It Was 40 Years Ago Today

December, 1969

2009-12-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

My first semester of college ended quietly that month. I came home for the Christmas break. Above is a photo of my brother Tom and I taken a year or two later - he's playing my new banjo "Norma" which I still have.

I did generally poorly at my studies and received a notice from the administration that I was being put on probation. For the second semester, I decided to take only courses that appealed to me - most of them having to do with the arts. I signed up for an art course, a piano course, and a theater course - and my life changed in an instant. That Spring, I became a Theater Major.

The first draft lottery took place on December 1. Designed to offer a measure of fairness to the nation's draft system, the new lottery determined the order of call for induction into the armed services based on "the luck of the draw" - if your birth date was drawn as a low number, your chances of being drafted increased. Those with very low numbers were certain to be drafted.

This first lottery covered those born between 1944 and 1950, so I wasn't affected, but if I had been, my birthday came up at the very bottom - 354. I wasn't so lucky the next year when 1951 was drawn - my birthday came up at #12 - I was certain to be drafted after my deferment ended in 1973. What saved me in the end was the winding down of the Vietnam War. In January, 1973 the Paris Peace Accords were signed, officially ending U.S. involvement in the war. At some date prior to this, I was called in for a pre-selection physical exam, but I simply ignored the summons. My older brother Tom had more serious trouble to the Selective Service - after he dropped out of college he also ignored several summons to report for a physical and finally was simply drafted without an exam. He did not report. The only fallout from his failure to report for induction was a visitation one day to our home in Ontario from Federal agents - my mother - to my everlasting adoration - ordered the government men off her property.

Nigerian Federal troops launch their final offensive against the breakaway province the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. Since the war's beginning in 1967, the conflict caused an estimated one million military and civilian casualties.

The Altamont Free Concert takes place at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California on December 6. Headlined by The Rolling Stones, some 300,000 attend the event which is marred by violence, including a a homicide and three accidental deaths. The stabbing murder of one spectator is perpetrated by members of the Hell's Angels, who were - by some accounts - there to provide security. Some chroniclers of the era consider the event to be the "end of the 60s." I might choose the killing at Kent State the following year, of the defeat of George McGovern by Richard Nixon in 1972. But certainly, sometime in between those dates was what Hunter Thompson rightly called "the high-water mark" of that time.

On December 4, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and an associate are shot dead by Chicago Police in a raid on an apartment in Chicago.

Tiny Tim weds his bride "Miss Vicki" on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson before an estimated 40 million viewers. The couple, who composed their own vows, promised "not to get puffed up." This was the pinnacle of Tim's career, who had had achieved success the year before with his hit rendition of the classic "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Further success proved elusive. In 1996, Tiny Tim collapsed during a performance of the song and died a short time later.

Died on December 22 - Josef von Sternberg, Film Director of The Blue Angel, among others.

Born on December 21 - French actress Julie Delpy.

On December 5, the debut album from The Jackson Five is released, containing their first hit - I Want You Back."

The number one song on the pop charts for two weeks that month was Steam's hit Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. It was replaced later in the month by Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane - the group's last Number 1.

Three songs by singer/songwriter Laura Nyro are in the Top Ten simultaneously that month - Eli's Coming by Three Dog Night, Wedding Bell Blues by The 5th Dimension, and And When I Die by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. I'm not sure, but believe that feat has never been matched before or since.

So, that is the year of 1969 as I remember it, and as it happened to me. I was terribly young, unsure of myself, confused, less smart than I thought, but ready to go and full of energy. My family allowed my to make my own way and to make my own mistakes, and for that I will always consider myself extremely lucky. It was a hell of a time to be young and it was something to experience. The world has changed greatly in the last 40 years, and I hope I don't sound too much like an old man when I say that much of it has been for the worse. But not all. I am skeptical of the future, but I also remain an eternal optimist.

"God Bless Us, Every one."

November, 1969

2009-10-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

On November 3, U.S. President Richard Nixon speaks to the nation in a televised address regarding his plan to "Vietnamize" the war. In part, Nixon says "And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this Nation who are particularly concerned, and I understand why they are concerned, about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do."

Later in the speech, known forever after as Nixon's "Silent Majority speech, he adds "And so tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support."

More than 500,000 protesters march on Washington, DC on November 15 demanding an end to the War in Vietnam. Sadly, Nixon did not appear to want peace "that" badly.

I was now becoming somewhat radicalized, albeit in a limited fashion. After several years of fence-sitting, trying to balance the patriotism that had been instilled in me as a young boy and my natural instinct that war was a terrible and senseless thing, I now firmly believed that the War in Vietnam must be stopped by any means short of violence. Or maybe some mild violence short of killing.

College and exposure to different people and ideas was beginning to change me. It was likely that I had my first (of many!) experience with marijuana that month, offered to me by my friends across the hall in my dorm. I was hesitant, but decided to take the plunge. It took several experiences before I got even a little high. One must remember that back then, a place like northern New York was virtually the last stop on the drug express, and the quality of the pot we were able to obtain was poor at best. Down to the stems and seeds again.

SUNY Potsdam still clung to many of the old college traditions, and the worst - to us - was the unequal treatment of women. Women had strict curfews; the men did not. Visitation in the dorms was limited to specific times and places. Certainly not in a "room" and certainly not with the door closed. One night, a large group of students, enraged by college policies, the war, and just about everything else, marched down to the President's house to demand change. The Potsdam police even followed us and eventually broke the demonstration up. It was a small taste of the firestorm that erupt a few months later when the Kent Stat e killings occurred on May 4, 1970. Then, our campus, and those across the country, became engulfed in bitter protest. Most, like Potsdam State, shut down early that May.

The Rolling Stones release their landmark album Let It Bleed on November 28.

On November 1, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds reaches #1 on the U.S. pop charts. It was his last number one hit prior to his death in 1977.

Sesame Street premiers on the then National Educational Network, the predecessor of PBS.

On November 19, the 3rd and 4th humans walk on the Moon - Charles Conrad and Alan Bean of Apollo 12.

The United States Senate votes down President Nixon's nomination of Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina to a seat on the Supreme Court. Unlike today's highly partisan Congressional politics, 17 Republican senators join 38 Democrats to reject the nomination.

