Tossing Topanga Hippies

Years ago, when I first passed the Topanga General Store, I caught a glimpse of a hippie flying out the door and landing on his behind.

I didn’t think too much of it because there were plenty of hippies around Topanga in those days and some of them, because of an ingestion of various chemicals, often thought they could fly.

Perhaps, I said to myself, one had merely gone shopping for essentials, such as doughnuts and red wine, and, arms flapping, had attempted to soar home afterward, only to discover once more, alas, that hippies cannot fly, no matter what.

But then, a few days later, I passed the market again and again a hippie came flying out the door. He landed face down in the parking lot, picked himself up and ambled off.

Curious, I stopped the car.

“Excuse me,” I said to a woman astride her Harley-Davidson, “is there a hippie-tossing contest being conducted in the market?”

I thought perhaps it was an American form of dwarf-tossing.

“Naw,” she said, spitting. “It was just Joe.”

That’s when I met Joe Gerson, a guy who learned about tact and cordiality on the streets of Brooklyn and East L.A. and came to apply them behind the counter of the Topanga General Store by throwing someone out occasionally.

“Those weren’t hippies,” he said to me the other day. “They were bums. There’s a distinction that ought to be made. They were either drunk or abusive or stealing. So I threw them out.” He shrugged. “Somebody had to.”

We were sitting over a cold beer at an Italian restaurant just a bum’s throw from the market Joe once ran. He sold the business two months ago at age 58 and, as part owner of the shopping center, is trying to sweeten his image.

“If I had to do it over,” he said, “I would be more laid back. I was maybe a little too aggressive sometimes.” Then he added thoughtfully, “If Charles Manson had been around the canyon then, he’d have probably knocked me off.”

“Is this a New Joe I’m hearing?” I asked.

He tried to smile, which was difficult, since Joe rarely smiles, and said, “Sort of.”

While many say that the Old Joe had less charm than a hammerhead shark, he was unique to the canyon, and his often peculiar brand of merchandising cannot pass unnoticed.

Joe purchased the business 16 years ago and became known as Joe Creek, because of the market’s creekside location and the fact that not all hippies are able to say the word Gerson.

He brought with him a stare that can bore holes in steel and a voice that encompasses the tonal qualities of a chain saw.

The voice, the stare and the instincts of a street fighter were enough to maintain order among the creek rats, which is what the locals called the hippies who hung out around the market and occasionally stole cheese.

But it was not only those poor wretches who earned the wrath of Joe Creek. Bounce a check and he was on you like a buzzard after carrion. I know.

Because of an inability to add and subtract, I am known to bounce a check now and again. One day, I bounced one at the Topanga Store.

Joe was waiting for me when I came in, and demanded that the check be made good with cash and that I pay an additional fee for having bounced the check in the first place.

Fortunately my wife was with me and made it very clear that she was not about to tolerate Joe’s barracuda attitude, even though, she admitted, I was a little short on mathematical skills.

I don’t have to say a word at such times, but stand around looking simple-minded and being grateful I have a wife who is also a friend.

I learned later that I was not the only non-bum to incur the Old Joe’s anger. Fernwood Market down the street, building on Joe’s bad nature, shortly thereafter began advertising itself as “the friendly alternative.”

But despite that encounter, I continued to patronize Joe. For all of his aggressive instincts, he would let almost anyone charge food, even some who he knew would ultimately stiff him.

“If they pay at least once or twice,” he’d say in that oddly flat voice, “I’ll break even.”

But even more important, during the 1980 flood that ripped out the highway and isolated Topanga, Joe urged customers to take what they needed from his partly flooded market and pay later what they figured they owed.

Joe sold the market itself when, after a heart problem, he decided to get out before they carried him out.

As a result, the hippies are back and no one is throwing them out anymore.

“I really wish I had been different,” Joe said the other day as we walked across the parking lot back to my car. “I owe the people around here a lot.”

As we rounded a corner, a hippie lounging on the steps looked up, saw him and hurried off as though the devil himself were in pursuit.

Joe watched him go and said, “He tried to punch me in the jaw once.” For a moment, the Old Joe glared at the memory, but then the expression softened and the New Joe added, “But I probably baited him.”

I miss the Old Joe already.