Bohemian Grove pilgrimage starts
The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Friday, July 14, 2006 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 14, 2006 at 1:33 a.m.
A steady line of Gulfstream, Cessna and Falcon corporate jets landed Thursday at Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, signaling the opening of the annual Bohemian Grove encampment.
“We love this,” said Bob Gallagher, general manager of Apex Aviation, which had more than a dozen private aircraft parked on its tarmac. “It’s good for business, it’s good for Apex, cars, hotels, catering . .. it helps the whole county.”
The annual encampment is as much a thread in the fabric of Sonoma County as the fall grape crush and foggy beach days, and it draws as many as 3,000 to the exclusive men-only club amid the Russian River redwoods.
Among the attendees will be former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is scheduled to speak, according to the Bohemian Grove Action Network, which has been protesting at the encampment since 1980. Grove officials would not confirm the speech schedule.
Meanwhile, rumors circulated among airport workers Thursday that actors John Travolta and George Clooney also were expected to fly in.
The annual gathering has its detractors, who contend the participants - from government leaders to corporate executives - meet outside public view and discuss such issues as the war in Iraq and terrorism.
“I wouldn’t say ’sinister’ is the word at all, but the people who are involved there are doing some politically very inappropriate things to the world,” said Peter Phillips, a Sonoma State University sociology professor who wrote his doctoral thesis on the club.
Phillips will be among the protesters July 22 outside the gates of the Monte Rio retreat, where they have picketed each event since 1980.
Members of the San Francisco-based Bohemian Club have been coming to its 2,700-acre retreat for 117 years. The club caters to ex-presidents, high-ranking government officials, corporate executives, artists and entertainers.
It cloaks itself in secrecy, denying any requests for tours of the grove and requiring all employees to sign nondisclosure agreements.
The encampment officially begins Saturday with the “Cremation of Care,” a ceremony that includes a large bonfire, and runs for two weeks, with the middle weekend drawing the largest and usually the most prestigious crowd.
Thomas Reed of Healdsburg, a former secretary of the Air Force and an inactive member, is scheduled to talk on his Cold War experiences.
Reed said the club comprises a broad base of people who are just as likely to be discussing school vouchers as some pressing world issue.
“It is an area where friends get together,” Reed said. “To say it is a place where nefarious schemes are hatched, I have not seen that. You get a lot of people together and people will talk about things, but where the protesters describe it as a cabal, it doesn’t work that way.”
On Thursday, corporate jets arrived at the airport with men in blue blazers and business-casual attire who stepped onto small red carpets and were whisked by awaiting rental cars.
Among the luggage of three arrivals were four cases of expensive French wine.
Federal Aviation Administration controllers said there will be 50 planes landing Thursday and today carrying Bohemian Grove participants.
Apex’s Gallagher said the company probably will sell 20,000 gallons of jet fuel over the weekend.
“It’s Christmastime for us,” Gallagher said.
Hertz branch manager Brenda Hirsch said they would rent about 40 vehicles Thursday, driving the cars onto the tarmac to meet the arrivals and collecting luggage in golf carts.
“We don’t do this for everybody,” Hirsch said. “It doesn’t happen on your day-to-day basis.”
You know most of the employees of the Bohemian Grove are locals to the Russian River area. Im very fortunate to have been born in Sonoma County and made it my home. If you are not familiar with the area, its a bunch of small deverse rural communities in the heart of wine country. So the Bohemian Grove is basically right in my back yard. My father (now retired) was one of the longest employees. I forget the number, but it was something impressive between 30-40 years. He started as a young boy as a Valet for a few of the camps. So when the opportunity arose for me to work at BoHo, I jumped on it, if for nothing else but the experience. Although come winter time, being an employee of the Bohemian Grove meant you were working in the freezing, dark, damp Redwoods, usually doing some miserable jobs. Youre either painting, splitting firewood, Antiqueing, or just humping lumber up the side of a hill to get get to some of these remote camps. Believe me, it wasnt fun. You would think being what the Grove is that the pay would have made it all worth while, but i think I was making something like $9.50hr. But, I held in there, because come summer time I got to be right in the middle of all this mystery and mingle with more powerful and influentieal people than 90% of the population. Who else can say that they got to paint President Bush’s bathroom, built a bar for L.L.Bean, Drank a beer with Steve Miller, received a cigar from the founder of Microsoft and the experiences go on. As far as all the Peagan and cult rituals which many think are going on thoughout the encampment…..well, I didn’t see anything like that besides the main ceremony, which from my understanding is suppose to represent letting go of all your concernes of life outside the grove and to rejoise in the serenity of the grove…bls bls bla. That was it! There is no doubt in my mind that somewhere in one of these camps someone was making some kind of deal. But let me assure you that the majority of the members were there to get waisted on enjoy some of the most talented musicians. A surprisingly large amount of the Grove members are musicians. Go figure, since musicians are usually thought to be the more tainted and in no way on the same social level as some of these world leaders and financial powerhouses. I tell ya what, they got so drunk that they would be staggering from camp to camp. The grove employees had it pretty good during the events. We would usually be driving golfcarts around to deliver baggage or deliver something or another. Most of the camp Valets were very generous to us, offering us cocktails or part of their meal. I dont think Ive ever eaten so well. It was quite the experience.
But my fingers are cramping up, I could ramble on all night. Perhaps I’ll continue with my experience some time. Basically, I wanted to say for someone who was there for a few years right in the middle of it all, what I saw for the most part were the most powerful people getting together and enjoying one of the dozens of concerts held each day, drinking, eating and acting like school boys. More often than not traveling from camp to camp I would have to stop my golfcart in the middle of the road while one of the drunken camp members urinated in the middle of the road. Being a grove employee we had to have the upmost respect and just let them do whatever they wanted. T