September 30, 2024
Greetings, Gents:
Well, he did it. I gave him my full permission to use parts and pieces or nothing, at all in the three stories I provided to him. His choice. He is publishing his novel on the WELL in a serial fashion as a way to get the manuscript ready for the eventual publication as a novel of fiction. I have been reading and commenting on his serial publication on WELL since he started this endeavor. So I read his latest piece today and Lo and Behold, Joe used parts and pieces from my lived experience of the March which I created for me (to document a significant event in my life) and for him to use as he saw fit to do so.
I have chosen to add Joe’s writing up of this event since he was at this same March that I was that day and have added his piece at the end of this post so y’all can compare the two accounts. By the way, all writers of fiction do this. They research schtuff and events meticulously, they lift and change writing by other published writers, they ask other people who were there to tell them about their experiences and use what happened to them, as the novelist or protagonist, as way to tell a compelling story. This is perfectly normal and accepted. In my case, I gave him explicit permission to use what I wrote any ole way he chose to and he did.
Peace March 1969 or 1970
Well, a bit of explanation is needed here. XVI, XVII and XVIII are pieces I wrote for a guy I know who is writing a memoir of the these tumultuous times so he asked me to write about these three experiences I participated in, first-hand since his book is mostly about his experiences in Southern California. So he was looking to expand what his characters (The book will be autobiographical but it will be a novel of fiction) who travelled, back and forth between Northern California and Southern California during these same tumultuous times.
Enjoy the life and times of your 19 yo Dad experiencing life to the fullest with friends, back in the late 1960s and 1970s and again, I say that I could not have done these things without a solid and foundational background provided by Mom and Dad.
Where to start and they always say start at the beginning.
I was living my first days in the BA. I had moved from the Mid-West to the BA to go to Menlo College in Menlo Park, California. At the time I was a 6’4” tall with a bald head and was built like a football player, in other words, a jock as we used to call them. I had played football in high school and it showed in my physique and appearance. In high school, I played two positions, one on defense and one on offense which meant that I played the whole game from start to finish, in other words, in the parlance of the day, I played both ways. My appearance was very off-putting to most of my fellow freshmen who were mostly from California where it was fashionable to look like something called “hippies” with long hair and beards if they could grow them, at that age. So I was labeled by them immediately as a “jock” since that was my appearance to them but little did they know how much of a “hippie” I already was underneath my outward appearance.
(Joe: At this point in the story, there is another story about my rather harsh but ultimately OK introduction to psychedelics with another freshman from SoCal who was looking for some LSD and boy howdy, did we ever find some that fateful night in San Francisco (SF). It is a story about how I took a four-way tab (meant for four people to take by spitting the tab four-ways) of mescaline all by myself, by accident and my new-found freshman friend took some LSD that was so powerful to him that he was damn near catatonic. He had told me before we left Menlo that for that fateful day and night that he was “ experienced” with LSD but he had no idea. The story involves a phone number for a gal in SF that I got b/4 I left St. Louis, Fillmore West, a band called Spooky Tooth at the Fillmore West, us wandering around in SF for hours completely zonked out of our minds until we found a cab at dawn to take us back to Menlo from SF, the aftermath of this massive dose of mescaline on me etc. etc. Let me know, yea or nay.)
My roommate in the first dorm room I had occupied was ok. He was from Louisiana, pasty faced with a Southern drawl and a face and body that was showed he had never been one to exercise or get out in the Sun. He was very bland with blond hair. I thought maybe we could get along but it soon developed that he had asked me to buy some records for him and then he had reneged on reimbursing me. So I decided right then and there to move, ASAP. So I went through the RA before I moved and he gave me permission to move into the dorm room right next door that was available and was occupied by a guy named Todd. I moved into Todd’s room and I let some other hapless soul deal with my former roommate.
Our dorm room was typical of the day. It was laid out with matching wooden dressers with mirrors on either side as you entered the room, next were matching beds on either side and facing the windows out onto campus were matching desks with bookshelves on either side. Small but efficiently laid out. Todd was from Palo Alto, California which I knew was just down the street from Menlo Park.
Todd was a tall and thin cat who moved gracefully and he had a sallow shade to his facial features. He looked vaguely like a guy from Japan or China to my eyes..His head was big but matched the rest of his body. He had a thin nose, bushy eyebrows with deep-set eyes and he had a demeanor that basically said he had seen somethings in his life and he was ok with them. He had a ready and wise smile when we would encounter something new which we did all the time. Todd was a military kid who came from a family of four kids whose Dad was a dentist in the Air Force. One thing led to another and Todd ended up living with his siblings in Palo Alto. His Dad had died earlier and his Mom was raising the family in a rambling ranch house on one of the main East/West boulevards in the town of Palo Alto which was a town, back then.
