36 I don't know how someone controlled you They bought and sold you

Before I continue I wanted to tell you about my friend, Margaret. We were best friends through eighth grade. We stayed friends afterwards but went different ways. I've had things going in my head for a few days, but now I don't know what to say. We met each other in Catholic school.

Margaret is on the top row

I was on the bottom shelf

The strange thing is, our fathers knew each other. They were both reporters at the same newspaper a while back. Margaret's father went on to some fancy job and made more money. Back in those days, reporters didn't make a heck of a lot of money, even at big papers. So our parents got a kick out of it that we were friends. I loved visiting their house. It was right next to the creek where I played. They lived in a mod house. It was like a different world to me. I loved the old house I lived in and I loved the funky old style. I just liked to see different things. My house was still holding onto the style of the 40's and 50's. Margaret liked to come over but I wasn't so keen on that. I wasn't sure what state of drunkenness my father would be in.

My old house. My sister has her hair in curlers.

Margaret's house today. They put some kind of siding to make it look "country chic." (Why would you do that?) It was mid century modern. No dumb fake picket fence made in China. Painted black with a red door. Big tree in front making it look even darker.

We were different but we were friends. We went on a lot of adventures. Vacant lots. We found the vacant lot where the naughty boys left their dirty magazines. Long walks to different parts of town. Hanging out at Woolworth's. Watching older teenagers hanging out at the creek wearing their clothes too tight. We went to Pasetti's after school and had a hamburger and french fries.

We heard a rumor that the old man at Smile's five and dime let his weiner hang out. That place was amazing. It was like an old wooden general store. Somehow they had everything. It smelled like old cigars and wet white bread. So groups of us girls would dare each other to go in and see if the old man had his thing hanging out. Aren't kids weird? We just wanted trouble and adventure. I'm afraid that at times I was a bit of an instigator. I really think the guy just had the beginnings of dementia or something. Well, I think it was the late 60's Smiles was knocked down and they put in a new funeral home. I guess Long Island needed more of those.

They had a thing in our town at Halloween where kids painted windows of stores. We entered one year. We got to paint the shoe repair place. I loved that place. The smell of leather and all kinds of polish. It was dark in there. All kinds of old wood. Loved going in there. I think maybe our painting was a little too sick. Just a night scene with a witch, someone hanging from a tree and the full moon. It was purple, black, dark brown and white. The judges just kind of walked past. Think in terms of the mid sixties, not now.

Not me. I guess the guy hanging from the tree got them.

There were some abandoned homes that we explored too. I really liked one place, the living room floor was collapsing. We'd say "Let's go explore." Sometimes we'd see kids "huffing" glue at the creek. Sometimes we'd meet an old character and listen to their story. When we were older we'd listen to music and read magazines. I'd say "I want to do that." Margaret didn't really want to, like I did. We'd wear go go boots to pool parties. I wore mini skirts but Margaret didn't. We were different but friends.

You know what we used to do a lot? Phony phone calls. Those were the days. No caller id or anything. I'd spend the night at her house and her parents went out. A lot of times we'd say something to annoy the person answering and our retort was "COMPOZ. That little gentle, blue pill."

1963 Sedagive

I don't know what was in our heads one night. We were going for hours. I think one of the things that joined us together was our flair for melodrama. We came up with this thing, most of it was improv though. We called the unsuspecting and kept the phone away from us and faked our own kidnapping. We were good, screaming and crying. One person was on the phone with us for a long time. I don't know. I think it took a couple of days but I heard my mother scream my name. Yelling something about Mrs. S calling and saying the police were at her house. We were banned from each other for a while. But we were good Catholic girls and they believed we were born into holiness.

