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JOSHUA TREE MAN PUBLISHES BOOK ABOUT FINDING HOME, LOVE

David Haldane
David Haldane

Like many baby boomers, David Haldane of Joshua Tree got swept up into the turbulence of the late 1960s and ’70s, first as a radical activist and then as a newspaper reporter. After living in Europe and Mexico, he settled down in southern California. Following a painful divorce, he longed for a place he could call home. Managing editor Tami Roleff says in his book, “Nazis and Nudists,” Haldane tells the poignant and sometimes humorous story of his spiritual quest to find love and a place to call home…
“Nazis and Nudists” begins with David Haldane and his new wife, Ivy, on their way to an island in the Philippines to look at property to buy. “So we got out in the middle of the ocean and realize that A) we’re out of gas because all the gas has leaked out of the tank, and B) there’s a hole in the bow of the boat and we’re sinking. Which of course, completely freaked me out. I’m waving my red sweater and everything and the Filipinos in the boat—including my wife—kind of looked at me and said, ‘What’s the big deal? Calm down, David.’”
From there, Haldane flashes back to his youth and a time of radical politics, drugs, and lots of nudity. “I became very political, radically political, until it scared the pants off me because it was getting dangerous and serious.”
Haldane explains the title of his book. After his brush with radical politics, he exiled himself to Europe where he became very good friends with a German, whom he learned, much to his horror, was the son of a Nazi. But Haldane, whose mother survived the Holocaust, says that discovery led to a turning point in his life. “I had this incredible epiphany. Even somebody who we think of as evil—like a Nazi—has children who love him.” From Germany, he went to Greece. “Basically, I took off my clothes at the beginning and didn’t put them on until three months later. So nudism represents the libertine lifestyle that was so rampant in those days.”
Haldane found love online in the Philippines, and he writes about his courtship of Ivy, and how he found peace after a life in Orange County, and writing for the Los Angeles Times, before finally ending up just this year in Joshua Tree. “Really, the book is about finding a place to call home.”
“Nazis and Nudists” can be found at Amazon.com and other online bookstores.

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