Soon, Todd and I started to bond over our same approach to studying and just being able to hang out in our off times. We both had settled into our freshman year at college. So it came to pass that we found out about a huge Anti-Vietnam War March that was happening in downtown San Francisco in a couple of days and we decided we would participate but how since neither of us had a car?
So it turns out that one of the staging areas for this March was going to be on the Stanford campus, four miles down the El Camino Real from Menlo and there would be six busses staged there to bus us to the Anti-War March staging area in San Francisco and back again. So that made it easier for us to participate in the March. We got up early on the day of the March and walked the four miles down to the busses staging at Stanford.
We were excited.
[In early 1969, Sihanouk appealed to the United States for help in dealing with the Khmer Rouge and their NVA allies. Nixon responded by authorizing a major bombing campaign against North Vietnamese sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia. He and his advisors believed that they could accomplish many goals by targeting key NVA bases in Cambodia. They could disrupt Communist supply routes, prevent the North from taking advantage of future U.S. troop withdrawals, and help Sihanouk fight off the Khmer Rouge. But Nixon knew that the American people would view his decision to bomb Cambodia as an escalation of the war. After all, the U.S. military had not operated in neutral Cambodia in the past. To avoid creating an uproar, the president concealed this bombing campaign from both the U.S. Congress and the American public.
During the course of the bombing campaign, which lasted from March 1969 to August 1973, American planes dropped an estimated 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia. The air strikes continued even after Sihanouk’s prime minister, Lon Nol (1913–1985), displaced Sihanouk as the nation’s ruler in a 1970 coup (overthrow of the government). After seizing power, Lon Nol tolerated the continued U.S. air strikes because his government was very dependent on American military and economic aid. Many historians, however, believe that the bombing campaign merely pushed the Communists deeper into Cambodian territory, where they became an even greater threat. In the meantime, Sihanouk joined with the Khmer Rouge—his former enemies—in hopes of regaining power]
We were eager and determined to protest the War in general, but most importantly to us, at that moment in time, WE KNEW NIXON WAS LYING TO US ABOUT THE BOMBINGS IN CAMBODIA. Nixon had called it an [incursion]into Cambodia. as we walked down the El Camino Real, we talked about how we had both ended up at Menlo, together since we were simpatico on so many issues. We were dressed warmly for our morning walk to Stanford but since we knew it was going to be “hot” on the March so we made sure we could ditch the outer clothes and tie the sleeves of our outer clothes around our waists and continue in the heat of the March. We arrived on campus, found the busses, did some sort of check-in with the bus coordinators who were seated at table. The queue for boarding was forming so we fell in line and when it was our turn, we approached the cats at the table. They took our names and where we were from (Menlo College) and we boarded a bus.
There was definitely an electricity present that you could palpably feel on the bus. People around us were excited and jabbering away with each other about how the days March would turn out. Most of us had not ever experienced a big March b/4 and boy howdy, was it exciting! Most people were dressed for the weather that day in colorful clothing, some tie-dyes and some some more somber in their attire knowing the seriousness of our endeavors that day. Since we were talking and listening to each other, the trip to the staging area in Downtown San Francisco came about in no time and we were ready to join the others gathering at the staging area. Before we disembarked, our bus coordinator addressed us and told us where our bus back to Stanford would be, staged at the end of the March in Golden Gate Park. Since we had spent the last hour and half, talking with each other about the March and Nixon lying to us, we began to see a larger purpose to our participation. We knew that this Day was going to be big as we looked out the bus windows seeing how many people were gathering so our moods changed from excited and eager to March today to a more somber and resolute stance that we were part of something bigger than us, as individuals but part of the larger, nationwide Movement Against the War.
As we wandered around, waiting for the March to start, we could feel it in the air, this was going to be big and huge. So huge that the rest of the country would awaken to our cause and join us since we knew in that moment we were right about the wrongness of the Vietnam War. The “Silent Majority” would see how our protests would convince them to wake up and protest, too. These were our parents that we were trying to wake up and take notice. The rest of the world would hear us and see us and we could end this War. The rage we all felt that day that the Government/Nixon was flat-out lying to us, the American people and we were calling out the lies. People around were carrying banners and flags of kinds. The air in the staging area was definitely positively charged with electricity and anticipation and what we could accomplish with our protest, today.
