Observations from a Hightower or The Sage of San Quentin

Dear Reader -
      This is the beginning of a very long and wonderful reading experience provided by William A. Hightower's quips and quotes while he served a life sentence in San Quentin Prison (1922-1964). He entered the prison in October of 1922 after a sensational court case. It was part of the yellow journalism era of William Randolph Hearst. Hightower was accused of killing a Catholic Priest, Father Patrick Heslin.  His body was found in the area of  Half Moon Bay by Hightower. A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner went with him to verify there was a body. Hightower was taken not to jail but to the Examiner's news room and held while they printed an EXTRA! He was never set free again.
     The story is long and intriguing with many twists and turns.  We will cover that in the coming weeks.  What Hightower did to keep his sanity in prison was to educate himself, read, and write bits of wisdom, similar to that of Benjamin Franklin and other word-smiths.   Hightower died May 30, 1974 at the age of 95.  His prose and poetry and obersvations are what he has left to give the world.  Perhaps one day we will know if he committed the crime or not.  But for more than 40 years Hightower served a sentence on circumstancial evidence, and chose to rise above his condition. He did so with old time gentlemanly grace and charm.

     This blog is sponsored by Genelle Larsen Pugmire  and  Earle S. Larsen  Jr.  associates and friends of the late William Hightower.  Genelle met "uncle Bill" at the Hotel California 1966. She was 10 years old, he was 86.  She was the first child Bill had come close to since 1922. Her and her little sister Martha, became endeared to him and he found great joy in showering them with gifts, visiting their family (for he hand none he knew of). Genelle and Bill shared birthdates and in a twist of fate, he died the day Genelle graduated from high school.  It was a right of passage in a way for Genelle who inherited trunks full of manuscripts typed or written off of antique typewriters on to prison paper, however Bill could get it.  The books were bound with old mattress tatting from a mattress factory that used to be a part of the work place experience at San Quentin for the inmates.

 Here are a few bits of wisdom:

     The way things are going if won't be very long until all law will become but the right way to do wrong.

     Leaving it to laziness and providence is the reason there is so much indigence.

     Before I learned very much in the school of experience, I went to the university of adversity.

    If this earthly existence is given to us as a gift, then why is it that none of us have ever got the drift, so that we can know from whence we came, and why we are here.

    Life is a chance for all to learn and while this earth goes round and round, each one of us should do his turn.
    
    How can any many hope to get more out of life than is in the right kind of home with the right kind of wife.

    I shall try to see that my day will last until my last day. While I am alive I shall try to live.

    Is life but an ill assortment of silly assorted ills, to be made by medical treatment, a mere pilgrimage of pills.