I had dinner with my brothers and sister last night. They told some stories from the 1930s and 1940s. One story was about these two fellows who lived in the burned out Redwoods near our house on the hill in Corte Madera. These two guys would buy a gallon of wine downtown and it would take them a few hours to walk home. Of course they had to stop and drink wine on the way. On a good day, if they got some work downtown, they would buy two gallon jugs of wine.

My family was sitting down to dinner and before we could start eating my father would insist that one of my brothers take dinner plates to the two old fellows in the Redwoods. My dad called them "The Tree Toads."

One of my brothers said he used to go up there and hang out with these guys now and then and have a beer or two.

I don't know that you'd hear of anything like this today.