One of our favorite dance songs

Margaret's mom, Mrs. S, was a great Italian cook. I's just go over and say "Could I eat dinner here?" She loved that. Mrs. S was nice but things weren't always great for Margaret. I'll tell you something and some of you will wonder, "Why did that bother her?" Mrs. S was one of the Long Island housewives that liked to shop. Mister S was pretty well not home or not involved, like a lot of the dad's back then. Mrs. S would come home with loads of clothes for Margaret from Lord & Taylor. Well, we were being taught things really in contradiction to that in Catholic School. I'll go into that more in my next blog thing. Every Wednesday was missionary day. We'd either have a true to life priest speak or we'd watch a film. We'd hear about the dreadful poverty and disease across the world. We learned sacrifice and devotion. So instead of going "Ohhh. Look at all this great stuff," Margaret would sit on her bed. Sometimes she threw the stuff across the room. I'm not even sure if Mrs. S. knew how Margaret really felt. I want to add in that Margaret wasn't some poor little rich girl. She was very intelligent and really cared about people. Sometimes she'd ponder things just a little too much.

There was a sadness in the S family's life. I wonder now if Mrs. S. did all that shopping to drown it out. I don't know. Margaret's brother Timmy had Down's Syndrome. It was a very extreme case. I don't know if it was more than that, but our understanding of it at that time was very poor. This was still the age of lobotomies. As a matter of fact, Timmy was "involuntarily sterilized." I don't know if people understand that it was something many families were quite ashamed of at that time. Somehow it reflected on the blood relatives. Even cancer was something that was spoken about in hushed terms. Difficult to understand that now.

Timmy didn't live at home. I'd talk about it with my mom and she explained that they were able to better take care of Timmy elsewhere. Very sad. He'd visit home on occasional weekends but I hate to say he spent most of his time on his bed, rocking back and forth. Margaret really loved him. I felt for all of them. She was so sad when it was time for him to go back to wherever it was that he stayed.

Mrs. S knew Margaret felt a sadness for her brother so she decided to adopt a little sister for her. Little Elizabeth was four years old. She was Korean but had been in foster care for a few years. In the mid sixties, this was a progressive thing to do. Margaret had a lot of fun with her and so did I. Margaret was basically an only child and I was the youngest, so it was fun for both of us. We did crazy dancing with her and I'd try on her clothes. Oh yeah, they were small but that's what was so much fun. It seems as though Elizabeth was with them for a year. I got a call from Margaret. She was crying. "Elizabeth is gone." What? What do you mean? "My mom had them test Elizabeth's brain waves. There were some abnormal brain waves. My mom couldn't handle it with Timmy." "They gave her up. Sent her back." I couldn't help it. I said "What? That is so mean!" "My mom can't handle it." I just have to say now "Fucking doctors!" I didn't use that language then. I don't know... I spent a lot of time over there and never witnessed anything "abnormal" about Elizabeth. I don't know. Margaret was never the same after that.

We shared thoughts together at that age. Not just shared, formed. Thinking back on it, neither of us talked about the future in normal terms. Did we really even think it was coming? I just wanted to be a rock and roll kid or something fun. Margaret liked that idea too but not as much as me. I started listening to different things but she stayed pretty pop. We never talked about a career, but in those days girls were pretty much thinking they had to be a secretary or a housewife. Neither of us dreamt about getting married. I think our main aim in life at that point was to get out of Catholic School, or at least I did.

One of the last things we were supposed to do together was to see "The Graduate." I don't remember if there were ratings back then. I would have been way underage. I really wanted to go. It was condemned by the Catholic Church. When we got there Margaret said she couldn't go in... condemned. So what did I do? I went in by myself. Pretty independent. Oceanside Movie Theater didn't give a crap. Well, if Margaret could have only seen the nuns from the other parish sitting in front of me. I'll talk about nuns in another post but some of them were really interested in social commentary. I think I turned 15 shades of red in the dark theater during the tassel scene, with the nuns sitting in front of me. Thinking back on it now, Mrs. S looked a little like Anne Bancroft just with shorter hair.

Time to graduate from Catholic School. Margaret and I were two of the top 4. We got savings bonds. I immediately cashed it and bought Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Margaret saved hers. But the thing is, it was time to choose what high school we were going to. Our town didn't have a Catholic High School to automatically jump too. So many kids jumped ship to public school. Freedom! But Margaret didn't. It was very surprising, although not. She chose the fancy school in the next town. I think it pleased Mrs. S. Who knows. Maybe she was happy to get Margaret away from me? I don't know. I'm afraid to say it was really for the status.

