The News & Record in Greensboro links to a story we didn’t see coming. Greensboro businessman Peter Reichard, identified by the State Board of Elections (PDF) as one of the probable fathers of the “aircraft provider” program for Bev Perdue’s 2008 gubernatorial campaign, has an interesting father of his own: Ram Dass, a “spiritual leader” of the Summer of Love generation.
Dass, who was fired from Harvard (along with Timothy Leary) for experimenting with LSD, learned from Reichard’s mother that he had a son. A DNA test confirmed it.
So Reichard, a banker, former president of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, and big-time fundraiser for Perdue, Mike Easley, and Erskine Bowles, is the son of one of the original hippies.
Makes the whole aircraft provider scheme (and the unusual “gifts to the state” it generated) sound almost commonplace by comparison.
