Rusty Firebirds, Serious Girlfriends and Christopher Cross

By P.M. Wortham

The late 70’s started out as a major bummer for me. My father had decided on his own, or perhaps with the help of his bowling buddies, that the best high school option for me was a Parochial College Prep school on the border of Detroit that I’ll just call “Prison”. Prison was much like other high schools, that is if you liked dudes, because no girls were allowed to enroll and the place was run by Franciscan Monks. The dress code was suits and ties while the “Dean of Men”, a former Marine Drill Instructor, would walk the halls with a rusty pair of scissors making damn sure your hair length was well off the collar.

 It was a party to be sure.Thankfully, those girlfriend-less years grounded to a halt in 1978, when I broke out of Prison. I like how bad-ass that last sentence sounded, even though it only meant that I graduated from Parochial hell, while wearing a new powder blue Leisure Suit and wide collared satin shirt in the process. Over the coat collar of course.

College was a fresh start and thankfully some confidence had started to grow. A new job at a local Hilton hotel put me in the union and the wages were pretty nice for a part time worker and college student. My grades were excellent, a by product of having to pay for classes myself, and I made some actual friends that weren’t bastards. Everything about the late 70’s was new and positive and welcome.

In 1979 I decided to pay a visit to one of my buddies who was away at college a couple hundred miles to the north. Before the actual trip I had called the guy a few times to catch up, talk sports and of course, girls. Before getting connected to his actual dorm room, calls were routed through the campus switchboard. Somewhere between the second and third call to my friend, I noticed that I had gotten connected to the same girl at the switchboard. I recognized her voice. I liked her voice. It was friendly and intelligent and playful. Her name was Janet. On my fourth call, Janet and I talked for more than an hour. On my fifth call, just before the actual trip to visit my buddy Tim, I asked if she would like to meet.

She was tentative but curious. Thanks to the Hilton and another line chef job I’d held before that, I had learned how to cook. I offered to come over and cook Steak Diane, double baked potato, broccoli with Hollandaise and chocolate mousse for dessert. I think I had convinced her at the “offering to cook” part.

The meeting was filled with anticipation and the hope that we would not repulse each other. Funny thing about blind dates in the 70’s, there was no Internet or camera phone to share pictures. The date was truly blind.

I drove up in my rusty Firebird with groceries and sauté pans in tow and found her apartment easily enough. Janet greeted me at the door with a smile and she got a big one back. Pictures weren’t needed. She was as attractive as her voice suggested; something I would learn to be the exception rather than the rule. I mean, have you seen pictures of your favorite radio DJ’s? Gives me the shivers.

I wound up making dinner for Janet and her roommate, something I had not expected but went along with. I figured that it was in my best interest to make friends with both of them and so I did. I was sure that the conversation about me would be fast and furious after I left for the evening so I decided to be the perfect gentleman. I would learn later that Janet had arranged some sort of signal with her roommate to be used if I turned out to be OK. That was the roommate’s cue that it was safe for Janet to be left alone with the strange guy. Apparently Janet had determined that I was in fact a decent guy but the roommate wouldn't leave. Janet told me months later that as soon as I started unpacking the food, the roommate had decided it would be three for dinner. The Steak Diane by the way, kicked ass.

We dated for months albeit long distance. I would drive up most weekends and stay at my buddy’s place or at her parent’s house which was pretty progressive in those days. Her father never seemed to mind. He was a pretty cool dude, actually. But, all things eventually come to an end and so did this relationship. It had been more than 8 months and I had started to fall in what I thought was love, but pieces and parts of the relationship had started to get weird and unexplainable.

It was the summer of 1980 and Janet had taken a temporary job near her home for extra cash. During our calls she would continue to bring up the name of a co-worker when talking about anything. “Dan” said this, and “Dan” said that. Dan? Really? Wow, Dan sounds like a great guy. Dan was also my first experience with a poacher. Dan was good at asking Janet things like, “Does he do this particular thing for you? Well, if you were my girlfriend I would do this for you every day”. Dan made a living out of picking on the fact that I lived hours away. Bastard.

On my last trip to see her that summer, Janet began to tell me about some trip that Dan was planning overseas and how she was thinking about going too. That was the end. For weeks she had been trying to tell me it was over, but with a concrete block for a head, I wasn’t hearing the message. Hey, you only have to tell me four or five times. I pick right up on those nuances.

It was a sad last day as I packed my car for the moonless ride back to Detroit. She waved, and I drove on. I remember a series of songs that played across the magic of FM radio and all of them were sappy love songs. Why is that cliché so true? One in particular seemed to have been written just for me. It was Christopher Cross and the song titled “Ride like the Wind”. All of it seemed to fit me perfectly as I drove south on I-75. “It is the night, my body’s weak. I’m on the run, no time for sleep. I’ve got to ride, ride like the wind, to be free again”.

Of course the song lyrics and my girlfriend situation parted ways as soon as we got to the part of the song that took me to the border of Mexico, but you get the idea. It was a long and painful ride home.

