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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Blow me over with a feather. This is the first time I've heard any mention of Sheridan being married.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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That is something, isn't it, Jan. I never even gave that a thought, myself.
On the 20th anniversary of the death of Sheridan Anderson, Evelyn Spence looked back on one of the most colorful characters flyfishing has ever known.
While he spent summers in Yosemite, he wintered in Reno, in Bishop, in San Francisco. “He was very much of the San Francisco crowd, “ says Frank Amato, the eventual publisher of the Manifesto. “He really captured the mindset of that time and place.”
When then-fledgling photographer Ed Cooper was looking for a place to rent in 1967, as the Summer of Love was peaking into pot and bellbottoms and beads, he moved in with Sheridan. It was a random union, but the pair got along and soon moved into a bigger apartment near Golden Gate Park in the Richmond District. Dubbed the 6th Avenue Delicatessen and Commune, there was enough room for darkrooms, easels, and girlfriends.
“When I lived with him, I had a girlfriend—now my wife—and he married a woman named Leslie Fairbairn, but he’d already been married before—to another Lesley (this one with an l-e-y ending) who had two kids,” Cooper says. “I think his attitude toward women was kind of archaic.”
Neither matrimony lasted more than a year or two, perhaps because Sheridan claimed that “marriage was an admission of failure.”
http://midcurrent.com/books/master-of-the-manifesto/
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JohnnyBob
Social climber
Mount Vernon, Illinois
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Yes, I've read in a couple of places that Sheridan was married twice, to Leslie Fairbairn and to another woman named Lesley. I knew the first, not the second. Reportedly divorced from both, and according to mutual friend & photographer Ed Cooper (edcooper.com), Sheridan remarked to him that "Marriage is an admission of failure". Sheridan always had a witty comment, like he called my girlfriend Janelle a "climber", which she was in a social sense, not a mountaineering sense. I didn't understand until later but Sheridan did. Sheridan was a few years older than me and was a good friend, a semi-father figure, helped a lot during the difficult time when Janelle and I were breaking up. I took up playing the kyoto, and Janelle took up playing with the policeman who lived in the apartment upstairs... :) Still that was long ago and I would like to establish contact again.
Oops, sorry, not that it matters but it was a "koto" (not kyoto), similar to this one:
It makes a wonderful twangy sound if you pluck a string then press on the opposite side of the bridge. It's very lightweight if you want to lug one up to the summit and serenade the stars...or whatever.
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climber bob
Social climber
maine
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unfortunately its bigger than my scanner
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 08:28pm PT
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Michael Anderson is quite an accomplished climber along with being Sheridan's brother.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jan 21, 2017 - 09:06am PT
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I enjoyed a nostalgia trip through this thread last night & damn if I don't have a few more Sheridan cartoons that I don't recall seeing in it.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 22, 2017 - 02:14pm PT
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Nice ones, Fritz!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 17, 2017 - 08:58pm PT
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Bump for Sheridan's favorite subject, Royal Robbins.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Mar 17, 2017 - 09:15pm PT
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In honor of Royal Robbins, some more Sheridan Anderson cartoon love for Royal.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 18, 2017 - 09:25am PT
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From Mountain 101
SHERIDAN ANDERSON - A TRIBUTE
by Royal Robbins
Sheridan Anderson died the evening of March 31, 1984 of an acute attack of emphysema, a chronic illness from which he had long suffered. His death came as a sad surprise to his friends because he had recently over the telephone sounded stronger and healthier than he had seemed for some time. An added poignancy is that Sheridan, his age somewhere in his late forties, was living at the time with his grandmother, whom he had often described as "indestructible". She survives her grandson.
Sheridan's personal life was not such that one could recommend it to youth as a path to longevity. He ate a lot and drank a lot, and he wasn't too keen on exercise, health foods, or abstinence. His habits doubtless helped do him in, but his answer to that would have been, "A short life, and a merry one".
