February, 1969

There were just a few months left before I graduated from High School. By this time I had learned how to forge my father's signature on notes to the school for "sick days." We knew that the school did not check with our parents for absences of only a day; so my friends and I often took days off from school to roam around Rochester or perhaps visit my older brother at his dorm. Below, I am 3rd from the left - along with many of my friends and classmates.



Wrestling season was thankfully winding down (sometime around that month I won the county wrestling championship in my weight class - still have the trophy for some reason) and I was looking forward to my last season on the golf team. After that Spring I rarely played golf for the remainder of the century. I was young and feeling pretty cocky. February may have been the month I drove up with Mindy and Brett to visit the state college in Potsdam, and I'd likely decided to enroll there for the Fall semester by then. I planned on becoming a history teacher.

Little did I know.....

In New York City, the "Lindsay Storm" on February 9-10 dumped unexpected amounts of snow across the Northeast, shutting roads and transportation, and causing a political firestorm for the city's high-profile mayor, John Lindsay, due to a slow response from city officials to clear the streets. The mayor's presidential ambitions were certainly another casualty of the storm.

1969 was truly a rocking year, with major festivals on the horizon. Songs topping the charts in February: Crimson and Clover by Tommy James & The Shondells, Everyday People, by Sly & The Family Stone, Touch Me by The Doors, Build Me Up Buttercup, by The Foundations. I was particularly fond of Sly Stone as well as The Doors.

James Taylor's first album, on Apple Records, is released in the U.S. Bob Dylan begins recording Nashville Skyline.

Judy Collins recording of Ian Tyson's Someday Soon makes the pop charts. This is one song I've listened to constantly for 40 years, on record, CD, and now I have it on my IPod.



Yasser Arafat is appointed head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The population of the United States officially reaches 200 million on February 5. As of this month in 2009, it stands at more than 305 million.

The Beatles enter Abbey Road Studios to begin work on their last album.

President Nixon orders the beginning of U.S. bombing of suspected North Vietnamese bases inside of Cambodia, a significant escalation of the war beyond Vietnam.

1,301 Americans die in Vietnam.

Episode 75 - "The Way to Eden" - of Star Trek airs on on February 21 (Star Date 5832.3).


Film actor Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) dies February 2 at the age of 82.

Actress Jennifer Aniston is born on February 11.

Issue 149 of Soviet Life is published, featuring stimulating articles comparing leisure time in the U.S. and USSR, happy students engaged in winter frolics (marxist-style), and retired sea dogs.




In a hotel room in Los Angeles on February 18/19, author Hunter Thompson, in the middle of a mescaline trip, writes:

.

Jesus, 6:45 now and the pill has taken hold real. The metal on the typewriter has turned from dull green to a sort of high-gloss blue, the keys sparkle, glitter with highlights…I sort of levitated to the chair, hovering in front of the typewriter, not sitting. Fantastic brightness on everything, polished and waxed with special lighting…and the physical end of the thing is like the first half-hour on acid, a sort of buzzing all over, a sense of being gripped by something, vibrating internally but with no outward sign or movement. I’m amazed that I can keep typing. I feel like both me and the typewriter have become weightless; it floats in front of me like a bright toy. Weird, I can still spell…but I had to think about that last one…”Weird.” Christ, I wonder how much worse this is going to get. It’s seven now, and I have to check out in an hour or so. If this is the beginning of an acid-style trip I might as well give up the idea of flying anywhere. Taking off in an airplane right now would be an unbearable experience, it would blow the top right off my head. The physical sensations of lifting off the ground would be unbearable I this condition; I feel like I could step off the balcony right now and float gently down to the sidewalk. Yes, and getting worse, a muscle in my thigh is seized by spasms, quivering like something disembodied…I can watch it, feel it, but not be connected. There is not much connection between my head and my body…but I can still type and very fast too, much faster than normal. Yes, the goddamn drug is definitely taking hold, very much like acid, as sense of very pleasant physical paralysis (wow, that spelling) while the brain copes with something never coped with before. The brain is doing all the work right now, adjusting to this new stimulus like an old soldier ambushed and panicked for the moment, getting a grip but not in command, hanging on, waiting for a break but expecting something worse…and yes, it’s coming on.

--Hunter S. Thompson, Screwjack. (Mescalito)


I was 17 years old that month, but about to turn 18 the next.