A circuitous path of circumstances led Netzer to the Valley. When his time with the Quinalt was up, he and his wife Helen purchased a Chinese junk with plans to sail it around the world, administering medicine to the needy in different ports. Undeterred by the boat's lack of compass or radio, they set out from Seattle and made it to Coos Bay, Oregon where the rudder broke for the second time and they were towed into the harbor by the coast guard. Their boat now useless, the couple detoured to Santa Barbara in an old Volkswagen van. In Santa Barbara Lou called Dr. Bill Van Valin, the head of AMDOC, an organization connected with Direct Relief International that placed doctors in different parts of the world and told him of his plight. Van Valin invited him to the Valley, "and I fell in love with it right away," says Netzer. "I was asked to practice there. They were desperate for doctors, back then."

The Netzers settled in the Valley and Lou began to practice at Santa Ynez Valley Medical Clinic with Drs. Van Valin, Barranco and Pedersen. He loved the area but within a year he and Helen, who was by now pregnant, left the Valley for Borneo where he worked as doctor to the natives at an outpost in a remote village. Lou delivered his daughter Dine, in the jungle there in 1970. "It was a crazy idea, but so was everything else I was doing" Netzer admits, "and a very difficult delivery."

The new family returned to the Valley in 1971 and once again, Netzer joined Van Valin in practice at Valley Medical Clinic. After three years, he took a six month leave to work in Mexico, and when he returned, the Mellow Mobile Medical Clinic was born. Netzer and his nurse, Flo Hamilton, outfitted a Landrover with medicine, and made housecalls. "I remember when Louis treated someone who didn't have a lot of money," says Hamilton. "The family offered chickens as barter and he accepted them gladly."

After Netzer met Randy Hermann, a young doctor new to the Valley, they formed The Mellow Country Clinic, setting up shop in a cottage near Mattei's Tavern later that year. The Mellow Country Clinic was known for its friendly, informal atmosphere. Netzer and Hermann brought in antique rolltop desks, old Shaker pieces, and a wooden hutch that served as a supply cabinet. His procedure table, circa 1919, required brake fluid and had to be pumped up like a barber's chair. "I don't understand why doctors are willing to practice in such sterile facilities," says Netzer, who favored big windows, overstuffed chairs, and natural light.

Netzer's people-oriented doctoring style brought the Valley back to the days of the caring, country doctor who was more concerned with the patient's health than the patient's insurance policy. Hermann and Netzer didn't look like traditional country doctors; they were among the few males in the Valley who wore their hair long in the early 70's. "People called Lou 'the hippie doctor,' recalls his nurse, Flo Hamilton, "but they got used to him and learned to love him."

Delivering babies became one of Netzer's specialties. In addition to his daughter, and his son Michael, who was born at home in 1977, he is responsible for bringing many Valley children into the world. "He had a special way of indoctrinating the entire family into the birth process," Hamilton remembers. "He'd hold sessions at night at the clinic for couples who were due, so they'd know what to expect."

Kate Firestone recalls Netzer's assistance with the birth of her fourth child, Andrew. She introduced Netzer to the gentle Le Boyer childbirth method, in which the infant is immediately immersed in warm water intended to replicate the womb, to a backdrop of soft lights and music. The birth went without a hitch, until the newest Firestone was placed into a bowl of cold water by mistake. "That," says Firestone, "was a bit of a shock."

Netzer also had a special affinity for the aged. He became the Medical Director for the Solvang Lutheran Home in his later years in the Valley. Out of his office he started the Pacific Institute for Medical Ethics and gave seminars on medical topics and on subjects like durable powers of attorney and death and dying.

Doctoring was just one of Netzer's contributions to the community. He and Helen helped to found the Family School in 1974, when his daughter Dine and Anna Janes were the only students, taught by Helena Janes in the Los Olivos Grange. In 1975, Netzer saw a need for a small senior citizen home, with personalized care and a lot of love. Friendship House, which began on the old Duff estate in lower Solvang, offered an alternative to the long waiting list at the Lutheran Home. When a Friendship House senior began to suffer from Alzheimer's, Netzer realized the need for yet another senior care facility, and the Alzheimer Residence was born. "The Valley has always been a generous place for fundraising," says Netzer, who raised one and a half million dollars to break ground for the new facility.

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Netzer and Hermann sold the Mellow Country Clinic to three doctors-Alan Hersh, Bob Gottesman and Jim Jaworski, who in turn changed the name to Country Medical Clinic, later moving it to Solvang, where the same relaxed, welcoming atmosphere, and some of the original furniture, remains. The Netzers then moved to Ojai so that their daughter Dine could attend Thacher School, but Netzer continued doctoring in the Valley at the Santa Ynez Valley Hospital Emergency Room. Eventually, the Netzers returned to the Valley, as they always did, "because this is a precious place to return to and call home," he says. He then opened Glasgow House Healing Center in Los Olivos.