Doors have a way of closing and opening. The Janet door left a scar for a while but another door eventually opened. I had made enough money at the hotel to take college classes full time but then needed some sort of holiday employment for Christmas cash. I wound taking a minimum wage job at a large shopping mall selling cheese for a company called Swiss Colony. Yes, the actual low point of my entire working history. Did you know that one of our daily activities was removing the moldy cheese and scraping off the green stuff for re-wrapping? Did you know that the crust on Brie is actually hair-like mold that some farmer mashes down with his bare fist before packaging? I am a wealth of useless cheese trivia, but I’ve clearly digressed.

I was one of two guys working with a staff of women at this place, the Y chromosomes presumably hired to help unload the trucks as they came in, and of course scrape mold off the cheese. Three of the employees at the time happened to be sisters. On one slow Saturday afternoon, a cute little girl in nicely fitting jeans had come in to talk with what seemed like two of the three sisters. A friend I thought. As it turns out, the visit was staged because all three sisters had identified me as an available target for sister number four.

A few years later, after plenty of dating, graduation and acceptance of my first real job, I happily married sister number four. I recall Christopher Cross songs remaining popular all through the early 80’s and sad memories from “Ride Like the Wind” were replaced with fresh and happy ones. Sister number four was a keeper. I also remember thinking that for a guy with a great voice and lyrics, Christopher Cross was one ugly dude. I guess the old MTV adage is true, video did kill the radio star. On a similar closing note, I’m not quite sure what or who eventually killed the leisure suit, but thank you just the same.

Haven't forgotten you

Soon another great story will be up. Keep an eye out for it soon to come.

Ed.

A Melancholy Trip Down the Highway

The ride down the highway isn't always sugar and roses. But sometimes it gets us through the day.

Sitting in your chair so calmly

Waiting for the energy rush

That you know isn’t gonna come

Cause you are all doped up

And the only sound you hear

Is some old rock and roll song

Playing in your ear

All you hear is some old rock and

Roll song playing in your ear

But that’s ok, cause it isn’t Flatt and Scruggs

That’s ok it isn’t a country song that someone else loves

It’s a rock and roll song you hold dear

And it’s playing in your ear

And you notice then that though you’re less than lucid

You at least can make the words out clear

Of some old rock and roll song you have playing in your ear.

It’s the Stones

Singing Mama’s Little Helper

And you laugh out loud cause

You realize it’s time for your next dose

And you realize that even though you’re

Sitting in your recliner chair

Your phone in hand but no one’s there

And you’re listening to your favorite rock

And roll song

And you start to sing along.

Of Wannabe Hippies and Rod McKuen

a double shot from writer Juen (sic) Crawford Sanders

Journey

Toward destinations known and unknown in the new
freedom of the seventies our volkswagen squareback
traded later for a bus held all six of us a dream weaving
across roads mapped by rand-mcnally and hi-lighted
by dairy queens, cool streams and a yellow marker. West
to california disneyland the magic kingdom one magic day
on almost the last tank north to camp in the trees work for pay
then continue on our way out west where never is heard
but not so often and the wind blows free and so did we.
Resurrecting a raft at ruby beach the Children sailed the inlet
in search of adventure thru sunny days tented nights campfires
and stars keeping watch over us all six of us dream weaving

WITHOUT A WORRY IN THE WORLD

Me and McKuen

I once wrote to Rod McKuen
(and now I've given away my age)
He wrote back - a treasured page
And spelled my name Juen.

YOU DON'T KNOW ME

And one of Mr. McKuen's poems thrown in for good measure:

It’s nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you’re still alive.

If nothing else
it says to you–
clear as a high hill air,
uncomfortable
as diving through cold water–

I’m here.However wretchedly I feel,
I feel.

I’m not sure
why we cannot shake
the old loves
from our minds.
It must be that
we build on memory
and make them more
than what they were.
And is the manufacture
just a safe device
for closing up the wall?

I do remember.
the only fuzzy circumstance
is sometimes where and how.
Why, I know.

It happens
just because we need
to want and to be
wanted, too,
when love is here or gone
to lie down in the darkness
and listen to the warm.

Music, the Magical Healer

Been around the block and back again
A hundred times or more
This last trip that I took I fear
Has left me mighty sore

Mad at myself, at my situation
Mad that I can’t turn back time
Mad that I don’t have a potion
To ease the hurt that is mine.

They’ll fix me up, I’m sure of it
But what I’m really thinking.
Is how do I get through it all
Without so much as blinking?

The only thing today that works
Is getting back to the music
It’s bringing me out of my funk
And helping me not to lose it.

So I’ll go back to the basics
Crosby Stills and Nash and Young
And hopefully they’ll change me back
To the woman who’s mighty and strong…

~Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy,
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be,
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be,
Talkin' 'bout very free and easy...~ CSNY

.

