The Kids Are Not Alright

Although my town of Wayward wasn't too far from New York City, throughout most of the 60s it looked like many main streets in small towns across the country. After dances, or on Friday nights in general, numerous groups of kids hung out on the main street, either in the soda shops or at the pizzeria, or milled up and down the street or maybe cruised with older kids who had cars. Many of these cars were GTOs, Camaros---suped-up vehicles that were loud and sometimes raised way up with big tires that screeched when the driver "peeled rubber." It was all very typical, but by late 60s things had begun to change, and by 1970, when the scene I'm about to describe took place, things had definitely changed.

Suddenly there were a lot more VW buses, MGs and motorcycles and less, if any, candy-striped or chrome engine fast cars. Tough guy or clean cut looks had been replaced by long hair, beards, Fu-Manchu mustaches, bell bottom jeans, beads and peace medals, denim or fleece jackets and tie-dyed shirts. Clusters of kids hung out in each others VW buses, and in this scene, April 30, 1970, radios were turned on and the voice of Richard M. Nixon was coming across loud and clear, also for the benefit of kids standing on the sidewalk or in store entrance ways. In his speech on the Vietnam War, Nixon announced that he would immediately begin bombing Cambodia as a way to "bring peace" and soon end the conflict in Vietnam. Although the number of troops committed had been decreasing, Nixon's message sounded more like an escalation and moreover an indiscriminate bombing of civilians, of innocent people. Few of my generation back then were buying into the Cold War Red Menace, or The Domino Theory, that seemed to have had our parents, the generation of World War II, firm in its paranoid grip.

Before Nixon's speech had even ended, many kids on the street began to protest, to riot, to shout and raise hell, to curse and inveigh against this ridiculous president and the sanctity of our nation right there on the main street of our heretofore staid little town.  There had been this incredible surge of energy and collective spirit, and a sense of solidarity among large numbers of kids that only a few years before had been divided along lines of group, class or academic identity---greasers versus jocks, academic preppies versus arty types and musicians---all these false boundaries had more or less dissolved in the wake of the Woodstock Nation. We had idealism and purpose, we had drugs and the Village Voice and the Filmore and so much great music. And we were all still in high school or a little older and basically mimicking the behavior of our slightly older brothers and sisters in college where anti-war protests had been going on for years now. But in 1970 the anti-war movement was reaching its peak and spreading out beyond college campuses and right into the comfortable homes of middle America. And everyone now was draft-eligible. Any philosophical division among us was more about whether political engagement was necessary or not. A smaller percentage of kids who were also opposed to the war did not choose to protest. They were more passive, with a more spiritual worldview and had decided to stay non-engaged, which caused an argument or two.


Naturally, as we grew larger in number and became more noisy and unruly that night, as we took to making soapbox speeches and railing against our government, the police inevitably showed up. Cops at that time were all white males, some of them ex-marines and green berets, and they didn't like or understand what they were seeing on the streets of America. They had understood tough kids with Marlboro packs rolled up in their shirt sleeves who liked to drag race cars, because they had been those kids too before the military and police academy, but they did not understand what was going on now, they had no context for it, it was something foreign and communist and evil. At first, although visibly angry, the cops shook their heads and watched us with pity.  Then we began shouting back and forth at each other as they tried to disburse the crowd. To aggravate the situation even further, the cops searched some kids for drugs as a way of getting us to move on. There wasn't a great deal of talk about politics, but mutual antipathy was very much in the air. After a period of resisting the cops' orders, we slowly dispersed. Our outbreak had little to do with police anyway.

The following night I tripped for the first time in the West Village (psilocybin). While that experience was memorable for other reasons I won't go into here --- and belongs in a later post --- the experience I mentioned on April 30, 1970, is somehow more deeply ingrained in my memory, because I had never seen or felt anything like this before while growing up, and I never saw anything like it again in my hometown. There were demonstrations everywhere that weekend including a massive one in New York. But it was a peak period of consciousness raising in the American suburbs too. I think it was the fact that we were even listening to the speech while hanging out and then the spontaneous outburst that most resonates with me.

The anti-war movement was coming to a head in tragic ways. Four days later was the Kent State Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_state_shootings  and the nation witnessed a horror it didn't believe was possible. You had to be around over those several crazy days to feel like everything was unraveling and nothing would ever quite be the same again.