John Lennon returns his MBE to the British Government in protest of the War in Vietnam.

Journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the March, 1968 massacre of civilians near My Lai in South Vietnam.

Born on November 4, American rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs. On November 18, Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy dies.

Native American activists seize Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay with the goal of gaining deed to the island. The occupation lasts until June, 1971.

On November 30, song-duo Simon and Garfunkel present a one hour television special entitled "Songs of America" which featured anti-war and other anti-establishment themes. I remember watching it and being affected deeply. The 60s were drawing to a close.

October, 1969

2009-10-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

The revolution starts here.

I was now into my second month of college, and the transition was shaky at best. I was truly missing home and my pre-college life, but found the various changes I was undergoing to be at least somewhat thrilling. New people, new friends, new ideas. An upperclassman, Bob Stabile, but known to most (until this day) as Professor Hokum W. Jeebs, stopped by my room to ask if I was sell the gramophone speaker I had in my window (I would not). I had joined the staff of the college radio station - WRPS - and was now a DJ. I would continue spinning records, later with WNTS (Northern Twin Colleges) , throughout my years in Potsdam.

I loved playing music from new artists - James Taylor, Carole King, Steely Dan, The Allman Brothers, Cat Stevens - there was a lot of good music back then.

My studies were not living up to my expectations. History, a subject in which I'd always excelled, was proving to be difficult and boring to me. Did I really want to be a history teacher? By then I'm sure the answer was now "no." I struggled in my other courses. In philosophy, my professor was a young radical from New York City, who did his best to indoctrinate us freshmen with leftist fervor, and I think he succeeded to some degree, though the times themselves had a lot to do with it. A paper I wrote on the 60s anti-poverty programs was greeted by him with scorn and mockery. I purposefully then wrote another paper extolling the virtues of communist reforms in Cuba on which he lavished praise and encouragement. Left, right - they were all crazy, I thought.

I have a few scattered notes from this time, and an entry in October contains a single word - confusion.

Student life was highly segrgated and divided into several groups that did not usually mingle all that much. The jocks, the fraternity/sorority greeks, the nerds, the "Crannies" - music school students, and the freaks. I was going down the route of the last group and beginning to "let my freak flag fly."

Author Jack Kerouac died on October 21 one day after being rushed with severe abdominal pain from his St. Petersburg home by ambulance.

His death, at the age of 47, resulted from an internal hemorrhage, the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking. It was a few years after his death that a became a Kerouac addict, devouring all of his writings I could get my hands on.

The first message over Arpanet, the world's first operational packet-switching network and the predecessor to the Internet, is sent from a lab at UCLA to one at Stanford.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, is released October 24. The film went on to receive four Oscars, including one for the best original song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I saw the film soon after it came out; it contains one my my all-time favorite scenes, when, after over-dynamiting a safe during a train robbery, Reford deadpans to Newman: "Think you used enough dynamite there Butch?"

WalMart is incorporated on October 31. This scourge plagues us until this day.

The "Days of Rage" organized by The Weather Underground take place in Chicago. On October 15, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters take to the nation's streets.

Born on October 10 - NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

On October 5, The BBC broadcasts the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The great Paul is Dead rumor reaches us in Potsdam. Some of my friends and I spend hours and hours analyzing the "clues" and listening to part of Beatles tracks backwards. Paul is barefoot on the Abbey Road cover, "I Buried Paul" at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, etc. etc.

Paul McCartney later comments "It is all bloody stupid."

I still have to this day a copy of the special magazine rushed out to take advantage of folks like me, pictured below.

Around that time, a friend and I got hold of a bootleg tape of The Beatles Get Back/Let It Be sessions. This provided us with ample more fuel for the fire. We went so far as to telephone the Apple Records office in London - we were after all, journalists from Radio Potsdam station WRPS. We recorded the call and convinced ourselves that a voice heard shouting in the background was the one and only John Lennon.

One good result - while we were immersed in Paul and Beatles research, we learned of the famous Butcher Block cover for the album Yesterday and Today. We took out my copy, looked it over, and though we saw something underneath.

With the help of some steam, we loosened the cover, and voila - there was the original - then, and now a collector's item. I still have that as well.

On October 24, Irish expatriate author Samuel Beckett is awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature. A few years later I would play the character Lucky in a production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot - the pinnacle of my acting career.

The "Miracle" New York Mets shock the baseball world by winning the World Series over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles.

Vice President Spiro Agnew says of war protesters "A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

I take issue with this vicious and untrue characterization. I was happy to be an impudent slob.

September, 1969

2009-08-31T08:36:00.000-07:00

Around the Labor Day weekend in early September, I officially start college as a freshman at SUNY Potsdam, located up in the St. Lawrence River Valley in far northern New York. I have a very clear memory is my father talking to me in my room as I was going to bed the night before driving up to drop me off. He gave me a little pep talk and told me that he loved me. Now, I had been quite a thorn in his side ever since I was little, and I don't ever remember him telling me that before. So it meant something to me. Though in retrospect, it's possible and even likely that he was glad to see me go. I'm sue he secretly said "yes!" Above, my Mom and brother Brian in the Potsdam quad, around September 1, 1969.

I was now living in room 122 (I think) of Van Housen Hall, the first floor. Due to a housing shortage on campus, three students were crowded into rooms designed to accommodate two (like modern prisons, I guess), so a friend and I and someone I have no memory of moved in. My friend from high school decided to attend Potsdam because I was going there. It was also his idea to share a room, though I don't recall being wild about that. Across the hall were two guys from the Albany area, and next door were two Jewish guys from NYC - Billy Bernstein and Charlie Tuna. Billy was a huge Jefferson Airplane fan; Charlie Tuna was probably crazy and liked to light his farts to entertain us. Billy was dismayed to find some top 40 singles of bubble gum music in my collection. I don't suppose he called me a hick to my face, but a hick I was. Well, he kind of called me a hick, now that I think about it.

After a few weeks I was completely homesick and hopped a bus back to Rochester - it was around a five hour trip. A little bit later the father of a High School classmate would regularly give me rides home for weekends and holidays. I enjoyed his company tremendously, especially since he knew which bars to stop at along the way.