CARRY ON - CSNY

STEPHEN STILLS AND MANASSAS

Memories of Friday Night High School Dances in Chicago

By John Henrichs

As teenage boys, we welcomed the area’s new all girl’s Catholic High School. We couldn’t thank the nuns enough for collecting all those girls for us! Better yet, the school would hold dances on the weekends, and we were allowed in. We thought it was nearly impossible not to come out a winner in this situation!

Of course, as usual we were wrong, but it wasn’t all bad. We got to hear some great local bands while being ignored by our intended prey. The band I remember most was the GTO’s. They played quite regularly around the area. We had a great time just listening, (and hoping we’d get noticed).

Years passed, I got married, and my wife, Carol, and I moved 600 miles away from our old home. By chance, I had to get a window screen fixed, and the man who fixed it owned a small shop west of town. I learned he was from our old area, and we had a nice chat regarding the “old days.”

I work for an estate sale business, and one day, my employer mentioned that we were doing a sale for the man at his shop. Since I was punctual, we had some time to again hang out and chat. As we waited for my boss, he showed me the items he wanted to sell. We came to a couple of guitars, and I asked “Do you play?” He answered with his own question, “Ever hear of a band called the GTO’s?”

The past came rushing back so fast it almost knocked me over! To see a person you saw in a different state, in practically a different life 40+ years later, was beyond my imagination! We have been friends ever since. I guess that sometimes, not often but sometimes, you really can go back!

The Day the Hippies stole Hitler's Car

By Jackson Ahern

It was only a joyride to the gates of redemption
They ran like laughing children to the outskirts of Teutonic disgrace
splashed it with the colors of a Gypsy sunrise
and the fertile mud of Yasgur's farm
They took the folk's wagon and hid it
in the deepest part of their imaginations
shouted Shalom Aleichem into the heavens
frolicked like freaks and waited
for the Furher to self destruct

Tracing Boulder's Natural Food Roots to a Carnival

By Roger Freed

Editor’s note: The following is a recollection of one of Boulder’s first natural foods restaurants, the Carnival Café.

Let`s go back to the early 1970s, a time when Boulder was a simpler place to live and life was slower paced.

The pedestrian mall on Pearl Street had yet to be built, the old Crossroads Mall was a small shopping center, and the summer’s big bicycle race was still called the Red Zinger Classic. Fields of grain grew beyond 30th Street. 

Celestial Seasonings made its soon-to-be, world-famous teas out at the industrial park on 55th, which pretty much delineated where Boulder ended and the prairie began. 

Broomfield was a small cluster of homes with no nucleus, and the suburban tentacles of Denver were still miles away. Boulder had not yet acquired the upper-class glitz that it now has.

Along Broadway, between Canyon and Pearl, existed a row of so-called “head shops”--old wooden storefronts, some from the early part of the century, that had been taken over by young entrepreneurs who offered various services.

For a short period of time, there existed in the middle of them a quintessential example of the hippie, love, sharing-caring movement introduced by the ’60s. It was a small restaurant brightly named the Carnival Cafe, a gypsy-esque bundle of energy that exuded beyond the perimeters of its walls. Outside it looked a bit faded and worn at the elbows, but to enter within was to be ushered into a whole other realm.

The Carnival Cafe was a colorful potpourri of enthusiastic alternativeness. Vibrant posters papered the walls, and plants possessed corners and overflowed from shelves. A huge, U-shaped, glass display counter dominated the middle of the main dining room and housed hand-made trinkets for sale and whole-grain goodies generous in their size, price and healthy ingredients. 

The insider name of the bakery section was “the Dateful Bread.” Behind the back counter, bangle-bedecked girls in tie-dye T-shirts and saris baked next to the long-haired fellows in sandals who were cooking.

One corner was a children’s play area with toys.

Music laced the air, ranging from folk to the Grateful Dead. The atmosphere was thick with character, laughter and love. When one came to the Carnival to eat, it was not just a feast for the tongue and stomach, but one for the senses and spirit, too. The Cafe started out as the “Carnival Restaurant” in September 1972, created by five friends who took over a vegetarian eatery called the Family Table Restaurant. They were soon joined by other similar-minded friends, bringing their number to 13.

Mark Gunther helped get it going by bringing his significant experience in cooperative operations that he had gained in Berkeley, Calif. Others in the troupe had been involved in a food cooperative in the same area. The “Carnies” were a lively bunch, involved in theater, clowning and dance.

Photo provided by Roger Freed

The name “Carnival” came from a busker’s carnival on the library mall that they participated in that summer. The core idea in the enterprise was that “Life is a Carnival,” and it should be so lived, as stated by a famous banner they had displayed in the kitchen.