Although Sheridan was never a serious climber, he was intimate with the climbing scene for over 20 years. In fact, he was one of the chief chroniclers of the foibles, vanities and pretensions of many of the stars of the period. Sheridan had a double talent: the ability to read character, and the skill to render it with precise, satirical strokes. He was also a gifted cartoonist, and his drawings lightened the pages and enlightened the readers of many a climbing magazine and journal.
Sheridan's precision of pictorial rendering found valuable expression in four books: my two rockclimbing texts, and two of his own works, "Baron Von Mabel's Backpacking", and "Curtis Creek Manifesto", a fly-fishing primer. In these books, each considered outstanding in its genera, Sheridan mixed whimsey, earthy humour, and outrageous imagination, with clarity of presentation and accuracy of detail in a unique and original way. His backpacking book, for example, was done entirely in cartoons.
Sheridan took pleasure in cultivating an image of rogue and debauchee. Often it seemed to fit. Less obvious was another side of his nature, an aspect shown by his love for the mountains, his delight in the peace and communion of fly-fishing, his abiding loyalty to his friends, his appreciation of literature, and, rather unexpected for a satirist, his fondness for heroes. He once gave me a book he highly prized, about the life of Wyatt Earp. There was, in fact, in Sheridan's nature an ineffable touch of grace, a certain primal innocence, and even gentleness, behind that rough exterior. Like most of us, he was caught in the mud and yearned for the sky. Hence his aspirations for the peaks and his association with those who climb them. Indeed, the cynicism shown in his caricatures of climbers may have been fueled by his learning that climbers themselves were, or the whole, not as elevated as their goals. There seems little in Baron Von Mabel's make-up but an amusing cynicism. But the yearning showed through, as in Sheridan's poetic "Song of the Sierras".
Sheridan will be mourned by many friends, but will ever be part of them. What we will miss mostly are his sense of humour; his chuckles rising into guffaws and erupting finally into rich rolling laughter; his keen lively, artist's eye; and the vividness of his presence. His ashes were sprinkled over a part of the southern Sierra he loved. I am sure Sheridan would have been happy to think his friends would all quaff a few to commemmorate his passing.
Here's to you Sherry.
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Flydude
Trad climber
Prather, CA
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Mar 19, 2017 - 11:23am PT
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Ed, that was an era wasn't it...maybe a little more artful and respectful disrespect than we got going on today.
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Bramble
climber
Olympia, Wash.
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Mar 20, 2017 - 09:31am PT
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Hi, Folks.
I'm writing a story on Sheridan and The Curtis Creek Manifesto for The FlyFish Journal. Talked to some great people so far - most of them fishermen - but I'd like to talk to climbers too. It looks like some of you guys knew Sheridan pretty well. If you have Sheridan stories to share, will you send me an email? btallman06@gmail.com
Also looking for art to accompany the words. Thanks for your help. This thread has been an invaluable resource!
Brett
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 20, 2017 - 07:20pm PT
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amazing what you find lying around in the brush...
but that when we put it there we didn't think that it was ephemeral
time reduces our work and scatters it
as if so many leaves fallen from the tree in the autumn.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 11, 2017 - 01:10pm PT
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Does anyone know where the original drawing (or a good scan of it) that shows up on post #3 of this thread is located?
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Apr 11, 2017 - 05:09pm PT
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Steve: Just to be sure, is it the Summit Magazine 1973 cover that Mimi posted? Let me know & I'll be happy to email you my 3.5 mb scan of it.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 12, 2017 - 07:54am PT
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Fritz- I have that one too but am trying to find the original drawing or a scan that doesn't have the magazine lettering in it.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 28, 2017 - 06:51pm PT
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Hey Fritz- Please send me your scan as it is better resolution than the one I have.
Thanks
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Apr 28, 2017 - 07:05pm PT
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Steve: I just emailed it to you. 3.6mb.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Apr 28, 2017 - 08:11pm PT
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Tami! Yes, Thank you.
I was suffering in the SE Utah desert this week, & it took me until today to check my stock of Sheridan art. I did not have a big jpeg of that RR cartoon, since I recall the original was quite small. 550 kb was the best I could do.
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