Now we said we were only going to discuss the origins of this gathering, but this card sees its closure and looks forward to its relocation. For in 1990, people met on Baker Beach as before, only for the police to arrive. They did allow the wooden man to be assembled and stood up to its full height of forty feet, as a centre piece, but they would not allow it to be burned.
This could well have been on grounds of safety, rather than the prevention of fun, for the year before there had been a problem, and as the man was raised aloft to its full height of forty feet, it broke in half, and collapsed. It does not appear that anyone was hurt, and it was burned in a seated position - but the ceremony must have been being observed as shortly after the burning commenced the park police arrived, along with the local television station.
There had been discussions, internally, about moving the event, to Nevada, and the decision was made to do this, in a few weeks time, with the same un-burnt man taking pride of place, a symbolic gesture of how something created in one place can be reborn in another.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before the new event, with the figure of the man still in San Francisco, it was destroyed - some say by accident, others by vandalism.
However, in the true spirit of the event, everyone came together and rebuilt it, then transported it all the way to the new location. It arrived less than two hours before it was set up and burned to ash.
This is the counterpart to another Arbuckle set, which you can read about in our newsletter for the 20th of July, 2024, though you will need to scroll down to Wednesday the 24th of July.
Ours is of fifty cards, but they start with number one, and they do look very similar, which is why you will find a list of the cards there already, and one day a list of this set will be here too.