Al Hinkle (April 9, 1926 – December 26, 2018) was a childhood friend of
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generat ...
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Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
He was prominently featured as himself in the "scroll" (first d ...
who was the inspiration for the character of Ed Dunkel in
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian anc ...
’s ''
On the Road''. In December 1948 Hinkle contributed $100 to the down payment on the 1949 Hudson automobile that Cassady drove across the United States, the journey memorialized in Kerouac’s novel. He was also the real life inspiration for characters in two other Kerouac books: Slim Buckle in ''
Visions of Cody
''Visions of Cody'' is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac. It was written in 1951–1952, and though not published in its entirety until 1972, it had by then achieved an underground reputation. Since its first printing, ''Visions of Cody'' has ...
'' and Ed Buckle in ''
Book of Dreams
''Book of Dreams'' is the tenth studio album by Steve Miller Band. The album was released in May 1977 on Capitol Records in the United States, Canada and Japan and by Mercury Records in Europe. Three singles were released from the album in 1977 ...
''.
Hinkle is credited with convincing Cassady to move from Denver to the San Francisco Bay Area to work on the Southern Pacific railroad. Kerouac followed, and briefly worked as a brakeman. Poet
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...
, another Hinkle friend, also came out from New York. The independent thinkers formed the nucleus of what became known as the Beat Generation, a precursor of the San Francisco-centered
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...
movement in the 1960s.
Hinkle never sought fame or fortune from his association with famous friends and lived in relative obscurity until the weekly ''
Metro Silicon Valley
''Metro'' is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California, based Metro Newspapers. Also known as ''Metro Silicon Valley'', as well as ''Metroactive'' online, the paper serves the greater Silicon Valley area. In addition to prin ...
'' placed him and his wife Helen on its cover in 1992.
In 2012, Hinkle published a small book of recollections based on an interview with Stephen D. Edington entitled “Last Man Standing.”
"I love having lived my life with liberty and freedom. I guess Jack was right; here I am today, 85 years old, the 'last man standing' as they call me, only with my own Facebook page instead of a bench outside the Silver Dollar, telling my tales to a whole new generation of 'youngsters' from all around the world who understand and respect what the Beats stood for. I am honored to be a part of it all," Hinkle said.
Death
Hinkle outlived his better-known Beat contemporaries and died of heart failure at the age of 92 in a Los Gatos, California hospital.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hinkle, Al
1926 births
2018 deaths
Beat Generation people
San Francisco State University alumni
Stanford University alumni