Back in ‘86 our friend Jerry switched to the other side and started having nazi rallies at his house with older prison type boneheads. They would get drunk and riled up then go out and look for us; the “DAFfy boys” as they called us. We were mostly a bunch of high school kids, out numbered and outsized, and it was no longer safe for us downtown.
One day me, Roi and our friend Jose were hiking up in the mountains near UCSC and found a spot near a creek where the hill had slid down creating a sort of big flat shelf. We cracked a beer, smoked a bowl, and started stacking boulders. Soon we we had a low wall around the edge the shelf, creating something like a castle tower.
A few days later we returned with a bunch of the Firm, a couple of twelve packs, and added another foot to wall. It soon became one of our new hangouts, though it was pretty hard to get to, it being a 10 minute drive and a 20 minute hike. The advantages were seclusion and safety.
We had many a party at the Keep, dragging out of towners out into the woods and blowing their minds with our skinhead castle. Long after Jerry got bored and the boneheads went away we still used it as an occasional destination, in fact a gang of us visited it just last fall. It’s still there.
-Joel
