April, 1969

Spring in upstate New York was upon us that month, and the last snow, if any remained, usually would melt off in April. Soon the golf courses would be opening and I would be hitting the links as an integral part of the Wayne Central golf team. As a senior, I would be expected to contribute mightily to the team's efforts, though my game was very erratic and it remains so until this day.

Home matches were played at the Ontario Country Club. This was a private course built in 1928 by the Ontario Volunteer Firemen, or so at least the story was told to me. A few years ago, the times and the changing economy of the area forced the club to sell itself to private owners and the course is now public. In 1969 it was a strictly private club with strict rules of behavior, as we would be made aware of whenever we did not totally conform to them. But they did, at least, allow the golf team to play matches on its sacred ground.

I had first become interested in golf some years before. I don't remember how this came to be, but I believe that it had some root in watching Arnold Palmer on television. I was part of Arnie's Army - I loved the way he boldly strode down the fairway, hair slightly mussed, exuding confidence and a touch of nerve. He would toss his cigarette down, perform his unique swing, pick up his cigarette, and move on.

I convinced my parents to start dropping me off at the course on Saturdays and I would simply hang around, taking in the atmosphere. Ostensibly, I was there to caddy, and I did manage to get some loops from time to time. I caddied once for Mary Dwyer, who won the state amateur title two years in a row and later went on to a modest career on the LPGA Tour. Some of the guys in the Pro Shop I guess took a "shine" to me and at some point started showing me how to play. One Summer around that time, some weekly lessons were given for local kids (non-members). Eventually, I got to actually play on occasion. I was absolutely terrible at first, but I stuck with it and learned how the game was played and how to play a round without too much embarrassment.

Soon, both of my brothers followed my lead and took up the game. And then my parents - around that April in 1969, they joined the ranks of Ontario's upper crust and became members of the club. Avid members, I might add. They spent the next 20 years dedicated to golf and going "up to the club."

Simon and Garfunkel release one of their most magical songs - The Boxer - this month. The song, which Rolling Stone ranks at #105 of the Greatest 500 Songs of All Time, reaches #7 on the U.S. charts. A few months before, on our first date, Mindy and I saw them in concert at the old War Memorial in Rochester. We were impressed. This is one of the first songs I learned to play fairly well when I was first learning how to play guitar.

"I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistence
for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises"

At the 42nd Academy Awards on April 14, Oscars were awarded to the film Oliver (Best Picture), Cliff Robertson (Best Actor for Charly), Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand -a tie - (Best Actress for The Lion in Winter and for Funny Girl).

After a long-running battle regarding issues of censorship and acceptable levels of political satire, CBS abruptly cancels The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the popular but controversial hour-long show that broke new ground and showcased a wide variety of emerging talent.

British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to attempt to quell worsening sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants.

The total number of U.S. troop in South Vietnam reach 543,000, the peak level. Approximately one in every 400 Americans is in Vietnam that month.

On the 28th, long-time French President Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France. He died the following year just prior to his 80th birthday.



The Chicago 8 are arraigned in Federal Court in Chicago on 8 counts of - in reality - nothing - stemming from the events at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in August, 1968. Their trial, which began in September, was a complete farce, but had its moments of entertainment. It succeeded in pushing a large number of young people, including me, into more radical opinions.

In Berkeley, California, community activists seize a plot of land owned by the University of California and rename it "People's Park. In Boston, more than 300 students seize the Harvard University administration building.

Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather climbs the best seller charts.

For six weeks beginning early that month, the Fifth Dimension's version of Aquarius (Let the Sun Shine) from the musical Hair was number one on the U.S. charts. Many songs from Hair were on the charts that year - Easy to Be Hard, Good Morning Starshine, Hair....

I believe that my own hair was beginning to get just a bit longer...I had kind of Beatle-style hair, but in those days schools maintained strict dress codes, so long hair was simply not possible. But we tried, in our own mild ways, to rebel.

I am pictured above at the far left, doing my very best Nixon impersonation.

Our rebel natures were encouraged by everything around us, but particularly from the news and events on the 1960s. The War in Vietnam was raging on with no let up. Even Walter Cronkite, the veteran CBS news anchor, had come out against the war the previous year. There were protests and riots in the streets of American cities, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been murdered the year before, hippies dropped out and engaged in "free love", films like The Graduate questioned traditional American values, our musical heroes encouraged us - we were "born to be wild" and the "moon was in the 7th house" in the Age of Aquarius. And we thought so, a bunch of white, middle-class kids without a clue, living in rural New York.

Our teachers did their best with what they had to work with. I will never forget that my youngish geography teacher, Roland Heimberger (who was also the basketball coach), brought in some Bob Dylan records and played them for us, trying to get us to think for ourselves. If the parents knew of this he probably would have been run out of town.

Our annual senior trip took place in April - destination: New York City! We were warned over and over again - get caught with alcohol and you will be sent home. Naturally, I, along with two other friends, were caught with alcohol. I was 18 and legal, bought a pint of something or other, and brought it back to our room for some quiet imbibing. In came a teacher and "boom." Of course, we weren't sent home, simply embarrassed beyond belief in front of the class. Below, some sheepish-looking offenders.

Those last few months of high school I was in a kind of public speaking course. We would recite passages of our choosing, generally poetry or prose was expected of us, but a few of us started expanded our choices to rock lyrics. My friend Bob one day recited Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones much to our teacher's chagrin. She was a bit on the mousy side and I recall that she mumbled something like "that was...uh.. very nice, Robert...now, who is next?" I chose to recite a song from a little-known album by a group The United States of America. I believe they made only one record, which was an early attempt to fuse rock and electronica. The song was Stranded in Time:

early in the morning while the sun is still asleep
father drinks his cup of coffee, kisses mother on the cheek
off to work he goes, what he does nobody knows
but he's sure to bring home money every week
times when he and mother were young
now those days are departed
now they stand broken-hearted
stranded in time
(words and music by Marron and Bogas, 1968)

If there was one thing that the times were telling me, it was that I didn't want to turn out like that, broken hearted and stranded in time. It seemed to me that this was the life our parents generation was leading. By god, I was going to live a life.