Like I said, I will never forget it....

Dog Catcher

The dog catcher lived only a few blocks away from my house. He lived with his son, who was about my age, in a small rundown house filled with cats and dogs, and there were kennels in the yards and the whole scene was squalid and noisy. The dog catcher drove a questionably official vehicle, a van for transporting stray animals, and the van was littered with carbon papers, forms and an assortment of trash. Large, corpulent, with a walrus-like gray mustache, the dog catcher supposedly drank a lot, and spoke with a cockney (Yorkshire) English accent, and was divorced or separated and trying to raise his only son. The son was too intelligent and academically gifted for that sort of environment, and would hopefully be able to attend a high-ranked college on an academic scholarship and be lucky enough to move far away from the life he'd been unfairly dealt.

I began wondering if there is such a "trade" as a "dog catcher" anymore. I didn't think so. As mentioned in the following Wikipedia post, there are now "Animal Control Officers" and their role is slightly different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_control_officer

The role of the Animal Control Officer has changed over the past few decades. Gone are the days of the big bad "dog catcher". Today's animal control officers focuses more on educating the public on proper animal care, and rescuing animals from dangerous or abusive situations. They also pick up dead or injured wildlife and stray animals for disposal or treatment. The position can either be held through the jurisdiction's police department, or contracted to the local shelter (usually the humane society or SPCA)

I recall there were more strays during the period of time when the dog catcher was in demand, and there was more fear of a public health hazard, particularly from rabid dogs who might attack. I'm sure with the proliferation of dogs and cats and other pets in our day, the Animal Control Office is likely more busy than before but with different challenges.

I think the old dog catcher near me had died early, but I'm not sure. I hope his son became successful and moved on.

Is There a Doctor at Home?

A Friday night in autumn about half a century ago. I was seven. I had finished eating dinner and was watching the small black-and-white TV. The TV sat on a hard wooden table. I had gone to the bathroom which was at the end of the hall, and at the other end of the hall was the den with the TV. Leaving the bathroom, I broke into a run with the intention of sliding before I reached the TV set, a 7-year-old's attempt at sliding into home plate. But I miscalculated, must have run too fast, and instead of sliding I slipped and fell, and split my chin open on the sharp corner of the TV table.

My mother was the only parent home. My father was working 2nd shift at the paper mill. I was bleeding quite a lot and stanching the flow of blood with a rag or towel. My mother made a quick decision (even though she'd called my father at work). She decided she would try a few doctors in town and only take me to the ER as a last resort. Mom didn't want me to wait a long time at the ER for one thing, but she also wanted to shield me from whatever horrible sights a 7-year-old might see in an ER on a Friday night. To begin the quest for a doctor who would stitch up my chin, my mother enlisted the aid of a neighbor whose husband was also working 2nd shift at the local defense plant. It was about 7:00 PM.

Think of it:  Three or four of the general practice physicians (family doctors) we were about to call on with an "emergency" a "seriously injured little boy" were all at home, which also happened to be their offices. This was before the days of group practice, or professional care groups who resided in glass medical office buildings, who have limited visiting hours and use pagers (probably cellphones by now) and answering services off hours. Family doctors back then lived in and were active members of the community --- you said Hi to them in the grocery store; one of them sang in the choir where I attended church; their kids were classmates. My father had a fishing boat, and years later I'd even gone deep sea fishing with our family doctor....


.... who wasn't available that evening.... I think we'd called and no one had answered but my mother just wanted to make sure Doc wasn't home.....

.... as it turned out, the second doctor we tried was home, but he turned off all the lights as we approached. Naturally, the office lights were already turned off, but he even shut off some lights in his dining room and other rooms. After a barrage of doorbell ringing and knocking, the doctor finally opened an upstairs window and stuck his head out. He said he couldn't help us, but made a reference to another doctor who maybe could help, and also the hospital emergency room. My mother and the neighbor were furious. They gossiped that this particular doctor was known to have a problem with the bottle. That must be the reason why he wouldn't treat me. Meanwhile I lay bleeding in the backseat, wondering when the ordeal would be over.

The third doctor wasn't answering either. Yes, it did seem a little bit demanding and unrealistic to expect help, even 50 years ago when we were supposedly more inclined to altruism than we are today. However, I remember our family doctor making house calls for fevers and measles and pink eye and other childhood maladies.

