***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- Classic Rock: 1966: Shakin’ All Over-“You Are On The Bus Or Off The Bus”- The Transformation Of “Foul-Mouth” Phil Into “Far-Out” Phil- With Mad Writer Ken Kesey And His Merry Pranksters In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Sweet Talkin’ Guy

CD Review

Classic Rock: 1966: Shakin’ All Over, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1998

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the pieces of artwork that graces each CD in this series. In this case, this 1966 case, the then almost ubiquitous merry prankster-edged converted yellow brick road school bus, complete with assorted vagabond minstrel/ road warrior/ah, hippies, that “ruled” the mid-1960s highway and by-ways in search of the great American freedom night. We never found it in the end, but the search was worth it then, and still worth it now.
*****
A rickety, ticky-tack, bounce over every bump in the road to high heaven, gear-shrieking school bus. But not just any yellow brick road school bus that you rode to various educationally good for you locations like movie houses, half yawn, science museums, yawn, art museums, yawn, yawn, or wind-wept picnic areas for some fool weenie roast, two yawns there too, when you were a school kid. And certainly not your hour to get home daily grind school bus, complete with surly driver (male or female, although truth to tell the females were worst since they acted just like your mother, and maybe were acting on orders from her) that got you through K-12 in one piece, and you even got to not notice the bounces to high heaven over every bump of burp in the road. No, my friends, my comrades, my brethren this is god’s own bus commandeered to navigate the highways and by-ways of the 1960s come flame or flash-out.

Yes, it is rickety, and all those other descriptive words mentioned above in regard to school day buses. That is the nature of such ill-meant mechanical contraptions after all. But this one is custom-ordered, no, maybe that is the wrong way to put it, this is “karma” ordered to take a motley crew of free-spirits on the roads to seek a “newer world,” to seek the meaning of what one persistent blogger on the subject has described as "the search for the great blue-pink American Western night."

Naturally to keep its first purpose intact this heaven-bound vehicle is left with its mustard yellow body surface underneath but over that primer the surface has been transformed by generations (generations here signifying not twenty-year cycles but trips west, and east) of, well, folk art, said folk art being heavily weighted toward graffiti, toward psychedelic day-glo hotpinkorangelemonlime splashes and zodiacally meaningful symbols. And the interior. Most of those hardback seats that captured every bounce of childhood have been ripped out and discarded to who knows where and replaced by mattresses, many layers of mattresses for this bus is not merely for travel but for home. To complete the “homey” effect there are stored, helter-skelter, in the back coolers, assorted pots and pans, mismatched dishware, nobody’s idea of the family heirloom china, boxes of dried foods and condiments, duffle bags full of clothes, clean and unclean, blankets, sheets, and pillows, again clean and unclean.

Let’s put it this way, if someone wants to make a family hell-broth stew there is nothing in the way to stop them. But also know this, and know it now, as we start to focus on this journey that food, the preparation of food, and the desire, except in the wee hours when the body craves something inside, is a very distant concern for these “campers.” If food is what you desired in the foreboding 1960s be-bop night take a cruise ship to nowhere or a train (if you can find one), some southern pacific, great northern, union pacific, and work out your dilemma in the dining car. Of course, no heaven-send, merry prankster-ish yellow brick road school bus would be complete without a high-grade stereo system to blast the now obligatory “acid rock” coming through the radiator practically, although just now, as a goof, it has to be a goof, right, one can hear Nancy Sinatra, christ, Frank’s daughter how square is that, churning out These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.

And the driver. No, not mother-sent, mother-agent, old Mrs. Henderson, who prattled on about keep in your seats and be quiet while she is driving (maybe that, subconsciously, is why the seats were ripped out long ago on the very first “voyage” west). No way, but a very, very close imitation of the god-like prince-driver of the road, the "on the road” pioneer, Neal Cassady, shifting those gears very gently but also very sure-handedly so no one notices those bumps (or else is so stoned, drug or music stoned, that those things pass like so much wind). His name: Cruising Casey (real name, Charles Kendall, Harverford College Class of ’64, but just this minute, Cruising Casey, mad man searching for the great American be-bop night under the extreme influence of one Ken Kesey, the max-daddy mad man of the great search just then). And just now over that jerry-rigged big boom sound system, again as if to mock the newer world abrewin’ The Vogues’ Five O’ Clock World.