That Fall I had my first experience of heartbreak and lost love which lasted through my first semester. I took very long walks out into the countryside around Potsdam and generally felt miserable. It also rained quite a bit that Fall, and portions of the campus were under construction, so there was mud everywhere. Lots of mud.

My roommate later transferred to another school, wound up marrying a mutual friend, and eventually came out of the closet. I had no understanding of the possibility of being gay at that juncture of my life, but thinking back it explains quite a few things to me.

But Potsdam, before winter set in and I learned firsthand about North Country winters, was pleasant enough. There were bars galore (the drinking age in New York at the time was 18), girls, lots of live music, and even a small head shop called The Isle of You. There were three mens clothing stores, all beginning with the letter H - Harold's, Herman's .... and one other I don't remember. A music store, a movie theater, and a sub shop were also around. New things to do and try, interesting people to meet - a new life. I don't think that I drank a lot those first months of college, or tried smoking marijuana - that would come soon.

As far a classwork, I remember little of that time - History, Spanish, Philosophy, I think. I really didn't care much at all for it.

Boone's Farm Apple Wine was a discovery around that time - I remember sitting in the park and drinking a bottle with Annie McNamera. Anything to be around a girl.

Radio Hanoi announces the death of Ho Chi Minh, the long-time revolutionary and leader of North Vietnam. He was 79.

The Beatles release their final recorded album and probably their best - Abbey Road on September 26 (The album rumored to be called Get Back, recorded before Abbey Road, remained unreleased, but finally comes out the next year as Let It Be). I listened to this album again and again in my dorm room and it greatly helped me get over my private heartbreak. It's probably at the very top of my list of albums of all-time.

In a bloodless coup on September 1, Colonel Muammar Muhammad Gaddafi, the chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council in Libya, assumes control of the North African country. The Colonel has maintained an interesting relationship with the United States ever since, and as of this writing is still with us.

The first ATM machine begins operation in Rockville Center, New York.

At the close of their first MLB season, the San Diego Padres lose their 110th game on September 30. They went on to win their final two games and finish the season with a record of 52-110. These days I am now a Padres fan, and as I write this they are - in last place!

Born on September 25, actress Catharine Zeta-Jones.

It is the heyday of Underground comix, featuring popular characters like Fritz The Cat, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Mr. Natural, most of which I am exposed to for the first time as copies are passed around our dorm.

On September 26, The Brady Bunch premiers on ABC. The show runs for five years.

Sugar, Sugar, probably the best-known song of the bubble gum genre and performed by the basically non-existent group The Archies, begins a four-week run at Number One of the pop charts. I was not a fan (thankfully) but will admit here a guilty fondness for The 1910 Fruitgum Company, another bubble gum band.

The Band release their self-titled second album on September 22. The album contains some of the group's best-known songs, including The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek, and Rag Mama Rag. Also released that month is Janis Joplin's first solo album I Got Them Ol' Kosmic Blues Again Mama.

August, 1969

2009-07-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

"By the time we got to Woodstock
we were half a million strong
and everywhere was a song and celebration

- Joni Mitchell

On Friday morning, August 15, Dave Fisher and I put the top down on his car and headed East and South towards Bethel, NY, site of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. We had with us tickets, sleeping bags, a bit of food, cigarettes, and some 8-track tapes Dave had for his car player. Dave had an 8-track of the first Crosby, Stills, & Nash album and we listened to that several times - I particularly remember grooving to Marrakesh Express and we drove along.

It was a bright sunny day, with few clouds and good vibes in the air. Of all my friends, I could only convince Dave to go. And we will always share that bond, though truth be told I don't think I ever saw him again after that weekend. Here's to you, Dave.

We drove south on Interstate 81, then East on Route 17, likely turning off on Route 97 and finally to Route 17B. Luckily for us, we we traveling down from the north, so we totally avoided the major traffic congestion that folks from the New York City area experienced. I think that we arrived in the general area around early afternoon, were able to get within a mile or less of the site, and parked his car in a field along with hundreds of other cars.

We joined others hiking towards the festival. We walked along 17B for some distance, then turned left down a road my memory tells me was dirt, though when I visited the site a few years ago it was paved.

We soon came upon what was left of the fences that were erected to keep non-ticket holders out. Now, there were thousands of people rather than hundreds. Then there were tens of thousands of people, and when we pushed forward out of the woods and into the great open hill, where a stage had been erected at the bottom, there were hundreds of thousands of people. It was sight one likely will never see in a lifetime; I know that I won't see the likes ever again.

My memories of the festival are hazy at best, or more correctly - so deeply personal and visual, that it's hard to express them. We first wandered around, back towards the woods. We came upon the Hog Farm encampment - I remember multi-colored banners and buses. We ran into a child of god - a couple of them, actually. They wanted to know where the music was and we excitedly told them. In thanking us one said "Hey man - do you want some bread?!!. We were hip to the lingo, of course, and said no, no money was necessary. He said, "No, BREAD!" and pulled a loaf from his back sack and shared it to us. That bread was possibly the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. Those guys were immediately brothers to me.

Wandering back to the hillside, we found a place was towards the back and made ourselves at home for the day. The vibes were great, people were friendly, stoned, happy. Looking back, it seems impossible that such a huge gathering could have been as peaceful and happy as Woodstock was that day. But it was. I clearly recall Richie Havens, who I knew nothing about at the time, leading off the music. His version of Freedom that day is well known and featured in the film; but he did several Beatles songs as well - Strawberry Fields Forever and With a Little Help from My Friends I remember and loved. I thought he was terrific and I was forever after a fan.

I of course knew about drugs from television and magazines, but until that day had never seen any or been around them. They were everywhere and available in the spirit of the day - but I was still reluctant and confused about the drug culture, so did not partake. But I wanted to. At one point, a very tripped out guy wandered through our area happily trying to sell acid - in his druggy voice that I so clearly remember and can't reproduce here. It was a bit like an old-time street vendor, updated for the times. But he stumbled or fell and his wares scattered "Ah man, I just spilled all my acid all over." Seemingly unconcerned, he strolled away telling us" If anyone wants some acid, it's all over the ground there."

It was hard to pay close attention to the music with all that was happening around. I kind of remember John Sebastian that day, Sweetwater, Ravi Shankar for sure, Arlo Guthrie, and most definitely Joan Baez singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as I tried to go to sleep much later. A light rain had begun to fall late that evening. The rain soon became a big problem. The other was food.

