...it was like the feeling
you get sometimes in a country you've never visited
before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,
the butter is a small adventure, and they put
paprika on the table instead of pepper,
except there was nobody in this country
except us, half-tipsy with the wonder
of being alive...
Alden Nowlan

Kathryn H. Dole lived in the Hollister House from the late 1950's through most of the 1960's. On a recent morning, she returned to the Ranch to see the old house and share her wonderful memories and stories.

One of my favorite tales is of the unforgettable day in 1961 when Khrushchev came through on the train during a visit to California. Because Kate's brother Grant worked with CBS news, he often had advance access to privileged information. He called Kate with the details of the Soviet leader's itinerary so that she could establish a post along the route to watch and take pictures.

"It was very hush hush," she tells us. "You weren't supposed to know about it. But Grant said, 'This is an historic occasion. I want you to go down there and get on the roof of the beach house.'"

The so-called beach house was an eccentric little structure that had started with Clint Hollister. "Clinty hated the sand and the beach." Kate explains, "and Becky didn't like to be in the sun, but they wanted their boys to be water babies. So Clinty had this idea. They were tearing down the old auto camp that was at the entrance of Gaviota, and he got one of these shed-type buildings, put it on the back of a hay truck, drove it out and left it down near the beach. He said, 'Now when I go down to the beach to watch the boys, at least I'll be out of the wind'. There it sat, windowless and roofless, with the rain coming in. Finally, I said, 'Clinty, if you give it to me, I'll fix it up.' He said, 'You can have it, as long as I can sit there.' "

Thus began the evolution of the beach house, which became a never-ending work in progress. The Dole kids loved it, and Kate enjoyed making ongoing improvements. "Once I tried to put a roll of tar paper roofing on in one of those high winds," she recalls. "I had the only tar paper kite known to man. It flew better than any kite I've ever seen."

Now, on the momentous day of Khrushchev's visit, the beach house would be the ideal vantage point from which to view his passage. "I'll be traveling with him," Grant explained, "but you won't know which train it is -- there's going to be a dummy train. Khrushchev's car will be either in the front or the back, but I'll throw something out to you as we pass, so you'll know which train he's on."
"Now of course this called for a lot of invention," says Kate, who is not one to miss out on a happening. "We always kept trunks of costumes in the attic, and all the children were here, so we decided to dress up for this special occasion."

"We knew an approximate time. There were sheriff's cars parked everywhere -- the place was just swarming with sheriffs, and they had been out most of the night. So we started down, gaily adorned in our costumes and scarves. I was carrying a movie camera. It was early in the morning; we didn't want to be late. And everyone was all dressed up. It was quite a colorful procession."

"As we were going across the tracks, I set the camera down because I had to adjust some scarves that were trailing, and I also had to get the kids across. All of a sudden out of nowhere, this giant army helicopter just dropped down over us. Of course the kids all screamed, and I shouted, 'Run to the beach house!' No one could hear anything, and everybody was running every direction, but my idea was to get to the beach house. I grabbed the camera. The chopper was causing stuff to blow and there were rocks this big flying through the air. Everyone was so scared, I don't know if they heard me or not, but we finally got into the beach house."

"I realized then that they thought we were somebody that was going to blow up the tracks! They continued circling, hovering. I got out and I waved to them, and I opened up my camera. We got up on the roof of the beach house and the kids were screaming and yelling as the train came. Then Grant threw something off, and that was the signal."

"But the funniest part was that we made international news -- the papers in Russia all came out and said that the peasants in their native costumes had lined the railway from Los Angeles to San Francisco shouting greetings."

"You probably distorted Russian perception of American dress and custom for generations to come," I say.

"Yes," replies Kate, "it is generally believed that at least out here, the peasants were mighty glad to see old Khrushchev.

Cynthia Carbone Ward