The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- Out In The Seals Rock Inn Frisco Town Night –Take Two
[Comment by social commentator Zack James: I came by my knowledge of the Summer of Love, a key 1960s counter-cultural event out in San Francisco in 1967 (and a little beyond that year as well), second-hand through my oldest brother Alex telling me stories later (and recently in the wake of the 50th anniversary celebration which got his in a nostalgic mood) who along with a group of his high school corner boys from our growing up town North Adamsville went out there at various times in 1967 and also stayed for various lengths of time. They had been egged on to make the trip (s) by the late Peter Paul Markin (whose name is used by the moderator of this site as his moniker in honor of his fallen friend). I was at a decade younger than Alex would have been just too young to have appreciated what he had to say if he had told me his tales when I was twelve in 1967 and struggling with a million puberty-girl-identity problems far removed from “drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Later (and more recently) I took up the subject in great detail as part of my work as a writer and social commentator. Over the years since I have produced many articles which have at least touched on the 1960s counter-cultural themes and have taken the liberty this historic year to reproduce them in this space.]
Funny he, Adam Evans, thought, a little sweaty and overheated from the turned too high thermostat put on earlier to ward off the open- eyed chill of the room, as he laid in his toss and turn early morning Seals Rock Inn, San Francisco bed, the rain pouring down in buckets, literally buckets, at his unprotected door, the winds were howling against that same door, and the nearby sea was lashing up its fury, how many times the sea stormy night, the sea fury tempest day, the, well, the mighty storm anytime, had played a part in his life. He was under no circumstances, as he cleared his mind for a think back, a think back that was occupying his thoughts more and more of late, trying to work himself into a lather over some metaphorical essence between the storms that life had bestowed on him and the raging night storm within hearing distance. No way, too simple. Rather he was just joy searching for all those sea-driven times, times when a storm, a furious storm like this night or maybe just an average ordinary vanilla storm passing through and complete in an hour made him think of his relationship with his homeland the sea and with its time for reflection. And so on that toss and turn bed he thought.
Funny, although not humorously funny like his nymph tryst with Terry that he had just finish thinking about, or ironically funny like his bonding with the sea from birth that got him started on this think, but kind of sad sack funny how he and Diana had met, met in Harvard Square in the summer of love, 1967 (check it out on Wikipedia for the San Francisco version of that same year but basically, in both cases although more flagrantly in ’Frisco, it was the winds blowing the right way for once when make love not war, make something, make your dreams come true with sex, drugs, music had its minute, has its soon faded minute via self –imposed hubris and the death-dealing, fag-hating, nigger-hating, women-hating, self-hating bad guys with the guns and the dough leading, and still leading, a vicious counter-attack), she from Podunk Mid-West (Davenport out in the Iowas if you need to know) far from ocean waters, but thrilled by the prospect of meeting an ocean boy (okay, okay man, twenty- three, she twenty-one)who actually had been there, to the ocean that is.
Oh yah, how they met in that Harvard Square good night for the curious, simplicity itself (his version), she was sitting about half way across the room, the cafeteria room, the old Hayes-Bickford awful dish- water coffee out of necessarily sturdy ceramic mugs , runny eggs, steamy to perdition everything else room, although the food and its conditions was not why you hung out there, just up from the old Harvard Square subway stop (and no longer there, long gone and missed, nor is that subway stop the end of the Red Line), if that name helps (and it did , did help that is, if you had any pretensions to some folkie literary career, some be-bop blessed poet life, or just wanted to rub elbows with what might be the next big thing after that folk minute expired of a British invasion of sexed-up moppets and wet dream bad boys and poetry died of T.S. Eliot and rarified air, or, maybe just a two in the morning coffee, hard pressed sudsy coffee, but coffee, enough to keep a seat in the place, after a tough night at the local gin mills, and hadn’t caught anybody’s attention), sitting by herself, writing furiously, on some yellow notepad, and she looked up. He, just that moment looked up as well (although he had taken about six previous peeks in her direction but she ignored them, studiously ignored, with her furious pen), and smiled at her. And she gave him a whimsical, no a melt smile, a smile to think about eternities over, about maybe chasing some windmills about, about, about walking right over and asking about the meaning of, well, that smile. And he did, and she did, she told him that is. And in the telling, told him, that she had half seen (her version) him peeking and wondered about it.