And the passengers. Well, no one is exactly sure, as the bus approaches the outskirts of Denver, because this is strictly a revolving cast of characters depending on who was hitchhiking on that desolate back road State Route 5 in Iowa, or County Road 16 in Nebraska, and desperately needed to be picked up, or face time, and not nice time with a buzz on, in some small town pokey. Or it might depend on who decided to pull up stakes at some outback campsite and get on the bus for a spell, and decide if they were, or were not, on the bus. After all even all-day highs, all-night sex, and 24/7 just hanging around listening to the music, especially when you are ready to scratch a blackboard over the selections like the one on now, James and Bobby Purify’s I’m Your Puppet, is not for everyone.

We do know for sure that Casey is driving, and still driving effortlessly so the harsh realities of his massive drug intake have not hit yet, or maybe he really is superman. And, well, that the “leader” here is Captain Crunch since it is “his” bus paid for out of some murky deal, probably a youthful drug deal, (real name, Samuel Jackman, Columbia, Class of 1958, who long ago gave up searching, searching for anything, and just hooked into the idea of "taking the ride"), Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Michigan, Class of 1959, ditto on the searching thing), his girlfriend, (although not exclusively, not exclusively by her choice , not his, and he is not happy about it for lots of reasons which need not detain us here). Most of the rest of the “passengers” have monikers like Silver City Slim, Luscious Lois (and she really is), Penny Pot (guess why), Moon Man, Flash Gordon (from out in space somewhere, literally, as he tells it), Denver Dennis (from New York City, go figure), and the like. They also have real names that indicate that they are from somewhere that has nothing to do with public housing projects, ghettos or barrios. And they are also, or almost all are, twenty-somethings that have some highly-rated college years after their names, graduated or not). And they are all either searching or, like the Captain, at a stage where they are just hooked into taking the ride.

One young man, however, sticks out, well, not sticks out, since he is dressed in de rigeur bell-bottomed blue jeans, olive green World War II surplus army jacket (against the mountain colds, smart boy), Chuck Taylor sneakers, long, flowing hair and beard (well, wisp of a beard) and on his head a rakish tam just to be a little different, “Far Out” Phil (real name Phillip Larkin, North Adamsville High School Class of 1964). And why Far Out sticks out is not only that he has no college year after his name, for one thing, but more importantly, that he is nothing but a old-time working class neighborhood corner boy from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor back in North Adamsville, a close-by suburb of Boston.

Of course then Far Out Phil was known, and rightly so as any girl, self-respecting or not, could tell you as “Foul-Mouth” Phil, the world champion swearer of the 1960s North Adamsville (and Adamsville Beach) be-bop night. And right now Far Out, having just ingested a capsule of some illegal substance (not LSD, probably mescaline) is talking to Luscious Lois, talking up a storm without one swear word in use, and she is listening, gleam in her eye listening, as ironically, perhaps, The Chiffons Sweet Talkin’ Guy is beaming forth out of his little battery-powered transistor radio (look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t know about primitive musical technology) that he has carried with him since junior high school. The winds of change do shift, do shift indeed.

***Out In The Be-Bop Doo Wop Night- The Night Red Rock Doo Wopped

CD Review

25 All-Time Doo Wop Hits, various artists, Varese Sarabonde Records, 2002

Road weary, yes, road weary all right that is what Fritz Taylor said to himself repeatedly as he waited, waited his third hour waited, by this god-forsaken exit just off Interstate 40 heading west out of Albuquerque on the seemingly endless hitchhike road. This trip had more than its fair share of mishaps. Road weary let’s just call it that, and let’s call it also a sudden realization by Fritz that something was not right in the world, the hitchhike world. For example, a couple of years back there was no way in hell, or god’s good green earth, have it your way, that poster hippie hitchhike boy, Fritz Taylor, would be standing for his third hour, christ, his third hour, on a major highway west looking for a ride.

