bar, it pulled off in his hand. He pivoted, wild-eyed,face contorted, steel bar held out like it was some sort of vileobject. All three guards cried out like they’d been stung, andstampeded for the cell door, trying to get through all at once, intheir rush to sound the alarm. We were left behind to placidly eatour breakfast, in a cell with a gaping hole. It was a long time laterwhen somebody higher up the chain of command finally ordered theremaining prisoners be moved to a different, more secure cell.
Lindy had indeed been picked up at the designated place that night,and was spirited away to Vancouver, Canada, where he joined Matherand Pawlowski and a whole community of GI resisters living in exile.
It was almost exactly forty years ago that I helped Lindy escape fromjail. Now Lindy lays dying in this cabin. His grand daughter issoftly playing the old piano. Propped up in a hospital bed, in hisown living room, Lindy is surrounded by windows that look out on thetrees, mostly evergreens, which ring his giant garden. In his line ofvision are rhododendrons in bloom, sagging fences and hand-hewnsheds. A black tail deer stands mid-day in the yard, accepting thegenerosity of family and strangers who have gathered for this passing.
Lindy’s 3-corner fool’s hat, its velvet somewhat faded with age,hangs on a hook near the bed. He lies quietly, mostly sleeping, butarousing once in a while to flash his grin at some new arrival hereto pay him respects. Lindy’s time is measured in days, if not hours.The hospital opened him up, saw he was a goner, and merely suturedhim back up. They released him to spend his last days in the place heloves, among those who love him.
Both of his sons are here with their families. There is a scatteringof friends sitting in the yard. Neighbors drop in with food andsupplies. I notice that the women seem to curtsey or bow to Lindywhen they approach, flashing mischievous grins. They treat him withthe tenderness of old lovers, which-as it turns out-is pretty muchuniversally true.
This place is a hippie’s dream of back to nature. The house postsare pealed logs, some found on the beach nearby, and some harvestedfrom this patch of land on this remote Canadian Island. Walls andceilings are unfinished tongue and groove. The plywood floors arepainted in wild shades of blue and purple. Water comes from rainbarrels on the roof, electricity from solar panels. The room istoasty, heated by the warm rays of the spring sun, and a wood stove.
Lindy told me he knew in his heart for a long time that something waswrong with him. Then a few months back, part of a tree he was fellingstruck him in the chest. After that he attributed his escalating painto the blow, not to cancer. Finally Lindy drove himself to thehospital, and now, only a week or so later, we gather to bid himfarewell.
In response to my call that Lindy was dying, Keith Mather, one of thekey players in the Presidio Mutiny flew up from San Francisco.Together we drove north from Seattle, over the border, taking threeferries to this island, where there are no policemen, to stand by ourcomrade in his final hours.
One of the women who was with him during his short stay in thehospital tells us a classic Lindy story. At one point after receivinghis grim news, he held his breath, she told us, pretending to bedead. She fell for the gag, until he laughed and said “Got you!”
“I was yelling at him, ‘You BASTARD!’” she related in herQuebec French accent, “I was so mad at him. The nurses must havethought I was crazy.”
When Lindy called me from the hospital, to say his end was near, heremarked in that whimsical way of his, “Randy, it seems like I’malways escaping and leaving you behind.” As I sit beside him now,I’m thinking that the significance of a person’s demise iscommensurate with the value of their life. Sharing the prison cellwith Lindy, I learned lessons from him that I have treasured and heldtrue ever since. I’m up here now because he sat down then. I’msure that each person holding death-watch in this hand-made cabin,and many who are not right here, can testify how they, too, weretouched and enriched by rubbing alongside this amazing spirit, my oldcomrade.
My mental image of Lindy has always been of a lithe young man dressedin a three-corner fool’s hat, dancing gently to his own tune,through a happy crowd on a warm summer’s day. He never lost thatflop-eared grin, he never ceased being a free spirit. On April 9,2009, forty years after he escaped from the Presidio, Lindy Blake,Presidio 27 mutineer, lover of many, father of two, passed away inhis home on Cortes Island, at the mouth of Desolation Sound, inCanada. Keith Mather and I stood at his bedside and sang “We ShallOvercome” one last time for him.
I wrote the following while sitting by his bedside that day:
Free Spirits Will Always Escape
Its me, Lindy, the one who helped you peck your way From the cell so many years ago.
I have come, so you may take flight again.I was your co-conspirator then and I call you now,My hummingbird, my jailbird, my escapee.Hover about in the garden. Check the flowers.Peer in the window from time to time,Then flit on, as you will.
I’m here to remove our secret “bar of soap.”Here’s my hand, Brother, step up.Wiggle through the hole to freedom.
I have come for you.When the guards turn their backs,I’ll give you the signal, and once you’re gone,I’ll replace the bar to mask your retreat.Free Spirits will always escape.