We brought hardly any and the size of the crowd quickly overwhelmed the available food services, though if you were patient and were willing to wait in line for a very long time at one of the food stands at the top of the hill, you could get food - I remember half-cooked hamburgers that tasted wonderful once you finally got your hands on one. We were hungry and had to do what needed to be done. We might also have gotten some free food to the Hog Farm camp, but I could be wrong about that. I was intrigued by the Hog Farm folks and images of them have stuck in my memory.

If the first day was groovy, the second was less so. It was raining lightly when we went to sleep - we'd moved into the woods and found a seemingly good spot on a small hill to lay out our sleeping bags. When we awoke the next morning we were now hungry and wet. It was raining much harder. So much so that we'd slid in our sleep down the hill in the mud. Our sleeping bags were completely useless now. Yes, the famous mud of Woodstock lore was now a reality, made worse, I expect, from the hundreds of thousands of people trampling the ground literally everywhere.

So, my only memories of the second day are of being cold, wet, and hungry. We did hang around for music and I'm pretty sure I remember Janis Joplin, but even though I had not taken any drugs I might have well have done so. I was on a kind of drug free trip that day. Finally, Dave and I both had had enough by the afternoon sometime, or maybe the evening. We struggled back to his car and headed out. Somewhere along the line, we took a detour - he suggested we go to Gettysburg (for some reason), I topped it by offering Washington, DC. So, off we drove towards DC. We arrived, burst in on my sister's and cousin's apartment, stayed the night, then drove back home the next day.

During the night, someone broke into Dave's car and ripped out the 8 track; no Marrakesh Express on the way home. But I had music in my head, and now - in my soul.

In 2007, I made a brief return to the site of the concert. It was raining....

British super-duper group Blind Faith releases its one and only album, which I buy immediately - and am lucky to get a copy with the original, highly-scandalous cover (which I still have).

Actress Sharon Tate and four others are murdered in her home in Los Angeles on August 9 by followers on Charles Manson. Tate, who was married to Polish film director Roman Polanski, was 8 1/2 months pregnant. Manson and most of his followers were arrested for the crime, and others, later in the year.

Category 5 Hurricane Camille slams into the Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing 248 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. The storm has sustained winds of 190 mph.It remains the strongest storm on record to strike the U.S. mainland.

Woody Allen's film Take the Money and Run premiers in New York City on August 18. It is Allen's first film with total creative control - as actor, director, and writer.
On August 14, the Chicago Cubs, winner of the 1908 World Series and winless ever since, held an 8 1/2 game head over the St. Louis Cardinals and a 9 1/2 game lead over the New York Mets. What happened over the next month haunts Cubs fans until this day.

The last weekend of the month I headed north to Potsdam to begin college.

July, 1969

2009-06-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Man walks on the moon - July 20. I wish that I could say that I followed this monumental event with rapture and awe, but that weekend I was attending summer orientation incoming freshmen at Potsdam State. I managed to see small bits and pieces of the unfolding drama on television, but my memory is that they kept us pretty busy, and honestly - I don't think that I was all that interested in the whole thing. I was busily plotting my future. I don't even think that I actually saw the initial moonwalk "live." I do recall looking up at the moon that night and thinking how wondrous it was that two men were actually on its surface.

And to be honest, the event seemed somewhat anticlimactic now that that old dog Nixon was in The White House. The space program was started by John F. Kennedy and continued by Lyndon Johnson. I had followed the whole time with great pride and fascination - from the launch of Alan Shepard in 1961 (which I heard on the radio) through the dramatic circling of the moon at Christmas in 1968. Now Nixon was in office when the moon landing finally took place and it did seem fair. Did I mention ever here that I was not a fan of Nixon?

They did issue us with beanies that week in orientation, which I suspect was the last time this tired old ritual was conducted at this or virtually any other college. They were never worn. It seemed to me that many older people did not understand that by this time the times were no longer changing. They had changed.

Other vestiges of typical college life one might see in films from the 1930s and 40s also still existed - segregated dormitories, curfews for girls and not boys, a strong-willed Dean of Women - all these would be soon gone - certainly by the time of the student strikes following the killings at Kent State the following Spring.

I remember that Summer as being very hot - at least by typical standards of upstate New York. Mindy and I went one day on a steam train excursion for a lark, and we sat listlessly in the car simply fried by the heat and humidity. No one I knew at that time had air conditioning - either in home or auto. It was generally a rare time when it was needed in upstate New York.

That summer we spent a lot of evening playing miniature golf at an Arnold Palmer putting course in nearby Penfield. It was a fun thing to goof around and pass some time. I was pretty good at it, and wound up qualifying for a locally televised tournament that summer. First prize was a small color television. I don't believe our family had yet made the switch to color, so winning one would have been sweet. Oddly enough, I played the "round of my life", at least for the first 16 or so holes. I was leading. Handily - I started hearing the television announcers saying "get the camera on Donovan, on Donovan." Sadly, the pressure got to me and my lead began to shrink. Some guy caught me on the last hole and we went into extra holes. I missed a short put, finished second, and won a radio. Wow.

Firesign Theater releases its 2nd album How Can You Be In Two Places At once When You're Not Anywhere At All, which features Nick Danger, 3rd Eye” in episode #666 Cut ‘em Off At The Past. I spent far too many happy hours listening to their extremely funny albums over the next years, usually in a stoned revelry.

On July 18, Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kenne dy drives off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, on the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in the car, dies in the accident. Kennedy did not report the accident to authorities the next day. He later plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was handed a suspended sentence.

In his first news conference since becoming President Nixon's chief legal officer, Attorney General John N. Mitchell announces that the incidence of wiretapping by federal law enforcement agencies had gone down, not up, during the first six months of Republican rule. Mitchell refused to disclose any figures, but he indicated that the number was far lower than most people might think. "Any citizen of this United States who is not involved in some illegal activity," he stated, "has nothing to fear whatsoever." The nation sighed in relief.

Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones dies on July 3. Found motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool, the cause of death was famously noted as "death by misadventure" by the local coroner. That same month, the band releases one of the greatest singles of all-time, Honky Tonk Women. I thought that the guitar intro riff was absolutely spectacular and that July would turn up my car radio whenever it came on.