So we went our separate ways. I was lucky, I met up with ex Catholic School girls from the school Margaret went to. I got involved with lots of things and people. Margaret went to school. It's not like I forgot about her, but she also wasn't at the top of my mind either. Once in a while we'd meet at the Ho King in Lincoln Shopping Center for lunch. I'd tell her stories and we'd laugh. We'd talk about things in the world but she seemed more unhappy each time we met. It was like once every three months or so. I became increasingly adventurous, but Margaret didn't judge me. Must have been junior year I od'd on quaaludes. I was knocked out for three days. That's another story. But Margaret came by the house to visit. People knew everything that was going on in town because of the Marian Society my mother belonged to. After my big trip and I unfortunately came back to NY, Margaret helped with gifts for my new dump.

It was also in junior year that my mother told me that Margaret was in a "hospital." Care for mental health was disastrous back then. Margaret was suffering from depression. I'm not even sure if it was called that then. It certainly was not a day to day conversation. People pretty much called it a nervous breakdown. That was a big joke to some people. When I finally saw her after she got out I couldn't believe how pale she was. As white as chalk. She was so thin too. She told me that it helped her feel better to be in the hospital. In those days it was almost as if the family didn't want you to see their relatives actually in the hospital. Too much of a stigma if word got around. I think that they believed her life would go right back into place and they didn't want to jeopardize that.

After junior year Margaret went back into the hospital. She would come home on the weekends. Wow. Jesus. I went to lunch with her and tried to talk her into making big, big changes in her life. I couldn't convince her. Her Mom called me directly to thank me for going out to lunch with her. She'd be happy for a while afterwards. For Christ sake my whole conversation was talking about getting away. I'm sure she had the same Catholic guilt many of us had and she felt bad for her mom.

Here's the really disgusting thing. Margaret told me she was having sex with one of the orderlies that worked there. What? How healthy is that? She also told me a story that she was home on the weekend and the orderly came by the house while her parents were gone for a bit. Then her mom came home and the dude had to hide in the closet till he could escape. That would be funny in a normal situation, but not in this one. That whole thing of hospital, medication and orderlies was the most damaging thing ever in her life. She begged me not to tell her mom. Of course I wasn't going to. She was my friend and of course I never "told" on anyone in my life.

It just went on like that for her... sad to say. I was living my life and ended up leaving New York in the late 70's. A little while after I moved I got a phone call from my Mom. "Margaret is dead." 

She overdosed on pills. I don't know what was in her head when she did that. I wish she had known that she could have broken free in some way. I had nightmares for quite a while, especially when I was stressed or upset about something. The nightmare was this. I saw her headstone. That's it. I'd wake up in a sweat, jittering. It took at least twenty years for these to subside. They did, slowly. I'd have them less and less. I never actually saw Margaret's headstone. Not even sure if there is one. I talked to a couple of people about it back then but we didn't mention the grave. The only times I went back to New York were if relatives were sick or dead. I haven't been back since 1996 when my Mom passed away, so I never looked. The grave doesn't really matter anyway, it's the other stuff. That's the story.

 

35 A poem in the style of Bonnie Parker

Roman Sandals in the streets

Hot flames of fire in the sheets

(just kiddin)

Tying those straps just right

Please don't make them too tight

Taking a look at the fold of my knee

Squeezin' together, a butt I did see.

 

Around and round, just walkin around

Liftin each foot & hittin the ground

Garbagy onions and melted tar

Please get me out of here & take me afar

 

Take it easy, enjoy the sights

Don't need to make Hollywood lights

You brought me here and you brought me there

Little did I know, my story I would share

I jumped the northern border without talkin to a cop

I tried my best, but never did, find a train that I could hop

Long fields of corn and free food with each stay

There was desert sun when I said "Hey, you goin my way?"

I met the greatest people, they were happy and sad

Only a couple of them were a little bad

And this is the story of black cats and poppy

The sandals were always with me & that ain't too sloppy

 

 

 

33 If you know what I mean Part 1

So jump ahead a bit. Things changed quick back then and I had found myself with a group of new friends. A little more adventurous. My closest friend was an ex Catholic School girl that lived just a block or so away, but I didn't meet her till high school. How is that possible? She lived across the town line in Rockville Centre and went to a different Catholic school. We started going deep into things. She read poetry & I acted on it. A perfect combination. I'll write later about some our nights jumping out of her bedroom window, but I'm skipping it for now.

