This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

from the arts to sports and from business to history, and everything in between,

including your stories. Send them to Our American Stories.com.

They're some of our favorites.

And this next story comes to us while Greg Hengler brings it to us,

and actually the person providing this story is a listener in Colorado.

Charles Tex Watson was just a young guy from Texas in 1969

when he came under the spell of drugs in Charles Manson and helped kill seven people.

Watson attended Cal State Los Angeles but dropped out

less than half a semester later, got a job selling wigs and began living it up in the party

scene of Los Angeles. One fateful evening, he was driving home and picked up a hitchhiker.

In Watson's words, hitchhikers were pretty common on Sunset Boulevard,

and I pulled over to pick one up.

When he told me his name was Dennis Wilson,

it didn't mean anything to me,

but when he said he was one of the Beach Boys,

I was impressed.

Wilson, the Beach Boys drummer,

then directed Watson to his home on Sunset Boulevard

in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. Watson was shocked when he pulled up. In the living

room, Watson found a man sitting on the floor with his guitar, surrounded by six young women.

...