The March finally began and we walked and walked and walked finally ended up in Golden Gate Park (GGP) in a big meadow. Way off in the distance over the mass of people in the Meadow, we saw a hastily built elevated stage platform with a piano on it. We assumed that this is where the speakers could address us at the end of the March. We made our way through the crowd to get closer to the stage. And as we did we could sense the mood of the people already sitting in the Meadow while the rest of the Marchers began to fully fill up the Meadow. People were passing joints jubilantly, talking with other people, laying out, absorbing this moment in this particular Here and Now, others were sitting quietly, others were twirling in place, dancing to unheard shared-mind music, others were just standing in awe of it all, and some of us were exhibiting elation at the absolute sense of wonder of what we’re doing that day sharing that day together with your brothers and sisters and finally all the emotions and feelings humans can experience, at an event gathering this many people together in one spot to express their desire for Peace with everybody gathered around you, it was truly magical.
That day bought it all for us and it brought it out in all of us, as far the eye could see.We were marching for Peace and we all exhibited Peace in our collective behavior, that day. We were happy just to be together with each other. Everyone was welcome and embraced for just being there and marching with us.
(BTW, Joe, I have a not so polished Altamont memoir, if you interested or not. As an aside between you and me, the Universal or gopod just spoke to me a very direct way so I took a break from this to go outside and ground my feet which I did) I did not know that writing about an event so long in the past would evoke such forgotten memories of the event but when asked to describe the WWWY of anything they come flooding back while in your particular moments that might not be so good. All I’m saying is I wish you peace as you sort these moments for your book,’Nuff said. Full Stop.)
As we moved through the crowd slowly and deliberately the organizers spoke. There were some small amplifiers on stage that the speakers used to address the crowd but which were projected to the front of the stage. We listened to them as we moved through the crowd and we finally ended up in an area behind the stage There were fewer people behind the stage and a little more room to move.
After some speakers had finished, we noticed from our vantage point behind the stage, some cat approaching the piano. Without any introduction, he started banging way on the piano.
“For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey What’s That Sound)”
This cat began banging on the piano for all he was worth and quickly we realized he was banging out the haunting song that we all knew and loved. We all knew the lyrics by heart The sing-a-along by approximately hundred-thousand people who were all singing in unison, a cappella for the world to see and hear.
As he played the opening chords, we all (about eight of us random strangers) joined hands together and began dancing in a Rosie-around the mulberry bush way, skipping and moving in a circle, joyously singing the words from a song that describes us and what we’re feeling each and every day.
We soon learned that the cat playing the piano and singing with us was Stephen Stills. At the time, we had no idea it was him. We were too caught up in the Here and Now, dancing and singing to care who was playing the piano. Our merry dancing continued until Stephen Stills ended the song. We continued to bask in the glow of our dancing and the warmth we felt for our brothers and sisters. When the song ended, we warmly greeted and hugged what were, just now, our dancing partners. Stephen Stills elevated all of us there that day. He had taken us to a higher peak experience with his singing and playing and our singing in unison with him. More magic lent by Stephen Stills to us on that day.
Soon the March was officially ended by a speaker from the stage. We did not want to let go of the feelings now we all shared. But inevitably, we let our minds and hearts get back to the business of why we had Marched to this Meadow in first place. On the walk back to the waiting busses, we were still feeling upbeat and positive about what we did but on some level, we knew that ending the War in Vietnam would take a lot more of these protests for the rest of America to wake up and demand that Nixon to end the War.
We found and boarded our bus for the ride back to Stanford ending what was for me and Todd a peak experience.
Full stop.
Break On Through To The Other Side
Act III Melee
A Moratorium Against The War
It was a sea of people, as far as Banjo could see, curb to curb in
the morning San Francisco sunlight, all the way down the Hayes
Street hill behind him to the turn off of Market, and as far ahead
as he could see, stretching on toward Golden Gate Park, neither
silent nor shouting but talking happily, breaking into peace songs
and chants from time to time, waving signs with peace symbols and
peace slogans, US OUT OF SE ASIA NOW and END THE BOMBING, a marching
Woodstock. It was called "A Moratorium Against The War" or "The
November Moratorium" because there had been a smaller one in
October, with teach-ins and meetings across the country.