I'm not really sure if it was late 1970 or early 1971. Remember, we were around esoteric teachings our whole lives. Religious iconography. Incense. Chanting. Petitioning the Lord. The church I went to had stone tunnels between chapels and little rooms for those with infirmities to pray and cast off their physical handicaps. I used to sneak into the little room with crutches and sit in wonder. They had barn owls too. 

An actual chapel at my church

Let's just say there was a cultural phenomenon going on at the time. Everyone was obsessed with monsters, witches and ghosts.

My blood line too. Grandma Sophie and her seances. And hello. Black Sabbath. I worshiped that first album. Wore down the grooves. The volume that it was played at must have frightened the neighbors, but people lived and let live more than now it seems. The family on the west side of us was a large Italian family that yelled loud at each other all the time. It was their way of showing affection, I guess. So they might not have heard it. The family on the other side was a German family that kept to themselves. That is the way that it was.

Wearing my black "Black Sabbath" dress

I had that Anton LaVey book, probably one of the first. That could be another post. Demons are real and they are harmful. I put that away. I know it is said now that it really wasn't about Satan, but sometimes there are places you should steer clear of. To each his own and that's mine. (P.S. This is about the story. Not my grammar.) Then I found a book by Raymond Buckland that I found interesting.

We were obsessed with the subject. It was a bit harder back then to get any information about the occult, but luckily we were living in a place where you could find every kind of freak. My friend had a sister who was older by a year. Like a good Catholic girl she was also delving into the occult. This was quite a family I tell you. They were great. Her sister, L, was dating a roadie that worked the Action House. There's a few stories there too. South of Nathan's by about a mile, it was really pretty historic. So this guy also "roadied" for a couple of prominent bands too. Occasionally filling in on drums when "things" happened or the drummer was "out of sorts."

We heard about the witchcraft museum that Raymond Buckland set up in his house and said "Yeah." You had to make an appointment, you couldn't just show up. It was in the basement of his house. L called and set it up. It was somewhere in Suffolk County, out more east on Long Island. Her boyfriend "D" had an amazing car. It was a red Roadrunner. This was a pretty damn good muscle car. I don't know engine stuff but he raced it in true to life car races.

This dude was a character. From what I hear now, he's got quite a life story. Apparently he's had some close encounters. Actually more than close encounters. Eventually I'll talk about that too, if I don't croak first. But it makes me laugh. I wonder if it all started with this day? 🤔 I knew him before this day. Every damn time he thought L wasn't looking, he used to turn and look at me and do that tongue thing that Thelma and Louise hated. 🤣 I wouldn't mention it but he did it so many damn times that day, it's one of the things I clearly remember. Whatever. I just laughed.

So off we go. This was the first time I sat in a car with so much power. It just seemed kind of trippy to be on our way with a loud hum and all kinds of force. That was trippy to me to begin with. Like I said I don't remember the exact day, but it was before Buckland moved the museum out of his house. It was a little in the boonies. I remember it being a gray day. I also remember passing a burger place and there were people out front in maxi dresses and capes. Whoa dude. Witches.

So we get to the house. I was already a little spacy, not from any substance but just from the weirdness of everything. I was kind of starting to experience it through a kind of tunnel vision, a feeling of light floating. I backed off from conversation and let L and D do the talking. I'm not afraid to ask questions, but felt I wanted to observe. My friend and I just wanted to see what was there. So it was also trippy that it was just Raymond Buckland. I almost felt like saying "what's going on? This is really weird and amazing." Off into the ozone. We went down into his basement.