AM radio still ruled the airwaves back then. We listened mainly in those days to stations WBBF and WSAY, both featuring Top 40 songs. I am pretty sure that by then, or at least soon after, we had our own "underground" FM station in Rochester that played album rock - WCMF-FM. My car had only AM and one had to rig up an FM receiver, which I did the next year when I bought a used Post Office Ford Econoline van.

Born on July 24, actress Jennifer Lopez.

Reaching number 2 on the U.S. pop charts that months - Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The band's self-titled album went on to win a Grammy award for Album of the Year.

The Doors release The Soft Parade LP on July 18.

On July 24, Muhammed Ali is convicted on appeal for refusing induction into the armed services. As he famously said in 1966: "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong ... They never called me nigger." The conviction was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

I had answered the advertisement I'd seen in The New York Times and had sent - I think $48.00 - for two tickets to the Woodstock Music and Art fair, to be held the following month downstate. I talked to a number of friends about the idea of going, but could only find one other brave soul who was up for it - Dave Fisher.

I kept my useless tickets for some years, which weren't needed there once the crowds exceeded the capacity of the Festival to control admittance. They were safely in a drawer in my room at home until, like much of the stuff that might be collector's items today (hundreds of comic books, Mad Magazines, baseball cards, etc.), they were disposed of my my mother, who - in her usual term - "gave them the pitch."

On July 30, President Nixon makes his one and only visit to South Vietnam. Pictured below is a man wearing a Nixon rubber mask and Peter Sellers dressed for his role some years before as Dr. Strangelove. I'm not kidding - You be the judge.

June, 1969

2009-05-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sometime that month - I graduate from W ayne Central High School. It was likely around the middle of the month. I have only the vaguest memories of the event. But we boys took pride in the sexual connotation of graduating in '69' even though such activities were limited to our erotic fantasy lives. I don't know of one friend at that time who'd actually had sex. At that time, at that place, sex remained something elusive and futuristic, much to our group disappointment. The caption on my yearbook casual photograph read: "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil - but think about it." Some crack yearbook staff member knew me pretty well.

In my teens I became a huge fan of W.C. Fields - I thought that he was the funniest person who'd ever lived, even though he's been dead for 20 years. I collected records, posters, photos, books, stationery - anything I could get my hands on. Friends even called me W.C. I would do W.C. Fields routines I'd memorized from records at parties ("I cut a path through a wall of human flesh, dragging my canoe behind me!") . I was a nut.

The photo of me and W.C. above, taken in 1968, shows me wearing a flowered Nehru-style shirt I'd bought the year before on a visit to my sister in Washington, DC. I still have one of the original Personality Posters of Fields, now framed and loaded with numerous tack marks on all four corners, hanging on the wall to my right as I write this. Posters were big back then - there was a very cool poster/head shop in Rochester which I loved to visit I think that it was on East Avenue. My room had the Fields posters, the Richard Avedon black and white poster of The Beatles, Bob Dylan with the multi-colored electric hair, Simon and Garfunkel. Many LPs had posters inside in those days and that was an added bonus - more things to pin on the wall.

My parents would get a copy of the Sunday edition of the New York Times without fail every week - my father would pick up a copy on the way home from church. Church was mandatory in our house, the it was a time when you were still expected to dress up for church. That month or thereabouts, an advertisement in the Arts and Leisure section caught my eye:

Sounded good to me. I was 18 and free, so why the hell not? I began to formulate a plan....

Hee Haw debuts that month in CBS. Hosted by Buck Owens and Roy Clark, it featured a mix of country music and corny rural comedy. It was the complete opposite of hip, but fit right in with President Nixon's "silent majority" crusade. The country was completely polarized - gone was the idealism and optimism of the Kennedy years.

In 1969, Reader's Digest sent some 18 million flag decals to its subscribers, and they quickly became a big hit. Plastered on windows and car window vents, they were popular among the pro-Nixon, pro-war crowd - The Silent Majority. The system worked quite well if you were hitchhiking, which I did often in my college years. The best rides came from vans bearing peace stickers; if you were picked up by a car with a flag decal, you could expect - at the very least - a lecture regarding your hair and attire, the war, whatever.

One June 8, after years of steady increases, President Nixon announces the first withdrawal of troops from Vietnam - 25,000 out of a force near 550,000.

The Love Theme from 'Romeo and Juliet' reaches number one on the charts. This movie absolutely knocked me out - I thought it was brilliant. Mindy and I would actually watch it at the drive-in rather than make out, though truth be told I would have loved to have had the nerve at that time to have wonderful naked sex like the two lovers in the film. I still remember the echoes of the last line of the Prince in the town courtyard - "all are punished." Powerful stuff for a young catholic boy. It would take me some more years to shed my catholic upbringing, but the walls were beginning to slowly crumble. Too slowly.

The Weathermen formed as a radical offshoot of the 1960s student activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). A manifesto, which circulated around a June 1969 SDS convention, took its title from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows," it read, and thus became known as the Weatherman statement.

On June 22, legendary singer and actress Judy Garland dies at age 48 of an overdose.

Born on June 15 - future rapper Ice Cube.

During a Bed-In for Peace on June 1 in Montreal, John Lennon, along with Yoko Ono, Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, and others, records Give Peace a Chance, which is released soon after as the first solo recording by one of The Beatles.

Warren Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, ending the activist era known as the (Earl) Warren Court.

On June 28, the Stonewall Riots in New York City mark the beginning of the gay rights movement.

In Houston, Texas, Army veteran Orville Moody wins the U.S. Open by one stroke. Moody was the last golfer to win the event by first having to qualify through local and regional events. It was his only PGA tour career victory.

There was another great local band in the area which, sadly, I don't think I ever saw perform live, but it's also quite possible that I did and simply can't remember due to the ever-increasing number of misfiring neurons in my aging brain. Wilmer Alexander and The Dukes were almost legendary in Upstate New York in the late 1960s. Originating out of Geneva, NY, the Dukes had a couple of singles which reached the charts nationally, or at least "bubbled under the hot one hundred." Those of us living in Upstate remember them fondly - they were big on the bar and college scene at the time. Legend has it that they were the inspiration for the bar band in the film Animal House. The band released their one album in 1969. The times were a changin' and the times were rocking.