By 1974 only Margaret Theno of the original 13 remained, but the cafe had expanded to 14 fulltime and five part-time workers. The fare was vegetarian and as organic as was possible in those pre-Wild Oats days. The only true organic produce back then came in from local farms and was limited to a few lettuces, potatoes and green vegetables. But the Carnival still turned out meals that have never been equaled in wholesomeness and creativity by any of Boulder’s healthier restaurants throughout the years. No pesticides, chemical fertilizers or herbicides were used on the produce. Whatever people ordered, they could be assured that they would get a plateful of healthy grub, rich in vibrant ingredients and love.

The cafe started out as a collective. Everyone would share the tips and managerial duties and would divide the earnings amongst themselves. They shared a checkbook called the “Sojourner Truth Memorial Checking Account.” 

All lived in two houses that the Cafe paid for. When this proved difficult, they changed to a system where one could work 14 hours a week for unlimited meals and groceries, or 28 hours a week for meals, groceries and some managerial responsibilities. Many of the Carnies had second jobs where they earned their real living wages. On each shift, people chose which jobs they wanted to do that day. Those who worked on a particular shift were the authority for that shift. Everyone would stay an hour after closing to clean. 
There were some in town who questioned how sanitary the place was, but the Carnival’s rating with the health board was always very high.

The Carnies always had a goal to make enough money to pay off their debt. Gunther had loaned the money to buy it, and by 1975 the debt was paid off. At one point, a legal pad was passed around, and 26 “employees” signed on as legal owners, meaning it truly belonged to the people working there. They, in turn, felt that the Carnival belonged to the community, and that working there was a form of service to the people of Boulder. The Carnival had the cheapest prices in town and great quality to boot, in contrast to today’s premium prices for natural food in restaurants.

The daily special was advertised by a sign saying, “The Carnival’s daily love gift.” On Thanksgiving, meals were free to all who entered the door, although the soybean drumsticks they had one year didn’t go over too well. There was a counter space where people could leave their plates if they could not finish their meals. The food would be put on a fresh plate, and anyone who did not have money or was hard up could come in and eat it. There was one guy who came in for a year and lived on it.

On Sunday mornings, the Carnies held “the meeting.” It would start with everyone sitting in a circle and chanting the spiritual meditation word “om.”
Then they would stand in a circle and massage the shoulders of the person before them, then turn and repeat with the person on the other side. After that, it got down to business. Everyone had a voice in what was going on, even visitors. Once, a major debate took place about whether to serve coffee or not (coffee being a major source of both bad health and worker exploitation).

Working at the cafe was always an adventure. One time, the electricity went out and all the perishables in the cooler were going to be lost. The owner of the New York Deli, Tony Schwartz, sent employees over with bags of ice to help out. One customer remembers a day when a fly paper strip lost its mooring on the ceiling and fell, draping itself around a customer.

The cafe was visited by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Alan Ginsburg, Black Elk, Dan Fogelberg and Steven Stills. Mitchell once drew a picture of the cafe turning into a parking lot, which was added to the Carnival scrapbook. East- West Journal, Yoga Journal and others heralded the Carnival as the prototype of a collective business in the U.S. Celestial Seasonings mogul Moe Seigel used to deliver fresh herbs to them that he carried in his backpack on a bicycle.

For everyone, the cafe was more a lifestyle than a job.

“I am so grateful for the experience of love the cafe gave to me at such a critical time in my life,” Doe Gregoire says.

Cedar Geiger adds, “The cafe seemed to be a combination of many things to many of us. Lots of us were just frustrated with not having a skill, not having a home, not having friends/ family, etc. Here we found real family and a life learning experience that made us all a part of who we are now.”

But all good things must come to an end. In 1977, the city announced that the entire block would be torn down to make room for a parking lot. The Carnival had always had a month-to-month lease, and it was known when they got the place in 1972 that this would be its fate one day. Still, the Carnies were shattered.

People made parallels to Mitchell’s lyrics, saying “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Despite protests, no one in the higher financial and political end of things was going to listen to a bunch of hippies and their customers.
The parking lot opened on Aug. 11, 1978. It still stands today as a monolithic, uninteresting structure across from the Municipal Building on Canyon.

The Carnival died a premature death that year, its loyal keepers spreading to the four winds and other adventures. Surprisingly, many of the Carnies are still in touch with each other more than 30 years later. There is a website devoted to the memory of the Carnival Cafe with more than 50 members: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carnivalcafe.

The passing of the Carnival Cafe signified the passing of an era in Boulder. Boulder changed from being a simple Western town to one that had a more metropolitan outlook and an upscale feel.

Similar establishments soon met a similar demise. The popular Green Mountain Granary, one of the first real natural food stores in Boulder, was razed to make space for the Senior Citizens Center. Hanna Kroeger’s New Age Foods kept making wonderful, inexpensive nutritious meals into the ’80s, until the success of the Pearl Street Mall brought in higher-stakes businesses with big budgets that drove out most of the local stores.

It is sad that the Carnival Cafe is so forgotten today. It was truly a unique institution and one that left a big imprint on the city’s culture and consciousness during its short existence. It offered a cherished look at life as a dance waiting to be danced and a song waiting to be sung. It showed to those who experienced it that amongst all of one’s daily work and strife, you need to not just stop and smell the flowers along the way, but lay among them and be one yourself.