I hardly remember anything in the museum. It was all weird and unusual. Artifacts from all over the world. What I remember was that Buckland stayed right with us at all times. We were the only ones there. L and D asked questions. He answered but what was really burned into my memory were the glass cases. We'd be on one side and Buckland was on the other. He did like to talk a lot and tell us all about the displays, but he more than once looked at me thought he glass. Right at me. Into my eyes. Good god. I was almost seeing trails from the experience. I don't know if you've ever experienced a truly religious revelation. You feel as though you are racing with power, moving above the mundane. I don't remember a lot about when we left, but D said he had some friends we should visit. Ok. Now what?

32 Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the Sun Part 3

Ok, boring. Yeah, the air was dirty. The water was full of chemicals, bubbly and oily. The streets had litter. The clothing was colorful. The cars were cool. The buildings were dumpy and falling down. The waterways and empty lots were filled with garbage of all kinds. There was less plastic though and the people were less plastic too. Just like 70's movies.

Along the Hudson

The day arrived. I don't remember the details of when I got there. People weren't thinking "Gee. I should keep track of every little thing so that 50 years later I could tell a precise account." That's not how we thought. We were really worried about the future. A lot of people thought the world would have ended by now and I was one of them. Well, I guess I got there pretty damn early since I was one of the workers. Now what was I doing? They handed me an armband and said "Ok. Go stand inside the barricade over there. Keep people from coming inside. "What? Look at me. Am I supposed to tackle them when they mob the barricade? "Just stop them." Ok. I'm pretty damn tough. I'll stop them.

I was positioned right near the stage. Who knows why? Ok. It was before things got really crowded. Pete Seeger showed up and hurriedly went to talk to someone in the important group by the stage. Big deal to me. "Where Have All The Flowers Gone." "If I Had A Hammer." "Turn, Turn, Turn." These songs meant so much to the "movement" back then. He got up and sang a couple of songs. He was leaving. He had on his cap, I remember that. As he was walking out of the barricades I went to him. Told him who knows what the hell and shook his hand. That puts me in one or two degrees of separation from a lot of cool people. In awe. I guess he took his boat down to Washington DC to speak.

Maybe there are people with clear memories of when the speakers started. I don't remember those things. I barely remember watching any of them even though they were right near me. It was all so strange and surreal and I was freaking out about keeping people out. There wasn't too much trouble with that except for a damn photographer from France. I tried keeping him out but he pushed right passed me. I don't know where he went. Hopefully he got some good photos. But where are they? In a box somewhere? How many times can I say that not everything out there made it's way online.

I don't remember eating or peeing. Food was not the glorious idol it is now. You shoved something down your throat and went on about your business. Let's see. I don't remember Ali McGraw at all. I honestly only vaguely remember Paul Newman. It's kind of weird but I remember that Leonard Bernstein gave a good speech. I felt was an honor to see Margaret Mead speak. I remember Ed Koch because I thought we was rather strange looking, like a cartoon. A caricature. Mayor Lindsay... boy oh boy... I vaguely remember Paul Newman but Mayor John Lindsay. I couldn't help but look at him. Not necessarily like I was in love with him, but I am a people watcher. I like to stare and observe and he had that hard to describe charisma. He must have emanated a powerful aura. He spoke at the library with Kurt Vonnegurt, but he made it down to Union Square too. I swear I remember seeing Vonnegurt. That's a haze though, like a lot of things that long ago.

There were enormous amounts of people. That was that. Earth Day was over and next I did a little bit of stuff locally. I worked with a super smart dude at school to get a group going at my high school called STEP. Students To End Pollution. Dorky huh? We did a lot of nagging & it succeeded in getting a county wide recycling program started. I never did the things like "pictures" in high school. Not in the group photo, but it's listed by my name in the stupid yearbook.

When it was all said and done, it did make a difference. Nixon set up the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act. The Clean Water Act was eventually signed by bipartisan effort. Do you believe that? There were also considerations given to prices and inflation by compromise. What a concept. Things took a while to clean up but over a little bit of time the progress has been incredible.

I had a button like this.

31 Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the Sun Part 2

I did my best, standing in the park getting petitions signed. I was polite and said "please." Got plenty of signatures. Handed them in, not sure what happened next. Time was getting closer to Earth Day. Maybe a couple of weeks away. I was given an address. I think it was in the Bronx. I had to take the subway and I'm kind of glad my two other cohorts were with me. I had already seen plenty of wasteland in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but the Bronx was like a third world country. No exaggeration. The buildings were crumbling. There were vacant lots with piles of bricks where burned buildings once stood.