May, 1969

2009-05-02T09:03:00.001-07:00

This was my last full month of high school. In mid-June, I would graduate. I don't remember much specifically of what I was doing that month - most likely I was goofing off and counting the days. I do know that I was looking forward to simply being done with it all. I am sure that I had that typical exuberant youthful mix of cockiness and fear of change.

May was the month of the senior prom, and as was expected of us, Mindy and I dutifully attended. These annual events provided us with the opportunity to stay out extremely late, way beyond our normal curfew, so on that score they were welcome. Following the prom, a bunch us us ended up at a restaurant, and the rest of the evening is a blur, but I'm certain that we stayed out all night - following tradition and ritual. Frankly, deep in my heart I had no interest whatsoever in going, but did as was expected of me. I'd rather have gone bowling.

May likely was the month our high school yearbook was released to us, so I was following the ritual of going around to friends and having them write something clever. My friend Bob wrote "Don't forget our little party after the senior play, you ole boozer." I must admit, I've forgotten. Mindy wrote "I truly agree that this has been my favorite year and you are the reason, truly, honestly, and frankly." Aw, shucks. Dan wrote "Always remember the good times we've had and the times that are yet to come." Yes, indeed. Another Bob: "Anytime you want to drag just look me up." I'll try that in my Honda Civic Hybrid, Bob - should be a race for the ages. Dave wrote "Golf, Speech this year, Saigon next year. I'll meet you there." Luckily, we did not...

George W. Bush is in the midst of flight training at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia as part of his Texas Air National Guard service. If only he had remained there. George never made it to Saigon, either.

Crosby, Stills, & Nash release their first album on May 29. The album quickly established the super group, made up of former members of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and The Hollies, as one of the top bands in the country. Later that year Neil Young joined the band, and CSN became CSNY. A copy of this album was in the 8 Track (I recall it was an Oldsmobile convertible) as my friend Dave and I drove south towards Woodstock in August that year. I have a vivid memory of driving, with the top down on that warm August day, listening to Marrakesh Express.

Neil Young releases his second solo album Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

Get Back by The Beatles begins a five-week stint at number one on the charts.

British rockers The Who release their landmark rock opera Tommy on May 23. The two-record set features classic Who songs - Pinball Wizard, The Acid Queen, I'm Free, and We're Not Gonna Take It (see me, Feel Me). The album was later ranked #96 on Rolling Stones 500 Best Albums of All-Time, but for me it has always ranked much, much higher. A few years later, my friend Craig and I, in a total pot haze, "filmed" the album in our heads,and over time expanded the idea to unique videos of each song. Our idea at the time was that these films would be shown as movie shorts, but without realizing it, we'd actually invented MTV! Little did we know.

That month produced enough great music to fill a modest library at a classic rock station - this back in the time when there were actually DJs picking music instead of marketing execs.

"We got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here....."

One of the best one hit wonder songs of all time (in my humble opinion) was released in May, 1969 - Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman.

Of course, there was quite a lot of bad music floating around as well. This period was the peak for the bubblegum music fad. Enough said.

On May 3, Creedence Clearwater Revival releases the single Bad Moon Rising; the B side of the single Lodi. The band was as hot as a band can be in 1969, releasing three albums and scoring hits with Proud Mary, Born on the Bayou, Green River, Down on the Corner, and Fortunate Son.

In South Vietnam, the Battle of Hamburger Hill rages for ten days, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. The hill, located near the border with Laos, was of little strategic value, but U.S. command ordered it to be assaulted anyway. Infantry soldiers who fought the battle gave it its name, because they "were chewed up like hamburger." The event stirred up great negative public opinion in the U.S., particularly as the hill was quietly abandoned by U.S. forces the next month.

The war produced one of the deadliest months ever for American servicemen - a total of 1,450 die in May, 1969.

The "dirty tricks" and illegal activities of the Nixon administration begin when The New York Times breaks the news of the secret bombing of Cambodia. As a result, Nixon orders FBI wiretaps on the telephones of four journalists, along with 13 government officials to determine the source of news leak.

The film Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, is released. It went on to win an Oscar for Best Picture of 1969.

The Boston Celtics defeat the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers in game 7 of the NBA finals 108-106 to win the 1969 championship.

Born on May 14 - Australian actress Cate Blanchette.

In Rochester, there was one hot band - The Rustix. The band was big at this time and had recently made news as one of the first white bands, along with Rare Earth, to be signed by Motown records. I saw them perform many times around this time and later. I always thought they were great. Sadly, they never quite hit the big time - according to lore the band recorded one last great album that was never released.

Just a few more weeks to go before graduation. Cue the band.

April, 1969

2009-04-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

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 O nta rio 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 T ime, 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.

March, 1969

2009-02-28T15:30:00.000-08:00

On March 14, my 18th birthday, I have my first legal drink, bought for me by my friend Danny Moaks father, at the Ontario Bowling Alley. I went on to consume a fair amount of other libations for approximately 34 more years. I believe it was most likely a Genny Beer that night.

I had begun to drink occasionally during the Summer of Love in 1967, though as long as I can remember my parents would allow me a "sip" of beer, usually on Sundays after church. My "sips" later became furtive "gulps" when my parents weren't looking. In 1967, my older brother turned 18 and thus legal in New York, so my friends and I would get him or another older friend to procure alcohol for us. Usually, we consumed beer or malt liquor, but at some point we advanced to blackberry brandy - usually a half pint, which was just enough to get high but not wasted. One night the half pint became a pint, and this produced in me a sudden, but exhilarating state of total intoxication.

Blackberry brandy, when consumed in quantity and then vomited up, produces significant and colorful stains on one's clothing, especially when the intoxicant does not have the common sense to move one's head to the side during the act of expulsion. I arrived home the next morning thus covered and did my best, given the magnitude of my first hangover, to hide this fact from my mother, who to my ever-lasting regret - met me at the door as I was trying to escape upstairs and remove the offending clothing. She knew immediately the cause of my distress and shame, and I was left with no alternative bit to spill the truth after some few feeble attempts to lie my way out of the situation. Worse still, she got me to admit that our source for the alcohol was my brother, who she next attacked while he was sleeping.