So en-route to the ER, we passed one more doctor's office who wasn't on the list. By now my mother and the neighbor (who had kids my age, friends) had squandered somewhere between a half hour to an hour driving around in a futile search for a healer, and this doctor, whom they hadn't heard of, reluctantly agreed to treat me. I imagine that the specter of a lawsuit and malpractice insurance haunted GPs even then, and was most likely the reason no one would see me after hours except in a hospital. This doctor took a small chance, I didn't have a major injury, so I don't think he was overly concerned about anything going wrong and he was good enough to look at me. He used steri-strips to close up the gash in my chin, and this made more sense --- sutures would have left a bigger scar, the cut was mostly on bone so it would likely heal without sutures.....

..... Unlike the scar on my stomach that has 16 stitches, which I've had since the age of 2, the result of surgically removing a ring I had accidentally swallowed and could not pass. Luckily, that surgery was done in a hospital.

What a Long Strange Trip....

As mentioned, I toured the United States and Canada for 6 - 7 weeks in the summer of 1971. In a 1956 Plymouth Savoy.

 
To quickly write down our itinerary, it had gone something like this:


-- North Jersey north to NY Lake Ontario
-- NY into Canada then Algonquin Park in Canada followed by a personal visit on a lake
-- West Across Canada from Ontario to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, stays in Manitoba, Alberta
-- Some days in British Columbia
-- South into United States, coast of Washington State, south through Washington and Oregon coasts, then northern California Coast
-- East into central northern California
-- South to Berkeley and San Francisco
-- South and east across desert, stayed in California desert
-- East and North through Arizona desert to Grand Canyon, stay in Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde
-- North into southwest Colorado, stay in southwest Colorado


-- North to Denver, stay outside of Denver/Boulder


-- East to NYC/NJ brief stays in Illinois and Ohio.

There were many strange and wonderful things that happened on this trip for a 19-year-old, and of course it was a great and memorable time.


After eastern Canada we decided to separate from the three ladies we'd been traveling with because they didn't want to camp, and the guys couldn't afford motels every night and we wanted to camp anyway, and there was some but little sexual interest with some members of the caravan, but certainly not enough to derail our plans. The guys didn't want to travel to Hollywood and see movie stars homes. It was an amicable parting.


In Canada we watched "Easy Rider" at a local barn (had seen it several times already). We were the only long-hairs and the locals (in the spirit of the movie's finale) began pelting us with food and soda cans and ran us out of town.


Also in Canada (which was a bit culturally behind US at this point especially in rural areas), we were turned away from a campground in British Columbia because of our long hair and beards.


Hung out in Berkeley, hung out in Big Sur, Monterey, Redwoods the entire Route 1 Pacific Coast Highway to about San Luis-Obispo where we cut off and went through Needles and spent a day and night in the desert.


I remember seeing my first Navajo dances in Mesa Verde Colorado. It was amazing and inspiring. I remember a group of young Navajo men at a souvenir/gas station laughing hysterically over our Siberian husky's name ("Benny").

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://theurbanian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/beard_jim_morrison-431x300.jpg&imgrefurl=http://theurbanian.com/tag/jim-morrison/&usg=__2CxxC2iMGuVmxP6PIOnKNRFilRQ=&h=300&w=431&sz=33&hl=en&start=39&sig2=P48cZhEPzSCydL5pdexv8A&zoom=1&tbnid=wfb57Y6_LzWYkM:&tbnh=144&tbnw=192&ei=RQi6TJP-N4bGlQeiqqiSDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djim%2Bmorrison%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D923%26bih%3D481%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1465&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=338&vpy=187&dur=3235&hovh=187&hovw=269&tx=120&ty=215&oei=3Ae6TO4Og7SVB5WIqLQK&esq=6&page=5&ndsp=9&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:39&biw=923&bih=481



While camping on the beach in Washington State, my friends and I first got news about the death of Jim Morrison in Paris. We hadn't even seen a paper or especially looked at a TV in many days, weeks even. Seemed very cut off from what was happening in "The World"

But one of the most significant memories and events of this 7-week two-way trans-continental trek was the day of the drawing for the Selective Service Draft Lottery. The date was early August, maybe around the 8th or 9th, and my friends and I were swimming in north central California, in one of those gorges where you can leap off a 30-foot-high stone ledge and land in deep icy water, and then bake a while in the California sun, and then swim again. However, at some point during the afternoon, someone remembered that the draft lottery had been drawn, and we left off swimming and drove to the nearest food market, bought a newspaper, and proceeded to spread the paper out to the page with numbers and birth dates right on the sidewalk next to the food market, oblivious to its patrons who were slightly vexed at the sight of four loitering hippies. Of the four of us, my number was the lowest -- 109. Selective Service had drafted up to 120 the previous year. I felt sick to my stomach. 

