There are many ways one could have met Chris Knowles. If you grew up going to the Bolinas-Stinson School in the mid to late 1970s, he may have been your bus driver. If you passed through the once-bustling Stinson Beach Chevron station, he may have given you a tune-up. If you ever overcorrected along the portion of Shoreline Highway that hugs the Bolinas Lagoon and found yourself in muddy waters, Chris may have hoisted your car out of the silt—but not before congratulating you on becoming the newest member of the “Lagoon Club.”
On Dec. 8, Chris died from complications that stemmed from diabetes. He was 73 years old.
Chris was born in Charlotte, N.C., but grew up in Raleigh, where his father, A. Sidney Knowles, was an English teacher at North Carolina State University. Chris was the eldest of three siblings and the protector growing up, said his brother, Pete. The three spent their childhood exploring the brook across the street from their house, careful not to get trapped in the quicksand their father said lay at the foot of the stream. Chris, who was six years older than his siblings, developed his own group of friends, but the three would reunite at a nearby vacant lot for games and other antics.
As a child, Chris was a champion ping pong player and intuitive fisherman, and he had a passion for tinkering and taking up hobbies—always self-taught. Although fireworks were illegal in North Carolina, its southern sister had M-80s in abundance and Chris was the gateway for local kids to get them. He soon paired his firecrackers with his fishing hobby.
“Chris was the first kid in the neighborhood to realize you could get a whole bunch of fishing bait by throwing firecrackers in water,” Pete said. “It lasted until the cops and parents found out. We both got a stern talking to—it seemed like the end of the world at the time.”
As a teenager, Chris was drawn to countercultural scenes in Raleigh’s blues-tinged landscape. His father loved jazz and big band and encouraged his kids to explore new genres. As Chris grew older, the family music collection morphed from the Dorsey brothers to B.B. King and The Who’s “Live at Leeds,” a record that he and his brother bonded over.
His musical discoveries inspired Chris to ditch his acoustic guitar for a Gibson Les Paul Standard with a cherry sunburst finish. Chris spent his days in a basement room learning licks and filling the house with music of the new age. His family was not always at ease with his long hair and blue jeans, but when his sister, Maggie, returned after her freshman year of college, Pete recalls her dressing in the same style she once criticized her brother for.
Chris learned from mechanics at a gas station in the early ’70s, then attended college for a few years before returning to Raleigh to work at a gas station. It was there he met Anne Watts, a daughter of Alan Watts. A year later, in 1974, Chris, Anne and Anne’s children moved to Bolinas, where Anne’s sister was living. They lived in town for several years before they split up and Anne moved her family to San Francisco.
When the late Gene Abbott bought the Chevron station in Stinson Beach from Dick Fischer in 1979, he stripped it of its strict uniform rule. The motley crew of mechanics turned the station into a hub, playing chess, pumping gas and turning wrench. Chris worked with Mr. Abbott, Buck Meyer, Ron Sweet, Michael Rafferty and Steve Matson to create what Bolinas resident Aggie Murch called a “jagged foothold” for youth in Stinson Beach.
“No one ever said a bad thing about Chris,” Buck added. “He was a hard worker and a good guy.”
Chris was a mentor to youngsters who would work at the station during their high school and college years. To people like Chris Monson and Alex Horvath, he was intimidating at first, with his large beard and stature, but his jovial attitude and mechanical skill won them over.
“He had a wicked sense of humor,” Alex said. “He was always making jokes and if the rare occasion came where he disagreed with what you’d done, he’d give you this look upward from under his glasses. I think anyone who knows Chris can envision that look.”
Mr. Monson recalls the first time he met Chris. It was a rainy night in 1984 and he was driving his mother’s brand-new Chevrolet Cavalier back home from a Tamalpais Chiefs high school basketball game. A deer jumped in front of him and the car skidded across the road and landed in the lagoon.
“I was terrified. I was sure my parents would kill me,” Mr. Monson said. “Chris showed up before my folks did and eased my nerves, telling me everything would be okay and congratulating me on joining the club.”
Years later, Chris would teach Mr. Monson how to pull cars out of the lagoon while the two worked at the Chevron station together. After the station closed, Chris and many of his co-workers moved to the gas station in Bolinas.
Chris was also a skilled fisherman with a commercial license. One morning, Mr. Monson was out on the foggy Pacific coastline on a dinghy with his friend Walter Murch when he saw Chris waving the boys down from his boat. Trailing from Chris’s line was a large sturgeon—a fish his license did not permit.
“He picked up that sturgeon with his great big hands and no gloves,” Mr. Monson said. “I remember his hands were all bloody from the scales. That fish fed a whole crew that night.”
Chris fished throughout the ’90s and into the early aughts. One day he was out by the Farallones when his boat capsized. He sat atop the upside-down hull until he was rescued, and after that, he didn’t fish nearly as much.
Many of his friends were surprised when Chris started working at the Bolinas post office, not marking him as a government man. In 2005, he moved to the Marshall post office, where he eventually assumed the role of postmaster. When the United States Postal Service threatened to cut rural post office hours, Chris was a staunch opponent, advocating in the Light against such a decision. But in 2015, hours were cut.
Chris continued to work as the postmaster in Marshall until 2018, when he retired. By then, he had been dealing with diabetes for nearly a decade. Traveling back to Raleigh after his father’s death that year had been a struggle—though it was one he didn’t like to talk about. Chris kept his personal life to himself, said his friend, Marcus Temple, with whom he shared a wall at his cabin on Brighton Avenue.
“He was a peaceful being, a buddha, almost,” Marcus said. “A very respectful neighbor, and my family would be loud, but he loved the sound because he said it reminded him of joy and love.”
This article was amended on Dec. 28 to reflect Chris’s correct birthplace.