For the remainder of that hungover day, she kept warning me of the consequences when "your father gets home." When he finally arrived home from work around 5:30 and had, ironically, fixed himself a drink and sat down in his favorite chair to read the evening paper, I was sent in by my mother to admit my guilt and await his harsh judgment. And I will never forget his words to me after I had blurted out my scandalous admission of my misdeeds -

"How do you feel now?"
"Terrible", I said. And I meant it.
"Well, let that be a lesson to you". And he went back to his paper. And that was it.

I did, at least, learn some lesson from this incident. Though I continued to drink, sometimes heavily, until my early 50s, I rarely crossed that line into extreme intoxication. I would always stop before I reached that terrible stage.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse-Five Or The Children's Crusade is published. The New York Times, in a review dated March 31, says "Vonnegut Jr., an indescribable writer whose seven previous books are like nothing else on earth, was accorded the dubious pleasure of witnessing a 20th-century apocalypse. During World War II, at the age of 23, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned beneath the city of Dresden, ''the Florence of the Elbe.'' He was there on Feb. 13, 1945, when the Allies firebombed Dresden in a massive air attack that killed 130,000 people and destroyed a landmark of no military significance. Next to being born, getting married and having children, it is probably the most important thing that ever happened to him. And, as he writes in the introduction to Slaughterhouse-Five, he's been trying to write a book about Dresden ever since. Now, at last, he's finished the ''famous Dresden book.''

I don't exactly recall when I first read Slaughterhouse-Five, perhaps the next year. But it had a profound affect on me, more so than anything I had read up to that point or seldom since. The section on which Vonnegut describes the bombing sequence moving in reverse helped shape my views of life and war and the utter insanity of how humans can behave.

Supergroup Cream release their final album, Goodbye, featuring the song Badge, co-written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison.

The previous year, I managed to get tickets to see Cream and The Vanilla Fudge perform at the old Auditorium Theater in Rochester. This was before I could drive, so I remember that my Dad drove me and a friend in to the city for the concert. We got in, but before the music started, Cream's manager came out onstage and announced that the band's instruments hadn't arrived and thus they could not perform. The audience was given the choice of seeing just the Vanilla Fudge or getting their money back. We wisely got our money back and Dad had to drive back to get us. So I almost got to see Cream live...but it was not to be and I still regret it....

Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President (1953-1961) dies on March 28. "Ike" was President from the time I was about 2 til I was about 10, though I have few memories of being aware at all of that fact. I do remember his re-election campaign of 1956 only because my mother hung an Eisenhower poster in our old kitchen as a joke for my father to see - he was a hard core Democrat and ardent Stevenson supporter - but I didn't at all understand the joke, but I guess it was my first exposure to politics.

On March 12, Paul McCartney marries Linda Eastman at the Marylebone register Office in London. On the same day, George and Patti Harrison are arrested on drug possession charges.

On March 20, John Lennon marries Yoko Ono at the British Consulate in Gibraltar. From March 25 - 31, John and Yoko conduct a "Bed In" for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton, Room 902.

Doors singer Jim Morrison is charged with several felony counts of indecent exposure, public profanity, and public intoxication in Miami after a concert on March 1. He was eventually convicted on two misdemeanors the following year.

The Swedish "cult" film I am Curious (Yellow) is first released in the U.S. The controversial film was the subject of heated court battles, customs seizures, and yes - intense curiosity. I managed to see this film at some point that year, though I remember virtually nothing about it, so other than the sex scenes, I was probably bored with it.

Within a span of seven days, both Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray admit to killing Robert F. Kennedy (Sirhan) and Martin Luther King (Ray) in 1968. I'm glad to note that they both continue to rot in hell, Sirhan still incarcerated, and Ray, who died in 1998, in the spiritual sense.

In South Vietnam, Lieutenant Joseph R. Kerrey, United States Naval Reserve displays tremendous courage and is later awarded the Navy Medal of Honor "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 14 March 1969 while serving as a SEAL Team Leader during action against enemy aggressor (Viet Cong) forces in the Republic of Vietnam...Lieutenant Kerrey received massive injuries from a grenade which exploded at his feet and threw him backward onto the jagged rocks. Although bleeding profusely and suffering great pain, he displayed outstanding courage and presence of mind in immediately directing his element's fire into the heart of the enemy camp." This on my 18th birthday that day, while I was having my first legal beer....not very heroic I'm afraid.

Wrestling season was coming to an end. My last match, in the state sectionals, occurred around this time. I'd completely had it with the sport, and had a moment of truth in that match that I simply did not want to do this any longer. If I won the match, I'd have to go on - I was winning, but I simply let the other guy win, on points, to bring an end to it and that phase of my life. My coach was very pissed off at me for losing...my attitude was "screw it." The only wrestling I intended to do in the future was with women. I've had some success with that sport, but have also lost some close matches....

They did sometimes bring the Wayne Central cheerleaders to the matches, which was a plus. I guess the basketball team could spare them on occasion...

I must say with all honesty that I loved these girls - they were my idea of smart, sexy teenage America! And I love them still.

February, 1969

2009-02-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

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.

January, 1969

2009-01-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

The Winter of 1968-69 saw the City of Rochester receive 79.8" of snow. So much of my memory of growing up about 25 miles east of Rochester, in the Town of Ontario, consists of visions of snow. I don't recall that Winter being any worse of better in terms of snow and cold, but it was actually below the annual average of 92.8", so I guess we got off lucky that year.

In 1969, the Town of Ontario was still a mostly rural village, with a one-block long main street as its' center. Shopping centers had not yet reached us, but were entrenched in the towns closer to the city and the town center was beginning its slow decline. Agriculture, in the form of fruit (apples, peaches, pears, and cherries), was the economic engine. In the late 1800s, the town had some note as an iron ore mining center, but industry was long gone from Ontario, though a few vestiges of that period remained in the form of ore beds, which were now used mainly for swimming.