Not Fritz, decked out in obligatory olive drab army jacket (World War II version, bought at some ubiquitous Army-Navy surplus store not earned by military duty, although he did serve it was just that he couldn’t bear to wear anything that reminded him of ‘Nam), slightly faded, faded from too much washing and wear blue jeans, sturdy, reliable, purposeful work boots (although sometimes they felt like lead, heavy atomic lead, when he had to walk to some more practical road in search of a ride), bedroll nicely slung over one shoulder, a small green knapsack over the other carrying, in toto, all his worldly goods. Something was definitely off-kilter in his world in this year, this 1974 year that had started out with so much promise. Now in hard August, hard hitchhike road August, no girl, no home except the road, no real dough, and no prospects, add in no sense of order in his universe and there you have it. A serious recipe for road weariness.

Deep in those bleak house thoughts Fritz almost missed the Volkswagen mini-bus that was slowing down just ahead of him. Or maybe, reflecting on the bleak road idea, he no longer believed, except as apparitions, old time mini-buses, or converted yellow brick multi-colored school buses that trolled the roads in great profusion just a couple of years back still existed. This trip had been dealt out, been pushed forward, mainly, by tired big-load cross-country truckers looking for white-line road company, a son’s company really, and by an occasional curious tourist-type wondering, probably wondering hard, why a good looking, although oddly dressed, young man who looked like he knew what he was doing was out on some no job, no home, no prospects road in Muncie, Indiana, Moline, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas or a million other just names stops on the road west.

“Hey, brother where are you heading?” came a question for the front passenger seat of the now fully stopped van. And the question, once Fritz came to his road senses, was uttered by a very sweet-looking woman all dressed in Native American regalia. “Los Angeles, and then Big Sur” answered Fritz. “Oh, we are going to the Intertribal gathering just up the road at Red Rock for a few days and then heading to Joshua Tree, does that help you?,” came the sing-song response. Fritz, for just a minute, thought that he would thank them for stopping but that he needed a longer ride and needed to make faster time pass but that sing-song voice, that van apparition, and just that flat-out road weariness made him say “Hell, yes, it’s good to see fellow freaks on the road, it has been a while. What are you guys the lost tribe that they are always talking about in the books?” That brought a chuckle from the occupants of the van as the side door slid open and Fritz threw his gear on to a mattress, maybe two mattresses, that filled the floor of the whole back portion of the van. And on that matting were two kindred guys, and a youngish woman, a girl really. “Hi, I’m Fritz,” he said as he closed the door and the van started up. “Hi, I’m Zeke,” Hi, I’m Benjy,” yelled the two kindred over the roar of the engine. ‘I’m Moonbeam,” whispered the girl, who actually, on closer inspection was older than a girl and also clearly deep in some mystical drug experience, either coming down or going up Fritz could not tell. From the front the sing-song voice called out her name, “I’m Sally Running Water and I am one-sixteenth Hopi,” and the driver yelled out, “Hi, I’m Doc and I know how to cure you,” as he passed back a pipe filled with some herb. “We are the Pink Fogs and we’ve just finished a rock concert in Austin and Sally wanted to go to the Intertribal to see some of her people before we head to Joshua Tree for the big alterno-rock jam that will put us on the rock ‘n’ rock map.” Just them Doc, steady, rock-like Doc, who was the obvious leader of this group, maybe more like a flock shepard turned the tape deck up and the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter came blasting away at us and they all, collectively, started blasting away at it in response-yes, "it’s just a shot away, just a shot away." Fritz, now a little high from that passed pipe, thought yes I finally made a right decision, these are my people, lost tribe or not.