This article was written with help from the following individuals and institutions: Carnegie Library, the written documents of Marc Weiss, Steven Miles and Stephen Gassaway. Information was also gathered from Larry Dixon, Karen Kaushansky, Richard Convertito, Cedar Geiger, Doe Gregoire, Mark Gunther, Barbralu Fried and Perry Sprout.

Life is a carnival-The Band

Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell

Where Grass Entered the Picture

Seems not many of the writers so far want to delve into the subject of illicit drug use, particularly, the smoking of marijuana. Well, we’re all adults here, and so much time has passed that talking about it now seems as natural as pulling on those old blue jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts.

My very first toke on a joint was when I was the ripe old age of 15. I had a childhood friend who lived in Florida. I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, but spent summers at my uncle’s house in Hallandale, Florida. I spent most of my days with my aunt helping her--usually under protest--clean the house and tidying up while my uncle and cousins, who were a few years older than me, went out into the working world.

I remember one day my aunt and I were visiting a family friend, and I became bored. I asked my aunt if I could walk over to my old friend Karen’s house and hang out with her for awhile. I grew up next door to Karen, and we were the best of friends until I eventually moved away after fifth grade.

My aunt agreed to let me go, and off I went. It was a long, hot walk, but well worth getting away from two gossipy women sipping lemonade and talking about things I had absolutely no interest in.

It was late morning, and I got to Karen’s just as she was getting ready to go run some errands. She had her driver’s license, something I wouldn’t get for another couple of years, and she had a cute little VW bug. I know, so cliché, but honestly, she did, and she asked if I’d like to ride along.

“You bet I would!” I hurriedly answered. So, errands weren’t like the coolest thing to do, but having a friend who drove when you were still yearning to, well, that was close enough to the real thing for me.

Karen was cute, really cute, surfer Florida girl cute. She had long wavy blonde hair, a perpetual tan, and a perfect body. I was more curvy than Karen. She could wear the gypsy skirt, peasant blouse look well, I couldn’t. But I looked alright in a pair of shorts and sleeveless blouse, and while my hair was dark, long and wavy, not at all looking like the surfer Florida girl, I did have plenty of freckles.

Together, we were ok to look at and driving around town, well, we got some honks and some stares and I remember feeling so much freedom that day. No worries, just riding around town, hitting the store, the bank, doing odds and ends, grown up stuff when I hadn’t really realized that, in fact, it was about time I started acting more grown up.

When we were on our way home, Karen asked, “Have you ever smoked a joint before?” I wanted to act all cool and say yeah, but truth is, I never had, and since Karen and I went way back, she’d know I was lying anyways, so I told the truth. She pulled out a joint.

“Well, now you can see what it’s all about,” she told me, and she lit it up. My first drag on it was awful, I remember. The smoke really hurt my lungs. I had already tried cigarettes, but I wasn’t anything near being a smoker.

We passed the joint between us as she maneuvered in and out of traffic, and me? I kept my eyes out for the cops. I kept waiting for something magical to happen but the most I can honestly say I felt was maybe a bit happier, but high like I’d heard about from all the propaganda being thrown at us? No. I wasn’t high. I “wanted” to get high, to honestly feel how Karen was feeling, but never really did. I envied her. She had a car, she was cute as hell, had a boyfriend already, was entrenched in the hippie lifestyle, and she was high. I was none of those things.

Karen told me it was ok, my not feeling high right off the bat, that it happened to lots of people the first time cause they didn’t know what to expect. We got back to her house, and it was time for me to start walking back home to my uncle’s house. She told me to wait a minute, went into the house and came back out with a small joint.

“Here, for later. Maybe the second time will be better for you.”

It was at that precise moment I went from being an innocent onlooker to a part of the hippie generation. I was officially on the road to turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. I stuck the joint in my bra (Karen said it was the best place to hide it), and I set off toward my uncle’s house.

Maybe I did feel something after all. I sure as hell wasn’t the same girl that had made the trip to Karen’s house a few hours earlier. I had matured somehow. I had become one of “them.” The cool people. I never felt guilty, never felt like I was doing anything remotely wrong, and I never, ever wanted to look back.

Another Great Beatles Moment - Part I

by John Henrichs

Growing up in the 1960’s, it was difficult to find a radio station that wasn’t playing something by the Beatles. The “British Invasion” had come to the U.S. The airwaves were awash with the sound.

Living in a small town, and living in a relatively poor family, my siblings and I didn’t have new-fangled transistor radios like many of our peers. Instead, we had early 1950’s tube radios, many of which we had to rebuild to make them work.

