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 Tough guy or clean cut looks had been replaced by long hair, beards, Fu-Manchu mustaches, bell bottom jeans, beads and peace medals, denim or fleece jackets and tie-dyed shirts.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.