The Stories
What we leave behind for the next generation, our stories and memories. May they serve the future well. Please feel free to comment. If you want to share a story please let us know on the Contact Page. Thanks for stopping by. https://synanon.com/home/contact-2/
AdGap African American Amity Foundation Andre James Arnold Abbott bald heads Barbara Finkelstein Betty Dederich Bill Crawford Children Chuck and Betty Chuck Dederich Doug Robinson Drug Addiction Elena Broslovsky Esther Phillips Food Service Forest Sylvia Crawford Friendship Game Club Ginny Dederich Harold Benjamin Harvey Hecht How I got to Synanon Hugh Kenny irving goldworm Jady Montgomery Jake Smotherman Josh Millstein Judi Erlich kids Lena Lindsey Margo Macartney Marriage Memorials Musicians notion Notions oakland Old Timers Overalls Paul Morantz Phoenix House places quitting Race Racism Rehabilitation Reid Kimball Robert Altman Rod Mullen Roger Corman Ron Alberico Ron Cook Sales San Diego Sandra Rogers-Hare San Francisco Seawall shaved heads Sidney Finkelstein Splitting squares Street Fair Synanon Synanon Failure Synanon Sales Team Synanon Women Synanon women shaved heads TC communities Ted Dibble The Academy The Bay The Bench The End The Game The Hatchery the school The Seawall The sixties The Trip THX1138 tomales bay Trips and Other Tools Vicki Kaufman Vicki Stephenson Vicki VanDalsem warren katz Weddings Women young people young people in Synanon

Celebration of Life for Miriam
Details: The Celebration is scheduled for January 6, 2024 in Visalia California at 2:30PM – RSVP to Rumery@comcast.net (Beth Rumery) Beth…
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Born in Synanon
Here is the trailer to Cassidy Arkin’s docuseries to be aired on Paramount Plus on December 12th. My reaction? Gut punch.…
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Miriam (Levine Crawford) Bourdette
Wasn’t that a clever thing to say? I had never met anyone like Miriam…”
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The First Week:
“I never did meet Chuck.”… “Later he said he didn’t know how to talk to Black people. “
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Property Damage – CED & The Game
It’s a game until you game Chuck. And then all bets are off when it comes to truth and consequences.
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Memories of Margo – Celebrating her Life
Bisbee—Four Days, Five Nights By Josh Millstein There are all sorts of love—filial, quarrelsome, starstruck, unrequited, platonic, big. Woven like a…
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I Loved Margo
By Gita Endore I loved Margo. And Margo let you love her. I remember her from Santa Monica. My dad was…
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I Thought I’d Write a Memoir
By Janet Best Dart It was harder than I thought. Before I wrote my still-to-be-named memoir of my time in Synanon,…
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The Game Was Not Free Speech
(In Response to Elena’s Post https://synanon.com/2023/09/11/many-a-blunder-and-foolish-notion/) You say “All words (in the Game) were free to be said or unsaid. No…
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Thinking About the Game
“For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from…
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A Ginny Story
“Out of the Game”…”no one approached me to put me on a ban from music but I thought it over–partly to…
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Ginny Shorin Teitelbaum Dederich
Celebration of Life I think everyone here knows of Ginny’s passing this Monday, July 10 just a month or so after…
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Remembering Bill Crawford
Sylvia Forest Crawford Bill Crawford left this existence on October 12, 2004. In Synanon, he was a Director of the Oakland…
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Vicki Stephenson (neeVanDalsem, Kaufman)
Photography – my Passion and my escape! I came to Synanon in 1968 as a freckled-faced, pig tail-wearing pre-teen – then…
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Irving Goldworm’s interview With Margo
This is an excerpt from Irving’s unpublished manuscript entitled “Consenting Addicts Life in Synanon” With permission from Kim Elinski M A…
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Margo Macartney
Remembering Margo “What Margo helped me understand a little better was the paradox at the heart of Synanon, and for that…
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A Poem for Margo’s Mate
The Downside of Partnering Up with Someone with a Host of Quite-Voluble Friends who Feel They are Owed a Portion of…
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Many A Blunder and Foolish Notion
In a land of faraway and forgotten dreams, there once was a human circle, where there were no fatal words. All…
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The House of Blackwelder
And she was black. And she was beautiful. Though she was much more than that to herself, and to so many…
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My Wedding Night
I remember thinking, this is not how a girl should spend her wedding night, a girl should be with her husband…
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Who Knew Chester Was Drinking?
“What do you want me to do make a lifestyle out of proving that Chester is drinking?”
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