Often times when I heard that my sister had a song on her radio that I wanted to hear, I had to run to my room and turn on my radio to listen to it. Needless to say, tube radios took forever to “warm up.” Usually, I would catch only the last few bars of the song. Of course I couldn’t simply listen to my sister’s radio in her room. We were not unlike most brothers and sisters that hated each other. My sister “Eggbert” was the worst! I have no idea where that name came from, but she wears it to this day. So I could hardly listen to her radio when I had one of my own.

Later, when I got a job, the hours were awful. As a result, I never got to actually see the Beatles perform. At least I got to follow the band through newspaper accounts until they broke up.

At the time, a girl I was dating told me she had tickets to the Paul McCartney and Wings concert. I was going to see at least one of the Beatles! It turns out she had somehow gotten tickets in the eighth row. I never did ask how she got them.

It was probably the best produced concert I had ever attended, the sound and theatrics were simply mind-blowing. But the one thing that got to me during the song, “Live and Let Die,” with the flash pots exploding and lights flashing on the stage, was the look of sheer joy on Paul McCartney’s face. He seemed to be having the time of his life.

I swear he looked out over the audience and our eyes connected. I felt his sheer exuberance. His smile lit up the whole arena, as he played and sang. I thought to myself that this indeed was nirvana. Someday, I wanted to follow suit, start my own band, and live like a rock star!

Sadly, work got the best of me, and after 38 years on the job, I can hardly get my hand around the neck of a guitar. But that moment remains fresh in my mind. Every time I hear that song, my mind goes back to that night long ago. There was a lesson to be learned—Do what you love, be who you want to be. Life is too short not to.

A Late Bloomer, but Nonetheless a True Flower Child

By: Carol Henrichs

Rarely am I moved by 'new' music. When I want to crank up the music, I generally rely on the 'oldies,' the songs that hold special, even intimate memories for me. I love how music, especially songs from our 'prime,' can conjure up thoughts and feelings in such a way as to seemingly transport us back to another time.

One particular artist that completely transforms me and even has the power to move me to tears is John Denver. Whenever one of his songs plays on the radio, I stop what I’m doing so I can listen and even sing along. John Denver’s music has always held a special place in my heart. I particularly love the lyrics of his song “Rhymes and Reasons.”

“The children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers. Their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day,...” The words to this song harkens back to my own philosophy of life.

Though “Rhymes and Reasons” wasn’t one of his most popular songs, and it is rarely played on the radio, it remains my favorite. “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” also holds special meaning for me because it had been my favorite song. I lived in a small town when it was popular and drove the country roads regularly. It was the song I always asked for in venues where live bands performed requests.

I was also particularly fond of “Rocky Mountain High,” “Sunshine on My Shoulder,” and another favorite, “Poems, Prayers, and Promises.” These can still be heard now and then on the radio. These and others were from John Denver’s Greatest Hits album, released in 1973, a tumultuous time in my life. 

Music was soothing to the soul and spirit. John Denver’s music allowed me to connect to a place deep within my heart. John Denver’s music sustained me for a very long time. The concepts behind the words he sang and the feelings he expressed were powerful and timeless. I practically wore out that CD, which I still play at times.

But the one particular memory that I hold dear occurred more than ten years later. I used to keep that CD in the car. When I got into the car, instead of turning on the radio, I turned on the CD player. John Denver’s voice was calming, casual, and familiar. It got to be familiar with my young song, Chris too. Whenever we would ride around on our way to picnics, chores, or out to lunch, we always did it to the sound of John Denver. I played other music too, but this was the old standby.

One day when we got into the car, Chris said, "Mommy, I love it when you sing." That of course came from my sweet, innocent four-year old who obviously hadn't developed maturity in his auditory organs yet. He is a grown man today and knows darn well that I can't sing a lick. I was never fooled by my own inability to carry a tune either. But that never stopped me. I have been singing along with my favorite tunes all my life. I guess this proves that even if you don't possess musical talent, you can still reap the benefit of musical magic.

When John Denver died, I felt like I lost a close, personal friend, probably not unlike so many other people who listened and felt a special connection to his music. I even saw him in concert once, with a dear friend. It was a sensational experience, a wonderful memory that I’m grateful to have and to hold onto. His music has endured. Even today, so many years later, for me, his music remains a powerful force.

There were the Beatles and Then, There were the Beatles

DECEMBER, 26 1963.

That was when my new clock radio went off unexpectedly. It was the exact moment that would change the course of my life. The new Christmas present that I had received the day before was not yet under my command, and it began blasting music in the middle of the Pennsylvania night. The rude awakening had me up and running to the radio before I was fully awake. I quickly turned down the volume and stood there in a sleep deprived stupor, staring out of the window at the flashing lights of the Naval Air Station far in the distance.

As I was about to turn the radio off, the D.J. said the most unlikely thing, "Here's a new record by a Rock and Roll band from England." At 13 years of age I was skeptical that any white person could play R&R, let alone a person from England. I asked myself, "What could people from England possibly know about R&R?" I was about to find out! A moment later I heard the distinctive voice of Paul McCartney, "One Two, Three, Fah!" My heart went Voom as I heard the powerful driving guitar sound of "I Saw Her Standing There!" Back to the sound of the basics; guitar, bass and drums. This was not the overproduced 'wall of sound' that had been dominating the airwaves. Youth culture had reinvented itself, as it would time and time again.

