It was good to hear of the death of Charles Manson. During his 50 years in prison, he kept attracting idiotic cult members and, the guards say, planning murders.
My father had an indirect connection with Manson. My dad's sister, Ardith, had her first of eleven marriages to a man named Merle Curtiss, and they had a child together before divorcing. That was my older cousin Sonny. I never liked him.
My father was a teenager at the time of the marriage, and Curtiss gave him some useful boxing lessons. My father kept that fond memory, survived several street fights, and 40 years later he looked up Curtiss, by then the elected sheriff of Kern County. My father was invited to dinner with Curtiss and his wife. He learned at dinner that Curtiss and his deputies were the ones who had caught and arrested Manson, although they get little mention in the saga. Most people seem to think Manson was nabbed by some district attorney from his office in Los Angeles.
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