Between this and that it was dark, very dark but also star-bright dark, where they got to Red Rock, found their assigned site and started to set up kitchen stuff for a meal, and prepare the van for sleeping, if sleeping time ever came. Doc, as Docs will do, started a fire from some heavy brush gathered in the area, and Fritz noticed as he hadn’t before in the dark that the campsite was adjacent to a high cavern wall and as the flames of the fire grew stronger he could see shadows, almost human form shadows bouncing off those walls. And in the distance, although he, to be honest was too stoned to know how distant, he could hear the steady, slow, rhythmic pounding of the war drums, or rain drums, or just plain entertaining drums that provided an almost mesmerizing effect. Fritz also noticed that Sally and Doc seemed to be sitting together just now, her head on his shoulder, listening to that same incessant hypnotic sound. And Zeke and Moonbeam were doing the same. Benjy was sitting by himself, off to the side just a little, and maybe a little miffed that he had “lost” the girl wars. And of course Fritz, new boy Fritz, was left to fend for himself. And just that moment he wished, he wished to high heaven, that he had not been girl-less and wished that Cindy was here with him.

Suddenly the air was filled not only with the tattoo of drums but sounds of rattles and some almost bass guitar sound. And that sudden change brought the little Pink Fog campsite to life. Because, for whatever reason, Doc started singing out in a very strong bass the words to that old time doo- wop rock song by the Five Satins, In The Still Of The Night, and his fellow Pink Fogs joined in on the harmony, even Benjy. Hell, even Fritz did a low-slung harmony just to help fill the air. And Doc, or Doc and Sally, or just Sally, Fritz never did quite figure it out after than song was over, started up on The Penquins Earth Angel and that really got Fritz kind of weepy for Cindy, and for his not so long ago lost youth.

But here is the real funny, funny odd, part. Fritz noticed as the flames flickered from the campfire that on the walls he could see human figures, women’s figures, a couple anyway, and when he looked over in the dark he noticed that a couple of young women, twenty-ish women from what he could tell, women who in any case knew, knew as well as he did the words, and, more importantly, the spirit and growing up absurd meaning behind the songs, and were moving closer to the circle. Then, like it was contagious, Zeke started in on the Capris’ There’s A Moon Out Tonight (and there was) and all joined in. Fritz waved the two shadowy women toward the circle and noticed that in the meantime they had been joined by two other youngish, twenty-ish women.

Benjy got into the act having also noticed the bevy of women standing in some ill-defined outer circle and bellowed out Don & Juan’s What’s Your Name and backed it up with Robert & Johnny’s We Belong Together. The other members of the troupe backing him up, backing him up big time. Now they are all in one circle, even Benjy is in tight, and with the drums and other instruments still beating time for them Fritz starts out low-voiced just above a whisper Johnnie & Joe’s Over The Mountain; Across The Sea as one of the women moved over to sit right next to him, almost on his lap. And that night, that ancient flame, ancient sounds starry night, was the night Red Rock did indeed doo-wop.

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die- British Style- “Pirate Radio”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the movie trailer for Pirate Radio.

DVD Review

Pirate Radio, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Richard Curtis, Focus Film, 2009

First Question: Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll? Well, of course, Bo Diddley (okay, okay others too). Second Question: Who brought rock ‘n’ roll to your double-locked bedroom, dank cellar, storage-filled garage, or other secret ear place back in old time battery-operated transistor radio (pre-iPod, alright) days? Well, of course, your local dee-jay who helped you while away your night, your dream-plagued rock ‘n’ roll night, with his (mainly) mile-a-minute-banter, selection of platters (records, pre-CD, DVD, iTune, youtube, you’ve heard about them, right?), and, yes, selected advertising targeted to the newly enriched (maybe) teenager with disposable dollars. Such names as Allan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Murry the K, and Arnie Ginsberg come quickly to mind. And although the music, praise be, outlasted the careers and remembrance of that lot this classic rock period is associated in my mind (and yours too, I bet) with that very dee-jay night. And that, my friends, is the premise behind this very nicely done trip down rock memory land- British version.

In many ways the British 1960s rock explosion paralleled the American classic rock scene, although later than that genre’s American 1950s heyday. The greatest difference, however, is the way that British audiences heard their rock- literally through the pirate radio of the title. Off-shore, out in the ocean depths, white waves splashing against some barnacled old tub of a ship, rock radio. Without getting into the ins and outs of British broadcasting traditions the battle, the age-old battle really, here is between those who wanted to listen to rock and not just in that double-locked bedroom mentioned above, and those nasty governmental officials and their hangers-on who want to outlaw it by shutting down this uncontrolled method. That battle drives the tension and plot line to almost bizarre (by today’s cyberspace standards) ends. But what this film is about is a bunch of guys (mainly, again) who loved to play rock, who loved to present it in their own fashion, and who wanted the fame, fortune (and, incidental sex) that came with heroic dee-jay-dom.

This motley crew is ready to go down with the ship, literally, in order to keep rock freedom alive. Of course there are more than a few gag (British gag, ala Monty Python) scenes that are better left unmentioned but this is a feel good movie with plenty of drugs, sex, and rock and roll on the high seas. Jesus. You might ask what was wrong with that? Ah, come to think of it what was wrong with that? The cast includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman (a very versatile actor when you realize that he also played American novelist Truman Capote in the In Cold Blood execution-driven drama Tru) as the Count, the only American in the lot. But this whole mix of radio personalities is a good out in the seas rock night, late night, early morning and so on. So, here is the drill. Bo (and, yes, others) put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll but the Count and the boys put the bop in the be-bop pirate radio night. See this one.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- Westward Ho!

Al Johnson comment:

The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search mentioned in the headline .

Scene Six: Westward Ho! In The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night


As I stepped down onto the yellow-sunned, farm-fresh soil from the farm-fresh cab of the farm-fresh truck that had deposited Angelica and I out into the waving-fielded, farm-fresh Neola, Iowa September day I quickly flashed back to stepping down from Colonel Eddie’s truck cab in Winchester, Kentucky that had started this whole segment of the trip westward. Christ that seemed like an eternity ago although it had been only a few summer heated, summer sweat-soaked heated weeks. Life on the road had it own tempos but this one, for reasons that I will discuss later, had run out of tempo and we were living on pure fumes just then.

While I am thinking about Winchester, Kentucky I might as well tell you what had happened since then to get us here to yellowed-sunned, waving-fielded, farm-fresh country and that will go a long way to explaining our need, our desperate need, for a jump start. Needless to say if you read the last scene, the scene where fair Angelica and me are kicking our heels up at a barn dance (and kicking those same heels after as well) in greater Prestonsburg, Kentucky and me about four sheets to the wind, no five or six sheets to the wind from the local , well-aged (about six minutes) “white lightning” then you know that we, thanks to Angelica, got promised a ride from Prestonsburg to Winchester which is just outside of Lexington, Kentucky.

Our chauffer, our Angelica-smitten chauffer, for the occasion turned out to be one ancient hard-driving (as we quickly found out), hard-drinking (as I knew from his condition as we met up with him), ghost of a truck-driving Colonel Eddie. (The colonel part is made-up, made up by him, all these Kentucky guys from the lowliest pig farmer on up call themselves that, or did back then. I think for about two bucks you could get yourself an “official” certificate designating you as such. If old Eddie had been a “real” colonel then that would go a long way to explaining the South’s righteous lost back in Civil War days). And despite this awful build-up of the guy, and a little off-hand character assassination above, he actually got us there, to Winchester that is, in one piece. Colonel Eddie was one the last of the good old boys, for sure.

What that one piece, by the way, looked like after traveling more back roads in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that seemed humanly possible in order to us get there is another story. See that is where the “white lighting” (rotgut, according to a somewhat miffed Angelica) had something like seven lives. Every time I thought I was feeling better, just a tiny it better like maybe I would actually survive the day, we would hit a double-reverse triple somersault hairpin turn followed by a triple-reverse double somersault hairpin turn that made me wish that, if there was any mercy in this flea-bitten old world, we would just go over the top down into some heavenly embankment and be done with it. But, as I said, we got there, and although we were pinching pennies a little, my condition was terminal and we needed, as a matter of simple primitive medical wisdom, to stay at one of those cheapjack motels that dot the back roads of this world to rest up for future battles, for future tilts at the westward windmills.

No, I am not going to descript this cheapjack motel, this back road, and what did or did not happen there, for the simple reason that I don’t really remember much about what it looked like it, or what happened there. Except this, this is etched in my brain and I can feel the cool- handed, cool-toweled sensation even as I am writing. Angelica, miffed or not, had taken a towel, wrapped some ice from the ubiquitous, usually whiskey fixings-friendly motel ice machine in it, and placed it on my forehead and held her hand on the compress for a while until I fell asleep. Of such kindnesses long-lasting civilizations should be created.

But enough of medical reports and folk wisdom medicines, sweet gestured or not. We were on the road west now, the blue-pink road west and for the first time since Angelica and I had met really on our own. Winchester, Kentucky heading to Lexington on our way west. Next morning, next already hot, steamy, sulky July Monday morning, having had a decent night’s recovery, and a thimbleful of food in my stomach to be on the safe side, we are off. Tonight we will sleep in no “bourgeois” roadside motel, ice cubes included free of charge or not, but out in the great outdoors, out in the promised great American night, and save our dwindling cash for stormier times. Thumb out, Angelica thumb out here, and we are indeed off. A half hour later after being picked up by a wayward sedan, driven by a nondescript but kindly driver, we are on the road to Lexington. And arrive we do without fanfare, or flourish.

This is really what is important about Lexington though. See, like I told you and I know I told Angelica before, that suitcase that she had packed up for Steubenville in her Muncie break-out days was fine to live out of for Steubenville motel cabin existences but no good on the hitchhike road, of whatever color. I didn’t tell you this before because Angelica had been such a trouper, especially with that ice-encrusted towel, but she had complained like hell about the damn dangling suitcase every time we had to push on in a hurry. Truth be told I had carried the thing more than she had, invalided as I was. So when we hit Lexington we hit the first Army-Navy store we could find to get her one of those fungible mountaineer backpacks.

Army-Navy store? Ya, Army-Navy store. Don’t snicker about so, well, about so yesterday, okay? Out on the hitchhike road you needed sturdy stuff, whatever it was you needed, because stuff got pretty banged around and your “faux” hitchhike road designer goods would last about seven miles (or about as long as the owner of such goods would be on the road before hailing a cab to the nearest airport). And as much as we hated the notion of deadly military weapons and anything military in those days we, we of youth nation, were strangely drawn to that fashion look, and the indestructible nature of their “camping” equipment. Besides the stuff was cheap, remember it was bought as World War II surplus mainly, hell, maybe World War I, but cheap.

Naturally, as events kept unfolding Angelica was showing more and more her origins as a Midwestern flower, and although a total stranger to such a place was thrilled (and mystified) by this place, including the odd , musty smell that goes with such stores. I will quote her, “Wow, does all this stuff really work?” So you can see by that simple statement that, every once in a while, she will throw out her Indiana naïve to confuse me. In any case, soon enough she will know whether it works or not. Of course she took forever to decide on which of two types of olive green backpacks “fit” her. Christ, women (oops, sorry). After that we made other purchases in order to set up “housekeeping”. Like. Well, like a small very portable army pup tent, complete with staves, to shelter us from storms and summer bugs. And a couple of canteens, small useful three-prong knives, a shovel, and mess kits.

I, as I write this, still smile over the fact that Angelica talked for days about how whoever invented such a useful thing as a mess kit was a genius, a pure genius. So you see again what I meant about that Muncie thing. Best of all to her sheer unmitigated delight we purchased a warm, cozy, snuggly army surplus sleeping bag (hey, the best kind okay, you can’t have soldiers freezing their buns off in Alaska, Korea, Northern China or wherever). And also delighted, blushingly delighted, when I, off-handedly, whispered in her ear about how many people could fit inside the thing, in a pinch. And, finally, a green (naturally) army blanket, for emergencies, real emergencies, not those in a pinch kind.

After completing those purchases we stepped just outside the store door to a nearby bench, placed there probably for just such purposes, and ceremoniously transferred her stuff from the suitcase to the backpack. Here is the kicker though, which may tell about human nature or maybe not. I just kind of threw everything into my knapsack and hoped for the best. Hope, for example, that a pair of socks, matched, showed up when needed. Angelica, as I noticed back in the Steubenville pack-up, neat of suitcase also took pains (and would do so throughout the trip) to keep her stuff organized just like in the suitcase. I wonder if we had decided that plastic bags were absolutely the best for travel gear whether she would have done the same. Probably. In any case, Angelica’s yesterday Angelica miffs had turned around and she was beaming, at me, at her new existence, at the whole wide world for all I know. I liked it, I told her so, and we are off to a campground just outside of town that the Army-Navy store owner told me about to “camp out” in the great dark American night. Hell, even I was excited. Still I noticed, just a glimmer of a notice, that she turned back wistfully for just a second to take one last look at the suitcase that we left on that bench for someone else in need.

Every once in awhile, just as things are going right and this old world seems full of bright-eyed possibilities, things get twisted around. Let me tell you about it and see what you think. As we were walking, Angelica proudly practically hip-hop walking with her new backpack bouncing up and down with each step, decided she needed to discuss something, one of our little “adjustments” talks. Apparently the miffed Angelica of yesterday was not so much miffed at my condition as that when we went to sign in at that cheapjack motel I wrote down my real name and her real name indicating that we weren’t married, or at least not related. Some primordial sense of modesty, no, I know, just Muncie conventionality, made her feel ashamed.

Christ Angelica, there is not one cheapjack (or five star, for that matter) motel, hotel, inn,
Youth hostel, ashram, whatever in the whole world that in the year 1969 cares who you sign in as. I could have put down Queen Elizabeth and Richard Nixon (although that combination might have raised my eyebrow) and they would have been nonplussed, as long as the coin of the realm, cash, was in hand. I didn’t put quotation marks around the above sentences but I think I could have because that, in my mind’s eye, is probably exactly what I said to her. Her plea, and here I will quote, “I feel ashamed and like a tramp (exact word) and couldn’t we just say we were married when we signed into places?” Apparently the time I was going to spend with this woman was going to be filled with throwing in towels because that is just what I did, I agree to this proposition. Why? Well, in those days I, frankly, didn’t have an opinion, at least a strong opinion, about married or not married and to keep peace I conceded the point. Now would be a different story. But, hell, let’s get to the camp and the great American night.

There are camp sites and there are camp sites. Today you can belly up to some sites with your seven ton, overloaded monster “trailer” home and put in plug or two and act just like you never left Cicero, Albany, or whatever your port of origin. Or you can go back up into the hills, some forlorn shaggy hills, mainly some Western hills these days, carrying in with you whatever you are going to bring on your back, and be not that far removed from those old pioneers who feared every dangerous animal, dangerous man, dangerous natural condition step of the western way, and carried on nevertheless. The real westward ho crowd. That day though Angelica and I found ourselves at a plain old-timey campsite which we could see from the road in was dotted with various tents, some small trailers sitting in the beds of pick-up trucks, some free-form trailers pulled by trucks and a couple of psychedelically multi-colored converted school buses. The last had been popping up on the road ever since people started hearing about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters and their mad eastward escapades a few years earlier. Not a monster trailer in the house, a good sign. I can see a little river as well. Best of all there a small supermarket right across the street. Yes, this portends to be a great American night, and maybe nights.