The next morning our family loaded into the Country Squire station wagon for our bi-annual road trip to the state of New Hampshire. We traveled two lane black top for the next five hundred miles. Every time we passed through a small town in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont I would reach over from the back seat to take control of the radio dial in an effort to locate this new sound. Normally my parents would have forbidden it, but it was already apparent that I was obsessed. Somewhere in the pine forests of New England I found it. The DJ's voice came booming out, "here's that new song by the Beatles you been calling about!" But to my surprise, it was not what I expected, It was the raw sound of John Lennon, I Want To' Hold Your Hand" The close harmony refrain of "I can’t hide, I can't hide", would haunt me for many years to come.

When we arrived in New Hampshire at the end of the day, I asked my cousin if he had heard the new band. He said, yes, but to my surprise he said, the song he heard was called, "She Loves You."

In the course of the next few days I heard, Please, Please Me, Twist and Shout, Love Me Do, P.S.I Love You ,and countless others, everyone a gem. It wasn't just good R&R, it was a cultural revolution. I began combing my hair differently, even though I had never seen a picture of them. It was a pivotal moment, not only for me, but for a generation. A full scale British Invasion was taking place. In the next few months The Rolling stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Animals, the Kinks, The Yardbirds, and many other English bands would take over the American airwaves. Youth culture had broadened its perspective and would never look back. I had found the soundtrack to my life, and a new way of seeing the world.

Now Fifty years later I have the complete works of The Beatles on my computer and I'm listening to it while I type this story.

Jackson.Ahern
Twin Falls, Idaho
February 17, 2013

You Can't Do That - Beatles

Ed note: Here is the first of many Beatles stories.

By Nancy Knipe

This is a story about Beatle songs and what they will drive one to do. Specifically I remember most of the music from the Beatles’ Second Album, especially “You Can’t Do That,” with Harrison’s 12-string guitar.

I’m a nice kid, now a nice, old kid. Never really got into trouble for some odd reason and was always doing the right thing. I didn’t grow up with much, and when my best friend, Janet, bought me a ticket to the Beatles’ concert at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Ohio, I thought I would die. The year was 1966. 

We arrived in Cincinnati, 5 girls, 4 of them with irons for their hair, and stayed in a well-established, some say questionable, hotel in the city. The day we arrived we all sat down to write Western Union Telegrams, which we promptly sent off to the only hotel in Cincinnati the Beatles were likely to stay in: the elegant Vernon Manor.

Then we all dressed in our finest shorts and blouses, all new of course, and taxied over to the hotel. That’s where we split up. Janet and I, still friends to this day, stayed together. We walked the perimeter of the hotel trying to decide the best entry point. Our other friends just walked into the lobby along with every other wobble-kneed teenager. 

Janet and I found a floor of windows close to the ground on a quiet side of the building.

We tried each window until we found one that would open. What luck! We slid the gargantuon thing slowly open and kept watch while each of us slid clumsily inside. 

What we climbed into was a totally dark, dusty holding area above the kitchen for old chairs and other furniture. We could look down through heavy chicken-type wire and see people working in the kitchen. We were careful not to knock things around and give ourselves up. But with no way to move beyond the furniture, we had to back out of the window and reassess our situation.

By now, of course, we were covered in black dirt. I still remember what I wore: beige shorts and a bright red polyester sleeveless turtleneck.  I thought I was hot. Now I was dirty and not really all that hot.

We decided maybe the front entrance would be more accessible, so we entered the huge lobby full of girls with board-straight hair and cute outfits. There were lights and cameras and news people interviewing all the enthusiastic fans. Janet and I were looking for bigger fish. 

We slid down a corridor and found the stairs. Once in the stairwell, we ran for our lives up to the third floor where we stopped, opened the door, decided it was too quiet, and shot up another two floors. We entered the hotel corridor on the fifth floor in front of a huge window which overlooked the pool. Two suited men came from nowhere and pushed the elevator button. 

“Oh look,” I pretended, “there’s Mrs. Schneider and her daughter,” as though we were guests. 

“Oh, and Sheila,” Janet chimed in. 

The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened, and one of the men turned to us and said, “Let’s go girls.” We rode down to the lobby with five suited men, three of them English.

Not the Beatles, but quite possibly Brian Epstein and who knows who else. 

We were promptly thrown out of the hotel. Later we learned that the Beatles had taken all of the third floor, and the fifth floor was being used by their managers. So close, yet so far away.

You know you can’t do that.

Love at the Armadillo World HQ

By Sheryl Arbuckle Green

On one of the first dates with my husband, we went to the Armadillo beer garden to hear Uncle Walt's Band.

Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood, and David Ball were three young musicians whose harmony was so natural and perfect it gave me chill bumps. I contacted Warren Hood, Champ Hood’s son, on Facebook a while ago and told him his dad was responsible for my two sons.

"Wait! Let me explain, Warren. My husband and I have been married for nearly thirty years and still listen to 'Ruby' and 'Aloha'. Your dad's music is a landmark in my life," I told him.

Warren did his dad proud. When I see him perform, I think of that night at Armadillo; a pitcher of cold Lone Star beer, nachos with jalapenos piled high, and falling in love.

Seems lots of readers on here remember Armadillo World Headquarters, so, thanks to Sheryl Arbuckle Green, I'm posting a picture to get you all started down memory lane. And for those who've never lived in Austin, well, you've never lived...just kidding...no really...

How I Attained Hippie-hood at the Armadillo World Headquarters

By Brad

I love music. I've loved it as long as I can remember. It calms me, it pumps me up, it grounds me, and it inspires me to grow. My first concert was Rare Earth in San Antonio. I paid a whopping four dollars and fifty cents per ticket. I took three friends with me and had a blast.

I was a wannabe hippy, still living under my parents strict rules. My dad was a school administrator and enforcer of a ridiculous dress code, which really cramped my style, or lack thereof.

My favorite band was the Beatles, and they still are to this day. They are the only band I would have gone to the crossroads to see. Finally, on my own and fit to be tie-died, I had to settle for bands like Cooper, Dillon, Tull, Zepplin, Stones, Clapton, Santana, Frampton, Little Feat, Bad Company, Fleetwood Mac, America, Steve Miller, ZZ Top, Trapeze, The Eagles, Heart, Jefferson Starship, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Steppenwolf, Tom Petty, Chicago, Marshall Tucker, John Fogarty, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan and on and on.

I attended many indoor shows, and some of the strangest outdoor concerts that shaved years off of my life. I love those memories, but one of my favorite moments had to be at my hang out in 1974--The Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas. I drank my share of Shiner, Pabst, and Lone Star beer. I burned my share of holes in the not so plush carpet at center stage. I could drink, smoke, whoop and holler, pass out, and be the real hippie I always wanted to be.

My special moment came unexpectedly one Saturday night when Brewer & Shipley, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and special guest Roger McGwinn of the Byrds, took the stage and sang "One Toke Over the Line." Sweet Jesus! Bullets started flying from every direction, as the floor of the stage turned yellow and white. Magic, love, peace, and smoke filled the air. Oh, how I miss the good ol' days.

On Wanting to be Cool

By Patti Beckert

There I was, sitting by the side of the road on a steel bar, swinging my barefoot feet and acting all cool and shit and hoping that just one of my friends would come by and say something to me like “Wow, you look just like a hippie.” But when that didn’t happen--after what seemed about an hour or so of just sitting there and trying to be that cool hippie chick--I gave up and went over to my friend Christine’s house to watch the Monkees, then went home to do homework, forgetting all about being cool because, after all, I did have a life.

1970 – Lori Tennant Remembers Her Friends

1970.  Not so long ago if you put it on a timeline. But it took years to get to 1970.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1954 ruling, public schools were required to integrate.  But a Superintendent by the name of O.K. Phillips declared that schools in Broward County would continue the policy of segregation. 

That all changed in 1961 when a black student, Chester Seabury, entered Stranahan High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to become the first black student in an all-white public school.  He graduated from that school in 1963.

John Lennon’s 1969 single, Give Peace a Chance, was a song that played over and over at the Fire Drill Talent Show at McArthur High School in Hollywood, Florida, Broward County.  It’s the song I remember most vividly, because it was timely.  Many of my friends at McArthur were black—Ron, George, Baby Tonia, just to name a few.  I can’t imagine not having them as friends. 

In the scheme of things, 1970 isn’t much older than integration itself.  Not in Florida.

And that one song is such a beautiful reminder of what we are all capable of.

Ed note: Historical info provided by Nancy Knipe

How Important is Music to the Boomers, or Anyone for that Matter?

This entire blog is about how certain songs in our lives have helped us to remember different times, be it happy, sad, or otherwise. Songs evoke feelings when we hear them for the first time, but more importantly, certain songs that we really like, that we associate with certain moods will haunt us for the rest of our lives—not necessarily in a bad way--actually, not in a bad way at all.

Studies have been done on Alzheimer’s patients wherein music is played to evoke emotions. It was found that music from a person’s early adult years, i.e. 18-25, get the strongest responses and greater instance of engagement.

While the study doesn’t specify exactly which songs evoke the strongest reactions, I can pretty well bet when a Led Zeppelin or Beatles, or Jefferson Airplane song is played for an Alzheimer’s patient, even in the last stages of the illness, a sparkle will come to their eyes and they’ll remember just why the 60’s were such an incredible time to be alive.

This is for all of us…to help us remember and to share those memories while we still can.

Enjoy the trip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfAHsiTHWfQ