This post is strictly in the interest of history. I am not posting this for any prurient reasons: it just seems like an appropriate bit of history, especially since I recently mentioned Leslie Van Houten.
To be clear, these are not post mortem photos: they were taken when Ms. Tate was 21. She was 26 when the Manson family murdered her.
Cabrejas, 46, had been searching for camera equipment to photograph a solar eclipse when she came across the pics.
“They had been sitting in our garage for years until I came across them cleaning his stuff,” the West Los Angeles native told SWNS.
She added that the photos were “totally a casual thing, from before she was even famous.” Tate was just starting to build her career at the time and was going to a plethora of auditions.
I am, of course, in the interest of respecting copyright and intellectual property, not reproducing the photos here. You can click through to the linked NY Post article if you wish to view a selection of them.
I am a bit too young to really recall the entire Tate murder. Of course, I have read about it, and Manson. In fact, my 21st Birthday, I walked over about a block to our small town’s only bar, to meet my twin brother, for a birthday drink. I happened to find that he had a bunch of his drinking buddies there, like our teachers from high school, coaches from same, and such. I was not, nor never have been, a drinker, and so I had planned on having one drink with my brother, and leaving.
That didn’t happen, since everyone wanted to buy us a 21st birthday drink. I think I had maybe 7 or 8 shots of different booze brands. I finally made my getaway, and walked home. This is a long set up, but when I got home, I was hungry, and made something to eat. I sat down, and turned on the tv, and watched the Tom Snyder show what ever it was called, Tommorrow or something.
He was interviewing Charles Manson, and Manson was obviously crazy. But he was lucid enough that he got a few points across now and then. The one thing that has stuck with me for 40 years, is this. Manson said something along these lines. He said that Americans are afraid of him, yet he was sitting in a prison, with no chance of getting out. And I am not doing justice to this at all, but Manson said that what the American people are afraid of is ourselves. He said you are not afraid of me, you are afraid of yourselves.
And the way he said it, maybe the fact that I had a bunch of whiskey and such made me more open to it, but it really hit me. This guy, a crazed, murderous, unhinged nutcase, made more sense than over half of the politicians that I have listened to who were running for office.
And even today, at the age of 61, looking back, what he said makes even more sense. The people who are against gun ownership, are not really afraid of guns, they are afraid of themselves. I am a gun owner, and a supporter of the 2nd amendment, but not a crazed gun owner. There are those who are crazed gun nuts. And they are not afraid of attack or the government but I think that they are afraid of themselves.
Like I said, Manson was a murderous, crazed, nutjob, who was lucky that he was only sentenced to prison instead of getting the death sentence, which I am sure was not on the table in that state. I never thought that there was any redeeming part of him or his thoughts or any other part of him. It was just that one statement that hit me, and struck me as having a lot of truth contained within. So very often, we fear the unknown, when what we really should fear, is the weakness within ourselves. And if we are able to overcome that weakness, somehow, then we will become stronger than anyone could imaging. Such are the way that medal of honor recipients gain their strength to do the unthinkable, without fear.
pigpen:
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I need to think on this some.
I’m younger than you (the Tate-LaBianca murders happened when I was in single digits) and, oddly enough, I haven’t read “Helter Skelter” (or seen the TV movie – my parents wouldn’t let us watch it).
I’ve said before that I believe the world would have been a much better place if we ignored Manson after his conviction (other than providing for basic needs). But “you are not afraid of me, you are afraid of yourselves” is something worth thinking about. I’m not sure I agree, but it is worth thinking about.