The Fruit Salad Story - Bunty Bernstein and Meher Baba's Visit to Meher Mount
Bunty Kelley Bernstein
Bunty Kelley Bernstein was one of the dancers trained by ballet professional and instructor Margaret Craske, a close disciple (mandali) of Avatar Meher Baba.
The following is about her time in 1956 when Meher Baba visited Meher Mount during His three-day trip to Southern California. He stayed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and went to Meher Mount on August 2, 1956.
AVATAR MEHER BABA is flanked by Tex Hightower (who also visited Meher Mount in 1956) on the top left and Peter Saul (right). Margaret Craske is center with Bunty Bernstein (left) and Marie Adair (right). This photo was taken after dancing for Meher Baba in San Francisco in 1956 - just after His visit to Meher Mount. (Photo: Glow International.)
By Bunty Kelley Bernstein
The “Fruit Salad Story” is very typical of how one is somehow always getting outsmarted when dealing with Baba.
We were still in Los Angeles, and it was planned for us all to go up to Meher Mount, which Baba had never seen and which was run by Agnes Baron. Meher Mount is in the Ojai Valley, situated on top of Sulphur Mountain.
We left very early in the morning. I have never driven that fast either before or since. I was going 80 mph all the way except up the mountain that is rather tricky and quite scary, although a beautiful drive.
We arrived well before Baba was due to get there, and Agnes Baron was surprised, but also pleased because she had a lot of food to prepare for everybody.
She said we could all make fruit salad. We could hardly object, and in fact it seemed a good idea in the hope that Baba would eat the fruit salad we had made.
Stuck in the Kitchen When Meher Baba Arrives
About an hour later there we were, stuck in the kitchen cutting up mountains of fruit, when Baba’s car arrived and Agnes went rushing out to greet him.
He immediately went into the house, called “Baba’s House” and was not seen again until everyone else had arrived.
However, we are all with Baba after lunch when in silence one of the men’s stomach gurgled. Baba laughed heartily, and said it was too much fruit salad!
BUNTY BERNSTEIN at 12-years-old. Later in her life, she worked in Hollywood. "I used to go up to Meher Mount, Agnes Baron's place whenever I could, and nearly always for Silence Day," she wrote in Glow International, Winter 2014.
Source
“Dancing for Meher Baba,” by Bunty Kelley Bernstein, Glow International: A Journal Devoted to Meher Baba, Winter 2014, pp. 5-6. ©Beloved Archives, Inc. Excerpts reprinted with permission.