Only half of us who traveled in that '56 Plymouth Savoy are still alive. James owned the Savoy. I maintained contact with him throughout our 20s when we both lived out West, even sharing a trailer with him in the Colorado foothills for a week or two, and also Jackson-Hole Wyoming, and hanging out together in Portland Oregon in the late 70s. James had a long-running problem with substance addiction and was found on a New York City subway dead of a heroin overdose. He was 46 years old . . .  Tim had spent most of his adult life drinking himself to death and died in his early 50s. I maintained a lifelong friendship with Colin, except for a hiatus of about a decade. Four years after this journey we hitch-hiked across country and later picked apples in Hood River and Washington State for a month-and-a-half. Back East, during the 19080s, we worked on a film and some writing projects together, were married in the same year to much younger women, and our 2 oldest sons were born one week apart. We spent a few summers in Maine (two with families) and a couple Thanksgiving weekends with our families in Upstate New York building bonfires and pressing apple cider. Colin and I have since both divorced and our oldest sons are now 23 and all our kids are doing well. He mostly lives in California.

Cold War Kid

A Saturday afternoon in 1959.  I was lying on the grass in my backyard, looking up at a deep blue sky and nearly static bunches of white clouds. The air was slightly cool --- May or possibly late September. But something felt different on this Saturday. The streets seemed fairly empty.

The siren at the fire station went off. Normally you would only hear the siren at noon each Saturday, and it made one drawn out blast of sound. But that had already occurred, it was past noon, around 1:00, and the siren made a short series of blasts. My mother stepped out onto the back porch and hollered for me to come in the house right away. I then noticed there was no one around -- no pedestrians or kids playing in the street . . . no cars.

This must have been the town air raid drill I had overheard my parents talking about earlier at breakfast. It was strange to me. We had air-raid drills in school, in which, unlike fire drills, we remained in the building. Usually we were instructed to crawl under our desks. Later, Civil Defense developed a new drill. The students filed out of the classroom and into the hallway. There we stood against the institutional-green tile wall, raised one arm and crooked it over our heads as a shield. I guess that was supposed to work when a bomb capable of ending life on the planet was dropped some 8 miles away in Manhattan.

In the early 1980s there was a resurgence of Cold War doom and paranoia which had been on the wane throughout the '70s, especially following the end of the Vietnam War. With the new threat of mutually assured destruction looming in the early Reagan years (taking a cue from "Star Wars" which was also a defense program named SDI, he [Reagan] had called the Soviet Union the Evil Empire), many of these earlier civil defense drills re-emerged and were lampooned in the film, "Atomic Cafe" with its "duck and cover" public service messages.

Some friends parents fancied their basements as sensible alternatives to building a bomb shelter, and they stocked shelves with canned provisions. Imagine surviving radiation fallout with a daily diet of baked beans, spam and fruit cocktail, a stack of Life magazines, and a ping-pong marathon.

A lingering image of the era is Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the UN pounding the table with his shoe.

On some of the old model cars from the '50s the radio tuner had a tiny red civil defense symbol at one of the frequencies. In the event of Communist Soviet attack, you were supposed to immediately set the radio tuner to this frequency and await further instructions. The idea was similar to the FCC's periodic, one-minute emergency broadcast system test that radio stations were required to run --- a piercing electronic whistle that clearly wasn't in the Top Ten.

As it turned out, in the summer of 1971 I toured Canada and the US for six to seven weeks in one of these Eisenhower era models: A 1956 Plymouth Savoy. Of course that seems like such an ancient model these days, and was even considered old in 1971, but really the car was only 15 years older back then and in decent shape. I took this road-and-camping journey with 3 other guys my age and a Siberian husky (originally there was a second  vehicle with 3 women, but we diverged after cultural and philosophical differences). And that will be for a later post.