After I passed the test at the camp office we went to our site, a cozy little site for a tent not too far from the river. What test? Come on now, pay attention, you know the test. Did I or did I not sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. (no Ms. then). Well, I am still sitting here writing this thing so of course I did. Angelica was beaming, beaming like an old married lady (at nineteen, jesus) but, maybe, just maybe because her “hubby” played it straight with her. (I never did get all the details, and she never put them all out there for me, but back in staid old homey Muncie some guys definitely did her wrong, tramp-treating wrong). Of course unlike the “bourgeois” upper class dwellers here in their little campers we were primitives (a word I have actually seen used to designate some campsites) and had to set up camp from scratch. Hell, we had more fun trying to set that damn Army-Navy tent and setting up for dinner on our little fireplace. There are not many times in life when just a couple of goofy, simple things provided so much entertainment. We napped then feasted.

As it got dark though I heard some music, the Stones, I think coming from one of the multi-colored painted, converted buses down the dirt lane. Nothing loud, but also something that said “youth nation” among the families of three and four that seemed to dominate the camp. We moseyed (like it?) on down and as we got closer I knew we had found kindred spirits, at least I thought we had. Angelica said, “What’s that strange smell?” Of course it was nothing but grass (marijuana, herb, ganja, whatever your term), and from the smell high-grade stuff. I thereafter proceeded to tell Angelica the “skinny”. She seemed a little non-plussed by the news but, however, confessed that she had never smoked or done any other drugs. And from the tone of that response seemingly did not want to.

Those were good and simple days to be young, especially on a road situation like this. Perfect strangers, unknown to one another, except by a telltale beard, or longhair, or long dresses or some slightly off-key sign, immediately embraced and as a welcome “gift” passed you a joint (or whatever drug of choice was available that day) and you passed whatever you had. We had some store-bought wine. I knew, knew from hard Arizona and Connecticut experiences, as well as the lore of the road, that carrying drugs was not “cool.” Many a road comrade spent many a night in some godforsaken cooler for making that mistake when the grim-reaper, usually small town, cops needed to boost their arrest records. Thus, for me it was nice to have a chance to get “high.” (inhaling even) although Angelica passed and was happy getting a little silly on the wine. We spent a nice night hanging out, listening to the Stones and the Doors, and a couple of other things that I don’t remember. I do remember, as we went back to our own site to turn in, that Angelica said she finally “got” what her parents, her neighbors, her minister, her schoolteachers, and some of her former boyfriends were afraid of. The feared great boxed-in break-out. She started to go on about it, but I gave her a knowing “preaching to the choir” smile and she stopped.

We wound up staying for few days, got to know most of the twelve or fifteen people connected with the buses (two at two adjoining sites, actually) and found out that they were on “vacation” from a little farm house that they all lived in communally, including some primitive farming and weaving to keep body and soul together, just outside of Springfield, Illinois. They were leaving Saturday morning and we were welcome to join them and stay at the farm for a while. We talked it over and it seemed right, especially for Angelica, as we could by-pass sweet home Indiana that she wanted avoid at all costs, so we left with them. That Saturday morning Angelica with great tenderness, and by herself, struck our camp (“our home” she called it by the end) as we prepared for the next leg of our journey. Ah, pioneer woman.

You know some towns you can say that you have been in but that is misleading. You might have passed through them, you might have been caught having to sleep on some forsaken bench in some lonely bus stop there, or stretched a watery cup of joe in some lonelier diner against some cold , rainy night wait, or, in flusher times, just hopped on a plane out of the place. So, yes you can tick that town off on your map as you move along in the world but you don’t know the town, no way. That is my recollection of Springfield. Oh sure I knew it was Lincoln’s home area, I knew it was the capital of the state of Illinois, I knew that people in that area were not Mayor Daly’s (the first one) people and that there was plenty of farmland there. But Springfield on this trip (or ever) was just that dot on the map because once we passed through it and we got to the farm a few days and joints after leaving Lexington that was it. We spent some quiet, well maybe no so quiet when the music went decibel high, but youth quiet time on the farm, did a little work for our keep, Angelica got a little more sun that she thought was good for her, and we relaxed before pushing on. Westward ho, ever westward ho in the blue-pink great American West night.