Looked like this. Reality.

There were a couple of desperately poor, drugged out people on the stoop. This was an abandoned building though. Went in, I remember we had to climb a couple flights of stairs. But the stairs were falling through and had to be careful we didn't step on any broken ones. I hate to say so, but there was also excrement on the stairs. God help us. Ok. So we got to the right floor. Went in the room and it was enormous. Remember how big the apartment was in Rosemary's Baby? Imagine that but with no rooms. Just a huge room, kind of like a loft I guess. There were quite a number of hippie type people working away. Big pieces of material. Steel tubs. So we were going to help make the huge banners they were going to hang in Union Square.

 

I almost hate looking at tie dye now because it is mass manufactured. Try looking it up on a search engine and it's almost all new photos of fake hippies trying to sell something.

 

The oldest personal item I still have.

This scarf is 50 years old.

But I made a couple of shirts back then, so I was assigned tie dying one of the huge banners by myself. It was a pretty damn massive job. There were ropes across the back of the room to hang things up to dry. I had some pretty big rubber bands which was good. Pretty hard squeezing and twisting, so it was lucky that I wasn't weak. Took most of the day. Hung it up and didn't see it till the day. Holy cow. Believe it or not, I found a picture. Let me also say, there's got to be a photo of me that day somewhere. On microfilm maybe? They just keep showing the same six photos over and over on the internet. In case you ever run across a hidden box of photos, I was a marshall. I stood on the inside of the barriers and was pretty close to the stage. Long hair. I'm pretty sure I had on my grandmother's silk robe over my jeans. Came down about like a midi dress. Black with all kinds of color stripes. If not that, it was a dark blue silk coat about the same length. May have had on a gray knit beanie.

 

Here it is.

Pretty sure I made the banner towards the front. I liked the orange, magenta, purple combination. I am pretty proud of that. I wonder where they went?

30 Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the Sun Part 1

I can get a few dates a little off, but this one is set in stone. April 22, 1970 was the first Earth Day and I was part of it. Not just attending the rally but I was part of a small group of volunteers that did work for the Environmental Action Committee in New York City. This was not a large "non-profit" with a big machine behind it, like things are nowadays. This was a very small office. I think I remember one desk with some file cabinets and some chairs. I never saw a bunch of people because you'd go in there and get an assignment and leave. I only ever saw the long haired dude that I met in the park and the Bernadine Dohrn looking chick that sat at the desk. All the female activists looked like Bernadine back then.

Sure, I walked around with my copy of Silent Spring but I just want to say that pollution in the early 70's was beyond belief. Especially if you lived near a large city. There were oil and chemicals being dumped in the waterways. I remember the smoke stacks along the Jersey Turnpike spewing out all kinds of smells. The creek that I swam in when I was like four or five years old, had creeping oil slicks on it by then. It is so, so much cleaner in the US now. It's other parts of the world that really need to work on it now.

New York

Cleveland

But the cars were great

It was the winter and spring days before April 22. I'd go into the office every weekend and get my assignment. God if I remember where it was. I should have written this stuff decades ago. My father wanted me to write a book in the 70's, but I was still having a good time.

Maybe sometimes I went alone, but my assignments were almost always alone. They split us up to get the most coverage. I was sent to areas mostly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I spent my days cheerfully handing out flyers about pollution. New Yorkers would possibly take them while walking very fast, glance at it and then throw them on the ground. They really needed those anti-litter campaigns. People didn't give it much thought. Lots of stuff thrown out car windows. The difference though was that everything was some form of paper or cardboard, not all the plastic crap today. There was some chance it would decompose.

So I'd take a minute or two every so often and go pick up the paper. Sometimes I'd hand them out & sometimes I'd throw them away. No recycling. But I just want to say a lot of people were nice, even though they were in a big hurry. On occasion someone would stop and talk. Usually a very interesting character. Many times an older person that lived a long life and wanted to share some of their knowledge. I was always willing to listen and learn something from them. People were honestly more colorful then. All the way around. Their clothing, their language and their thought. When did this all change? A little editorial here... we are turning into homogenized gray boxes. Just like the new constructions and the cars. Why are cars such bland colors now? Maybe we'd be a little happier if there was a little color in things nowadays. Open up some discussion.

