No wonder Hoover barked. : Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

It was sometime before dawn Sunday when Hoover began barking. It echoed through Topanga Canyon.

I had no idea why he was barking, but I do know that Hoover doesn’t bark at just anything.

Old age has taught him that barking reveals his hidden position and therefore makes him vulnerable to attack. Hoover is, above all, a cringing coward.

He crouches behind a bush and only then gives the world hell.

On this particular pre-dawn, however, he wouldn’t let up, which led me to believe that he was probably barking at something he felt he could handle. The sudden tinkle of wind chimes, perhaps.

But I couldn’t allow the old fool to wake up the whole neighborhood. I got out of bed, grabbed my heavy teak walking stick and headed for the front door in my underwear. I take my walking stick because it is my policy never to face the unknown unarmed.

I opened the door and Hoover bolted instantly for safety in a corner of the living room, which was not a bad idea. Standing at the end of our walkway was a guy in a flowing white robe.

At first I thought it was a spiritual manifestation, but then it also occurred to me that it might be a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

I tried to remember what I had written lately. Had I offended the white folks? Were they paying me a little rectification visit?

If they were out bashing beaners, I was in trouble, so I said, “Hi, I’m Hawaiian, what can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for Eagle Rock,” the Spirit said. It’s up the trail in Topanga State Park. “We think it’s a sacred site.”

The nuts were harmonic convergents.

I looked down the walkway where the Spirit’s followers were waiting.

One or two others were also in white robes but most wore clothing faintly reminiscent of the 1960s, including flowers in their hair.

“You woke me before dawn to ask directions?” I said, shifting my walking stick into an attack position. Even Hoover growled.

“The Galactic Imprint is coming,” he said, “and we’re lost.”

It always happens in Topanga.

Any observance with a hint of mysticism will find the people banging tambourines and dancing naked in the moonlight.

Faith-healers, psychics, astrologers, levitating trance channelers, tai chi masters and past life regressionists. We’ve got ‘em all in the canyon.

Sunday was their day. It not only celebrated the harmonic convergence, but also observed the birthday of the Hindu god Krishna and the 10th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death.

No wonder Hoover barked.

I didn’t assault the fairy people. Instead I told them where Eagle Rock was and suggested that, if they took the wrong path and fell, they ought to begin humming immediately. They would no doubt float like feathers to the rocks below.

There’s something for every decade.

In the ‘60s, we believed gibberish was a new form of communication. Marshall McLuhan told us that. The oracle of the electronic age.

We read his book then sat around and listened to tapes of squeaks, rattles, honks and the moans of mating whales. A quest for the cool soul of Cosmic Message.

Then Carlos Castaneda came along with his book and we were trooping to the desert looking for spiritual meaning in the smoke of peyote. Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan was out there somewhere behind the yucca trees.

Castaneda made a fortune then faded. Yaqui go home.

Now it’s Jose Arguelles’ book “The Mayan Factor.” New Age visions. Solar resonance. Galactic energy. Planetary alignment. Everybody hum. Everybody boogie. Everybody get down.

Well, all right.

What’s the harm? They held hands in Calabasas. They hummed in Topanga.

One man journeyed to the canyon from Santa Monica with two ex-wives and a girlfriend.

“During meditation,” he said, “I visualized myself as a love grid connecting with other love grids.”

Topanga is probably the only place in L.A. where you can connect love grids and not be arrested. At sunset, they beat drums and banged spoons.

In Thousand Oaks, a hundred faithful ommmmm- ed together in a parking lot behind the New Age Center.

“I had my energy balanced,” one lady said happily.

Women with dreamy expressions and men with close-set eyes agreed. When it was over, they boarded their saucers and left. I didn’t actually see that. It came to me in a dream.

Then there’s the widow of Sid the Squid.

Her real name is Barbara Fabricant. Sidney, her third husband, was a colorful race-track tout they called the Squid. When he died a few years ago, they sprinkled shredded racing forms on his grave.

Barbara observed the convergence and the Krishna birthday with a party in her Canoga Park home.

She invited Hindu monks, swamis, astrologers, psychics and the entire Ventura chapter of the Hell’s Angels. Only one Hell’s Angel showed.

The widow of Sid the Squid was furious.

“Look on the bright side,” I said. “You still had the swamis, the monks, the astrologers and the psychics.”

“Hell,” she said unhappily, “they come by every weekend.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...