INSIDE THE FIRE

AuthorHouse

Contents

PRELUDE...............................................................................ix1. FROM ZYGOTE TO TROOPER (Or WHO IS THIS DOUG CAMERON ANYWAY?).....................32. NOVEMBER 3, 1968..................................................................103. LETTERS FROM VINCE................................................................164. JUNE 14, 1969.....................................................................255. THE SONIC ORGASM..................................................................286. DOUG CAMERON, ROAD WARRIOR........................................................317. LOS ANGELES: JUNE 16, 1969........................................................348. THE WORKSHOP......................................................................379. MEXICO............................................................................4210. MY SWIM WITH JIM..................................................................4911. ELIZABETH.........................................................................5412. THE END...........................................................................5613. "MAYBE FIND IT BACK IN L.A...."...................................................8914. THE COURSONS......................................................................9915. VINCE TREANOR REVISITED...........................................................10216. December 11, 1984.................................................................119ALMOST FAMOUS: THE DOUG CAMERON BANDS.................................................144EPILOGUE..............................................................................148POSTSCRIPT: THE SEARCH FOR MY ORIGINS.................................................151

Chapter One

Our grey stucco home was located in a beautiful older neighborhood on Harlem Boulevard in Rockford, Illinois. Across the street was a small Civil War monument, a large rock upon which had been bolted a bronze plaque commemorating Camp Fuller, a Union base located along the nearby Rock River in 1862. I saw that monument every time I went out front to retrieve the mail. The rock never changed, nor did the contents of our mailbox, which was usually stuffed mainly with correspondence for my father, a district sales representative for Continental Steel of Kokomo, Indiana.

There was no reason to expect the mail to be any different one day in November 1968, probably the seventeenth or eighteenth. I idly thumbed through a dozen or so letters, the last one addressed to me. I couldn't believe my eyes ... a legal size envelope, white in color, with parallel green lines on the left edge which included the logo: The Doors 8512 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, California. I tore the envelope open and was stunned to discover that I was being offered the position of assistant road manager! (Over the years, this significant piece of correspondence mysteriously disappeared in the accumulated dust of time.)

It was a lengthy letter, the first of seven I would receive from Doors road manager Vincent Treanor III, informing me that the job paid the princely sum of $60 per week, plus room and board, for my efforts. The amount wasn't much, but so what? The primary condition of my employment was that I first finish high school. Unfortunately, life at West High by this time was quite a strain because I had a very strong case of senioritis.

Like most parents would, mine questioned the wisdom of allowing their teenage son to tour with a rock band, particularly the Doors, but Vince called and talked to Dad about the gig. The terms were agreed upon, but I still had to finish high school. UGH! What a trial. Especially geometry, which blew me out of the water. Bud Chamberlain, a math teacher at West as well as a great guy, agreed to tutor me. Even with his help I barely passed the final exam. Who said musicians are good with numbers? Oh, by the way, I needed that geometry class to graduate. I squeaked through by one point. Never give up!

So who is this Doug Cameron, fledgling Doors roadie, anyway? Where did he come from? How did he reach this enviable position in America, circa 1968?

I was born in a crossfire hurricane. Wish I could say that. It sounds good, doesn't it? But it's not true, at least not physically. Spiritually and emotionally, however, it is. A young woman named Margie Allison and her boyfriend, Ed Johnson, shared some backseat time in a 1947 Packard-or it might have been a DeSoto-somewhere in a frozen field south of Russiaville, Indiana. I started out as a zygote. Phonetically, zygote sounds a lot like the German words sei Gott, which means "be God." I keep trying not to Be.

I was born on October 4, 1951, in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terre Haute is French for "high ground", and that might be closer to Heaven than I'll be when I drop to room temperature at some date in the hopefully distant future.

None of Margie's family were around to help with my entrance into the world. Approximately 140 miles to the north in Kokomo, Indiana, her people weren't even close. They sent Margie to Terre Haute so no one in Kokomo would know she had "a bun in the oven," as the ancient adage goes. I learned later that Ed was somewhat angered by the news of my existence. He told Margie not to try pinning any responsibility on him, and that he would tell everyone she had slept with all of his friends if she named him as the biological father. With that he quickly departed to begin an academic career at Bradley in Illinois. He was reportedly about 6'2" tall and had blue eyes and reddish blonde hair. I figure he must have been a Valkyrie, in Norse mythology a chooser of the slain, because he decided my fate in very short order. At least he set the stage. Goodbye, Ed ...

Margie had a rough time the day I was born. In other words, mine was not an easy delivery. Years later I was told that there were a lot of screaming blue jays providing an accompanying chorus in the trees outside the hospital window. Pretty birds, but mean. By mistake, a nurse brought me to Margie, and when the blunder was discovered I was whisked away to a crib in another room. I was ON MY OWN. Not even a day old. Ain't dis a bitch? At least I wasn't a zygote anymore ... just an orphan. Or as the French would refer to me, a bastard. Is it any wonder I have never been crazy about the French?

Within two weeks-or three, tops-through the help of a doctor in Kokomo, I won the biggest jackpot of my whole life: I was adopted by Ray and Barbara Cameron, also of Kokomo. The size of the jackpot? Incalculable. If it had been $500,000,000 I wouldn't have traded. Not then, not now, not ever. Suffice it to say that I felt very loved as a child. Very safe, very secure.

Both Barbara Cooper Cameron and Raymond Lindley Cameron were erudite, educated, lovely people who fell in love with me at first sight. Mom came from an old Fremont, Ohio family, and her great grandfather, W.E. Haynes, fought for the North in the Civil War. My dad's family didn't have any money, so his was an uphill battle not only in his family but in life as well.

We moved to Rockford, Illinois, sometime in 1953. Back then, Rockford was one of the country's leading manufacturers of...