A Cassady childhood #1: Neal after On the Road

Son John Allen takes us back

John Allen Cassady, named after both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, is the only son and youngest child of Neal and Carolyn Cassady. John has many memories of his father and family and has often shared recollections with Rock and the Beat Generation. Here he takes us back to 1960 and the time his Dad was released from prison sentence imposed following a drug bust and the escapades that followed…

And then, Dad was released from San Quentin prison, and the condition for his parole was that he had to have a steady home address for at least two years. Of course he moved back into our home on Bancroft Avenue in Los Gatos. He used to work as a tire jockey in New York, so he applied at the Los Gatos Tire Service shop on University Avenue in Los Gatos.

Dad had to show his ‘Blue Card’, or whatever it was called, meaning that he was a convicted drug addict, so then no one would hire him (Drug laws were pretty Draconian back then. Now everything is legal. I'll write more about his false arrest later). The owner of the shop. Roy, just looked at the card and laughed. He said, ‘You're hired!’

I had a Schwinn 20" Stingray bike with the classic banana seat and the sissy bar on the back (Thanks, Mom). My friends and I would ride down to the tire shop after school to watch Dad work. He ran so fast between the cars in the dirt lot to the recapping machine inside the shop, that he would attract old neighbor guys around the block to just watch him! 

Years later I was in LG and stopped by the tire shop, which was still there, just to reminisce. Roy's two sons saw me and invited me in. Roy had passed years before, of course, but they broke out some cocktails in the office and proceeded to tell me some hilarious Neal stories.

They were just kids back then, but they remembered him well. One day they couldn't find Neal so they went up to the loft where they stored the tires. There was Dad, with his arms in two stacks of tires, fast asleep. Standing up! They laughed so hard, it woke him up, telling them, ‘Oh, hello. I was just checking the inventory.’

I remember one day when Dad was without a working car (?!?), so he had to walk to work. I guess Mom had driven their only car at the time to her job already. So he asked me, ‘Johnny, do you know a short-cut to the highway?’ ‘Sure!’ I said.

There was a path at the end of the street that cut through the Sontags’ property to Highway 9. But instead of just walking him down Bancroft Avenue, I led him through all the neighbors’ yards to get there. That's the route us kids would take. Neighbors eating breakfast would see this grown man jumping through their fences! I got him to the highway alright, but later I was embarrassed about the whole trip.

Roy's sons also told me how Neal had forgotten something at home, but there was traffic in the left lane on University Avenue. So he drove up the right lane in reverse gear! Roy pulled up in the left lane, on his own way to work, and asked Neal, window to window, what he was doing, going 30mph in reverse with the transmission complaining. ‘I'll be right back. I forgot my lunch!’ Roy just rolled his eyes. ‘Well, that's Neal…’

Then there was the morning when I was standing at the school bus stop on the corner of Bancroft Avenue and Ridgecrest Road when I heard all of these screeching tire sounds coming from up on Highway 9.

Sure enough, it was Dad in some old beat up '58 Ford station wagon. He screeched to a halt right in front of me, and said, ‘Hi, son! What are you doing?’ I replied: ‘I'm going to school. Dad. What are YOU doing?’ He glanced in the rear view mirror and said, ‘Gotta go!’

The next thing I saw was a bunch of cop cars rounding the corner. I never did find out what he had done wrong, but there were cop cars from all over the Bay Area, I mean, CHP, and from every county from there to San Fransisco! They all converged at 18231 Bancroft Avenue, and led him away in handcuffs. It broke my Mom's heart (But my friends thought that it was pretty cool, ha ha).

Stay tuned for more crazy stories…

John Allen Cassady

See also: ‘Rock Stories #4: Elvin Bishop & John Allen Cassady’, November 6th, 2023; ‘Rock Stories #1: Carlos Santana & John Allen Cassady’, August 27th, 2023; ‘Beat Meetings #8: John Allen Cassady & Allen Ginsberg’, June 11th, 2023; ‘Interview #9: John Allen Cassady’, August 4th, 2022