There were cops and cop cars everywhere, at every intersection and
turn on the march, the cops just directing traffic and watching for
any disruptions. There were no disruptions.
Banjo took notes. He had managed to find Mei Li in the crowd before
they had gone their separate ways. She wanted his more personal
view. "Idiosyncratic" was the word she used, his own slant. She said
that Johnny was there getting pics as well, but they were not
walking together.
Banjo had caught a ride up the coast with his brother JT in his
little Datsun 2000 convertible. They drove straight to the UC
Berkeley campus, parked on the street, walked onto the campus and
pitched their sleeping bags under the great redwoods along the
creek. In the morning they had walked to the staging area, where
buses were provided to take them across the Bay for the March. They
didn't need to ask where the staging area was, as everyone was
walking that way, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
People on the bus were excited and jabbering away about the march.
Most were dressed for the weather that day in layers of colorful
clothing, some tie-dyes and some some more soberly attired for the
seriousness of the moment.
Most of of them had never experienced a big march before. They could
see looking out the window of the bus as it approached the staging
area in San Francisco that there had never been a protest march this
big. Word was 250,000, some estimates ran twice that high.
Banjo had hesitated to come to San Francisco. Huge crowds were not
his thing, the cacophony of rallies, blasting music. Confrontations
were not his thing, getting whacked over the head by cops. And the
cool, grey City of Love was haunted by death. In September an
unknown assailant had killed a couple at a lake in Sonoma County to
the north. In October an unknown assailant had killed a cab driver
right in the City, on one of the quiet, leafy streets next to the
Presidio, near the fine houses and the mansions of the consulates.
Days later a man called into a radio talk show to say he was the
Zodiac, to say he had killed the cab driver and the couple at Lake
Berryessa and would kill more until he had enough slaves in the
afterlife. Days after that another letter and postcard with their
weird ciphers and symbols appeared at the newspapers, confirming
that the voice on the radio was him, the Zodiac, taunting the
police.
And the War, the War. In the year since Nixon with his secret plan
to end the war had been elected, no secret plan had been revealed,
the war had not ended, the calls for more troops had not ended, the
killing and bombing had not ended, the bombing had expanded into
Cambodia, and just two days before the Moratorium the headlines had
screamed news of a massacre of civilians, a whole village wiped out,
women and children killed, village burned, a village called My Lai.
It was eerily familiar to Banjo. It sounded much like the village
massacre he had read about in the Freep in the issue that had
disappeared from all news stands almost as soon as it appeared more
than a year before. But this time the headlines were all over and on
the national evening TV news and the country was shocked. Everyone
has shocked. It was impossible. No one had ever heard of such a
thing, actual U.S. troops slaughtering civilians.
So here he was and here they were, not just a few young hippies and
student radicals but families, middle-aged suburbanites, Black
people and Latinos and Filipinos and Asians, residents in front of
their houses passing out free donuts and water, hundreds of
thousands headed to the Polo Grounds in Golden Gate Park for the
rally. Some in the crowd who had transistor radios and could pick up
the news said this was not the biggest crowd in the country, that
there were peaceful mass demonstrations in Boston and New York and
in Washington, D.C. and in hundreds of towns and cities across the
country, millions of people marching peacefully for peace. The D.C.
crowd was said to be twice the the size of Woodstock. Nixon in the
White House let it be known that he was paying no attention. He said
he was watching football. It turned out he was obsessively watching
the TV news and watching out the window, trying to count the crowd.
Policy could not be made in the streets, his spokesman told the
press. That was the path to "mob rule" and "anarchy."
As the Polo Grounds filled up and spilled over in the Park around
it, Banjo wandered through the crowd toward the small stage with the
piano, microphone stands and loudspeakers. Some sat quietly on the
grass, others passed joints openly, talked excitedly, some dancing
and twirling to their own inner music, some just standing and gazing
at the huge crowd, eyes wide in awe.
As the speaking began, Banjo wandered behind the stage where it was
a little quieter, with a little more room to move. Random strangers
would pass him a joint, he would take a toke and pass it on. As some
cat on the stage sat at the piano and began to pound out a song,
Banjo joined hands with a dozen strangers and began dancing in a
circle. It was a song they all knew, and they sang it along with a
few hundred thousand of their friends: "Stop, children, what's that
sound, everybody look what's going down…" It was Steven Stills at
the piano, singing the song he had written after the Sunset Strip
cop riots. When the song ended the dozen circling dancers hugged one
another.
Banjo was glad he had come.