The Valley offered Netzer pastoral beauty, but he still sought the cultural stimulation of a bigger city. Raised in Washington, D.C., he describes himself as "a serious, religious child, a stutterer who buried myself in books." The avid young reader had a dream; inspired by Joseph Conrad's stories, he wanted to go to Borneo. And he was able to live that dream. "My problem isn't that I can't make my dreams come true," he reflects. "My problem is that I have so many dreams." One dream was to open a coffee house called The Sophisticated Soup Shack. Instead, Netzer opened Sidestreet Café.

Sidestreet evolved out of Netzer's Coffeehouse Forums, held in a banquet room at the Grand Hotel (now Fess Parker's Wine Country Inn). The forums were born out of Netzer's passion for democracy. "Democracy," says Netzer, "has gone astray; it's been prostituted by things like TV and computers, things that have wonderful potential but which have an adverse effect because you lose human contact." The forums provided a personal interaction, as well as an infusion of cultural stimuli. "Face to face contact is vital," says Netzer. "That's what the notion of the local gathering place is all about."

Los Olivos is off the beaten path, but people drove in from Santa Barbara to attend forums, "on topics like love and terrorism," says Netzer. "I was told that it would never work, but it was a huge success."

Eventually the forums outgrew their informal status. When Carl Sides's old hardware store became available, Sidestreet moved in and established itself as the Valley's most memorable hangout, publishing its own "Coffeehouse" magazine. Katherine Englert, who booked musical events for Sidestreet, calls Sidestreet "a café that could have been plucked out of the 1960's; everything about it was so warm and natural. People flocked there for coffee and exchanged stories, everyone was on a first name basis. Anne Bunch made wonderful dinners. And Lou was the charismatic figure who brought people together. He did everything, but he couldn't run the cash register. When he'd go near the register, we'd all say, 'Oh, no!'"

Anne Bunch invented her now-famous, award-winning Coconut Cake recipe for Sidestreet Cafe. She remembers how she pursued Netzer and asked him for a job. "He'd been buying pre-prepared food and I told him, 'give me a chance!' and he told me to talk to Anne Coates, who said 'sure!'" The Sidestreet menu was small at first and included three pasta salads, chicken enchildadas, and chicken pesole soup. The latter two are still on the menu at New Frontiers Deli, where Anne Bunch now cooks. "Those were wonderful years," Bunch reminisces. "Lou gave our kids their school physicals in the storage room, he had controversial art shows, like Greg Erickson's photos of the war in Croatia which offended some locals. I remember Lou loved to talk about life. He was always philosophizing."

Richard Sanford, of Sanford Winery, remembers the Sidestreet years. "Lou had no experience in the restaurant business, he went into it by the seat of his pants, which is the way he did everything, but it was a success because he has an innate ability to bring people together. In many ways, he's completely impractical but he follows his intuition, which never fails him. He recognized a need for human connection, and for more exposure to the arts and humanities. And through Sidestreet, he met those needs."

In 1996, after Netzer's marriage dissolved, he closed his practice in Glasgow House, sold Sidestreet to Karen Langley and took a journey to South America that resulted in a permanent move to Rurrenabaque, a jungle frontier town on the Rio Beni River in the foothills of the Andes. In the rain forest, amid monkeys and macaws, Netzer set up an outpost clinic, floating down river for days at a time to meet the medical needs of the remote Indian villages. Assisted by the Rotary Club and Direct Relief, his experimental medical project blossomed over the past five years. But the future of Netzer's project became suddenly uncertain; on his last annual visit home, he was diagnosed with liver cancer.

"I thought I had a tropical disease," he explains, "but I have terminal cancer instead. So much of my life has been based on physicality, that I have to re-arrange who I am. But I feel okay. I don't have a great fear of dying, although I have a certain sadness about not being around to do some of the things I wanted to do and see my children and grandchildren grow older. But my hope is that up to the end, I can look on this with an element of curiosity about what's on the other side."

There is a poignant irony to the terminal illness of the ultimate humanitarian, but Netzer doesn't think of himself as a humanitarian. "I don't think anything I've done comes from humanitarian-ness. I just have a desire for adventure. I don't consider myself someone who's out to save the world. And I used to think I was immortal, but I guess none of us gets out of here alive. Death is the last, ultimate adventure, and I hope I can pull it off with dignity."

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