Bohemian Grove

I went to California this summer for a crazy job opportunity. I heard about this job through my friend Jack who went to U of O and lives near the grove. The grove is on a 2700 acre redwood forest located near Santa Rosa. This large and beautiful location is filled with controversy. The Bohemian Grove is a place where about 2000 men come for a three week encampment. During this time the members eat, drink, smoke and chat. Most members arrive on thursday afternoons and stay till sunday morning, but some stay for all three week. When the members arrived, they drove up too a loading dock type area and would unload and tag their bags and have their car valeted. My job was to take the bags from the docks to the members camp. This job was not hard and at sometimes fun. It only took a few days to learn where all 119 camp were located. Every camp was different, but most had a bar, cocktail area, fire-pit and sleep areas.

During busy times, I would help valet cars. This was fun at the time, but I'm glad it wasn't my full-time job. I had the chance to drive some pretty cool cars. I drove a Porsche carrera 4s and a ton of Mercedes, Lexus', and BWM's. It was really cool to be able to drive nice cars. One night, the management staff wanted us to start ever car in the valet lot (about 1000 cars). This was fun in the beginning, but soon became boring. I did get the opportunity to sit in and start a sweet Ferrari and a Bentley.

There we so many nice cars due to the fact that the members were mostly extremely wealthy. The members are all male and usually CEO's, politicians, or randomly loaded. Membership is rumored to be around $50,000 a year. To become a member also is rumored to take about 20 years. Some famous member include Henry Kissenger, George Bush Sr., Jimmy Buffet and Colin Powell. There are many many more member that are famous and even more that are not. The only famous person I talked to was Guy Fieri. He was not a member, but was doing a cooking show. I also saw Jim balushi but didn't get a chance to talk to him.

All they rich and powerful do is eat, drink, smoke and chat. There are a few lecture type talks and a few plays, but mostly old guys hanging out. These guys would drink pretty much all day and smoke cigars about the same amount. When I would deliver bags into member's camps, I saw so much hard alcohol in the bars and a ton of wine. It was easy to tell these guys are drunk usually by noon. I even saw members smoking cigars before 10 a.m.

The conspiracies come from the fact that extremely power people (CEO of banks and government officials) come to meet behind very secure closed doors. Many people buy this, but I have seen first hand that they old guys just want to drink and kick back with their rich buddies.

I had a good time working and made some good money. It was very interesting to see so many rich and powerful people in one place. Not sure if I want to go back, but it was definitely fun while it lasted.