Treasure Hunt
Rick Lasky recalls:
“I was jogging in the Richmond District near where I lived when I had a flash of inspiration. Wouldn’t it be cool to organize a treasure hunt around the city? I knew just who to take this idea to: Gary Warne. So I went to Gary’s bookstore “Circus of the Soul” and told him my idea. He said, “Rick, I’ve had the very same fantasy. Let’s do it!”
It was Gary’s crazy idea to hold it the night of the Chinese New Year’s parade in the North Beach/Chinatown area. We agreed to split the writing of the clues. Gary did the first half, I did the second half. It is amazing to me now how much cooperation we got from the businesses then. I asked the folks working at Uncle Gaylord’s ice cream parlor if they would help the week before. I gave the three clues in baggies and explained that next Saturday there would be three different teams from a treasure hunt who would ask for a banana split. They were to put a Baggie with a clue at the bottom of each banana split. To my amazement this came off without a hitch in the treasure hunt a week later. Amazing. Would never happen now.”
John Law recalls:
Small groups with different colored armbands as teams. I remember people in the crowds getting more than a little pissed at us for pushing past them to race across the parade route.
Later at pie fight: Chaotic as hell. Shirley Sheffield talking to a babyfaced MP from her hometown in South Carolina talks him into pieing her. I was watching this encounter and the chief officer (a lieutenant I believe) was, at that time standing atop a jeep/pick-up? Surveying the 50 or so pie covered nuts. He was trying to organize all into groups in some order so he could get everyone’s I.D. We were trying to be cooperative but were stupid-ineffective and silly. When he saw the young jarhead pie Shirley he literally threw his hands up in the air and a few seconds later started shouting over his bullhorn something like: Alright ALL OF YOU: get your stuff and GET OUT OF HERE. Please leave the Presidio…. Take your stuff and GO!!