The long haired dude was really tall. He'd check in on us and talk for a few minutes. I'm not very tall. If I stand up straight maybe 5'4". But I really had to bend my neck to look up at him or maybe it just seemed like that. I was in awe of his fire. He was really sparked with dedication or maybe he was on speed. I don't know. He had a lot of fiery speech that was more expletive than dictionary words. "Wow," I thought to myself, "Can I mimic this way of speech? I need to convey enthusiasm." Alas, I must always be me. A few here and there but just not to that degree. Even with all that coaching from the Golden twins.

One day I was handed a clipboard with a petition on it. I don't remember what it was about but I can tell you that at that time people that tried to get petitions signed were actually interested in the subject matter, cared about it and were volunteers. You still run into that, I guess, but most of the time, I believe, people are are paid by whatever special interest. This was a much harder job than handing out flyers.

29 Golden living dreams of visions

It's hard for me to give you an exact timeline. There was a lot of stuff crammed into a little bit of time, a lot of it was at the same time and it was a really long time ago. I started going into the city towards the end of 1968. Yes, I was young. I had my Charlotte's job towards the beginning to mid 1969. I was pretty young for that too. I was with the hippie god from the middle of 1969 to the end of that year. Throughout I made it into NY mostly on Saturdays. Not every single weekend, but almost. I always made it back before dark. I wasn't stupid. Like I said, with people but more often than not by myself. And that continued into the 70's.

So I started going to Central Park. God, I walked all over the place. That is a really big park. Then there's all kinds of real New York stuff around there too. I remember walking down 5th Ave and on occasion the tourists would take pictures of the crazy New York hippies. The park had everything. So many different little parks. Walkways, bridges, a zoo and horseback riding. Even did the horseback riding back then with other people, but could only afford riding around the stable in circles. It was really not very nice to the horses.

The place to watch the hippie action was Sheep's Meadow. Lots of people hanging out, laying down and acting weird. It may be hard to believe but there were so many friendly people willing to talk. Pretty much people singing, standing around looking cool, shouting stuff and everything else you've seen on Dragnet. I was right in there with them. Fit right into that crowd, inside and out. They had be-in's, but I never went to an organized one. Not sure how different they were from a normal day except that there were a lot more people and probably Allen Ginsberg.

What was some of the stuff said? I don't remember. Sometimes deep discussions about our souls. Sometimes just things that made no sense. If I remember anything, I'll let you know, but I was told some of the things I said were strange and weird. There will be a short story about the museum, but that will be later. It's quite the 70's story. 😀

The movie "Hair"

I was familiar with the Metropolitan Museum of Art from school trips.The steps were hangouts for people too. At the time there was no admission price. When I went by myself, I always ended up there. They also had a cafeteria that was awesome. The food was cheap and good. It's the only time I remember eating when I went into the city. They had waiters with towels hanging over their arms and that killed me. People didn't go to fancy restaurants, at least in suburbia, as much as they do now. I had never seen that before. I ordered the Mongolian Soup when they had it. I don't know what was in it.

Some kind of artist strike

I would walk through and plop myself down in front of something I liked. Some people would sit on a bench and sketch. I stared at the art and the people. Matisse was one of my favorites. But there was one artist that I loved. John Singer Sargent. That may seem weird to you because he mostly painted portraits of wealthy people. Well, I realized they led weird lives too. But there was something incredible with his brush strokes and the way light hit them. It's been a really long time since I've seen anything of his, but I remember my pupils would get big when I saw his paintings. I wouldn't even post a two dimensional image of one of his paintings. There's no justice in a camera shot or a scan to what they are.

Ok, so it was the beginning of 1970 and I went to the city with the hippie god's sister and another Catholic School girl. We went to the lower East Side. Walking through a park. Could have been Union Square or some other park. Don't remember. But that's where we met some long haired dude handing out flyers about this thing called Earth Day.