The people of the town were almost exclusively white, republican-leaning, with a mix of Catholic and Protestant. I went to school with kids named Fioco, Ficarro, Moak, Lennon, Bell, Doyle, Anderson, Hall, Robusto, Smith, Gardner, Reynolds, Hilegeer, Kelly, Cantin, Dippel. There were just a few intrepid Blacks and no Jewish. The migrant farm system, though slowly coming to an end, still existed, and Black and Hispanic migrants from the South still made the trip up North to Ontario in the Summer to pick fruit and live in squalid and substandard housing that was the private disgrace of our region, though no one wished to talk about it. They were referred to back then as migrant "camps."

My parents were fairly strong Catholics and we attended mass every Sunday, like it or not. We lived at 211 North Slocum Road on a 65 acre farm my parents bought in 1945 for $5,000. We weren't farmers, but my father rented out some of the fields to other local farmers - tomatoes, corn, and hay were usually found in the fields behind our house. Our phone number was LA4-8210. I believe that by then we were no longer on a party line, but for much of my youth we were. I used to enjoy listening in on the phone conversations of my neighbors. The picture at the top of this post is of the creek on our backyard, taken on a typical winter's day - except for the sunshine, which was not typical.

Of our family of six, four of us still lived at home. My older sister Liz was in Washington, DC working for The Washington Post. My older brother Tom was living at a dorm in Rochester. A German exchange student, Bruno Schneider, from "a small town halfway between Hamburg and Hanover", also lived with us that Winter and Spring. The previous November, we were all together again for nearly the last time, except for a few future occasions. From the left, below: Bruno, my Mom Charlotte, Brian, my Dad Thomas, Liz, Tom Jr., and me with my eyes closed.

During the month of January, I was probably starving, due to having to lose 5-6 lbs prior to every wrestling match that season. I was a senior and thus one of the leaders on the team, and I had a pretty good year but was in a weight class that was lower than my natural weight. It's a stupid sport, I thought so then and I still think so...I have no idea why I did it.

But I had my first real girlfriend that year and love was keeping me warm and happy. Though I did not completely realize it, this time was the beginning of my last few months of my childhood and young adulthood; my life would change beyond any recognition in 1969.

Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine was No. 1 on the pop charts for most of January. The White Album by The Beatles was in the middle of an extended stop at No. 1 on the album charts. I was listening to it constantly.

January was also basketball season - home basketball games were wildly popular. This was a small town. But for us the appeal of basketball games was highly magnified by the fact that the Friday night games were often followed by dances featuring one of the myriad of local bands that sounded pretty much like The Rascals. I can with a high degree of certainly predict that In The Midnight Hour was played at least once that month, around 11pm, in our darkened and strobe-lit gym.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was hovering between 900 and around 950. It did not close above the 1,000 mark until 1972. The national median price of homes that sold that year was just below $25,000. The cost of a gallon of gasoline was just above thirty cents. The U.S. minimum wage was $1.15 per hour; in February that year it rose to a whopping $1.30. A Ford or Chevrolet sedan was available for around $2,500. A Cadillac or Lincoln, priced at more than $6,000, would stretch the average consumer more than their ability to pay.

The film Easy Rider was released on January 1. With it's portrayal of the elusive search for freedom, drugs, sex, and violence, it signaled an end to the optimism of the 1960s and the beginning of a darker period that perhaps lingers with us til this day. It also jump-started the career of Jack Nicholson, who was thus free to attend Laker games and behave rather badly.

Members of Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary damage property and assault occupants in the Bogside neighborhood in Derry. In response, residents erect barricades and establish Free Derry. The Troubles will continue in Northern Ireland for another 30 years.

Meher Baba died on January 31. The final issue of The Saturday Evening Post, which traced its roots back to Benjamin Franklin, was published. It later returned in a different format, but was never the same.

On January 12 in Super Bowl III, the underdog New York Jets, led by quarterback "Broadway" Joe Namath, defeated the heavily favored Baltimore Colts 16-7 in the Orange Bowl in Miami.

My personal favorite: on January 20, Richard Milhous Nixon is inaugurated as the nation's 37th President. Said Nixon"

"We see the hope of tomorrow in the youth of today. I know America's youth. I believe in them. We can be proud that they are better educated, more committed, more passionately driven by conscience than any generation in our history." Of course, quite a few of those noble youth would die in the next few years showing their commitment, in Vietnam, and at Kent and Jackson States. In 5 1/2 years both Nixon and VP Agnew would be forever gone from Washington, both in disgrace.

On January 12, the British band Led Zeppelin releases its first album, self titled but later known as Led Zeppelin I.

The legendary rooftop performance by The Beatles takes place on the roof of Apple Records on January 30. It is the last time the band plays in public; John Lennon would leave the group later in the year but the actual break-up would not be announced for more than a year.

Born on January 5: Marilyn Manson
Died on Janury 29: Allen Dulles

My father was 57 - the same age as I am now (now that's scary!). My mother was only 53.

984 Americans were killed in Vietnam in January. For the first time that month, all four parties - the U.S., North and South Vietnam, and the NLF (Viet Kong) - sat down for peace negotiations in Paris.

Some 30,000 copies of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono album Two Virgins are seized by police at the Newark Airport. The then scandalous cover featured a full frontal nude picture of Lennon and Ono, while the back let the whole wide world see their somewhat unattractive bums.

I was the proud owner of a 1963 Ford Galaxie, a 3-speed shift on the column. I paid a grand total of $300 for the car the year before. I earned the money working as a sampler for the USDA the previous summer - taking samples from crates of cherries brought in by local farmers for the inspectors so they could grade them for sale. Years later, I wrote a song about that time.

Americans were watching Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, the #1 show on the air at the time. Celebrity shows were very popular - among the 20 highest-rated included variety shows from Jim Nabors, Dean Martin, Glenn Campbell, Carol Burnett, and Johnny Cash.

Though I don't remember the exact time-frame, I certainly had submitted my college applications by January. I applied to Albany State, New Paltz State College, Potsdam State, and I think - Fredonia.

The joint French/English supersonic Concorde jetliner undergoes its first test flight in Bristol, England. In the early 1990s, I had the absolutely thrilling opportunity to fly the Concorde three times. I still have some of those lovely souvenirs Air France and British Air gave to passengers.

Perhaps best of all - the horrible year 1968 - later called The Year of the Triphammer- ended.

Some photos in this blog courtesy of The Wayne Central Alumni page - maintained superbly by my bother Brian!