All this peeking, half- peeking(her version, remember) , got him a seat at her table, and her a cup of awful coffee and a couple of hours, where are you from, what do you like, what is the meaning of existence and what the hell are you writing so furiously about at two o’clock on Sunday morning. And one thing led to another and eventually the sea came in, although, damn age against he couldn’t for the life of him remember how that subject came up, except maybe something triggered when she mentioned Iowa, and he said please don’t bury me there but near some seaside bluff, or something.
And what did she look like, for the male reader in need of such detail, especially since she was sitting alone writing furiously at two in the morning, maybe she was, ah, ah, a dog. Nah, she was kind of slender, but not skinny, slender in that fresh as sweet cream Midwestern corn-fed way that started to happen after the womenfolk, not prairie fire pioneer women any longer, had been properly fed for a couple of generations after those hard Okie/Arkie push on days of eating chalk dust and car smoke trailing dreams. With the long de riguer freshly- ironed (really, after the Joan Baez fashion or just some college girl fad) brown hair pulled back from her face (otherwise she would have constantly had to interrupt her furious writing to keep it out of her face as she wrote). And a pleasing face, bright blue eyes, good nose, and nice lips, kissable lips. Nice legs from what he could see when he went over. But who was he kidding, it was that whimsical, no, melt, smile, that smile that spoke of eternities, although what it spoke of at two in the morning was gentle breezes, soft pillows, of that Midwestern what you see is what you get and what you get, well, you better hang on, and hang on tight, and be ready to take some adversity, to keep around that smile. But that was later, later really, when he had figured it out better about why he tossed and turned all that night (really morning) and that smile thought would not let him be.
Memory bank of their first time up in ocean’s kingdom, the next day actually she was so anxious to see the ocean, or maybe anxious to see it with him, they talked about it being that way too but let’s just memory call it her anxiety, the rugged cross salvation rocks that make up Perkin’s Cove in southern Maine, up there by Ogunquit. There are stories to be told of his own previous meetings with Mother Perkin’s but this is Diana’ s story and those stories, his stories, involved other women, other treacheries, other immense treacheries, and other angel-sized delights too. That day thought she flipped out, flipped out at the immensity of it, of the majestic swells (and of her swaying, gently, but rhythmically to the rise and fall of each wave) of the closeness of a nature that she, she of wind- swept wheat oceans, of broken-back bracero wet back labor to bring in the crop, of fights against every form of land injury, dust, bugs, fire, drought had not dreamed of. And as if under some mystic spell, or some cornfield ocean mistake, she actually plunged fully-clothed (not having been told of the need for a swimsuit since the ocean itself was the play, the hugeness of it, the looking longingly back to primordial times of it, the reflection in the changings winds of it), in to the ocean at that spot where there is just enough room if the tide is right, just ebbing enough to create a sand bar to do so (today there is no problem getting down there as the Cove trustees have provided a helpful stairs, concrete-reinforced, against old time lumber steps breakaway and lost in some snarled sea) and promptly was almost carried out by a riptide.
He saved her, saved her good that day. Saved her with every ounce of energy he had to take her like some lonesome sailor saving his shipmate, save just to be saving, saving from the sea for a time anyway, or better, saving like the guy, that long gone daddy, who did or said some fool thing to his woman and she flipped out and make a death pact with old King Neptune (and wouldn’t you know want to bring long gone daddy along for the ride) from that song Endless Sleep by Jody Reynolds. But get this, and get it from him straight just in case you might have heard it from her. That day she was so sexed-up, there is no other way to say it, and there shouldn’t be, what with the first look ocean swells and her swaying , and her getting dunked good (with wet clothes and a slight feverish chill), and her being so appreciative of him saving her (the way she put it, his version anyway, was that save, that unthinking save, meant that whatever might come that she knew, knew after one day, and knew she was not wrong, that he would not forsake her for some trivial) that she wanted to have sex with him right there, right in the cove. (In those days there was a little spot that he knew, a little spot off a rutted dirt path that was then not well known, was unmarked , and was protected by rows of shrubbery so there was no problem about “doing the do” there and frankly that thought got him sexed-up too. Today there are so many touristas per square inch in high season and that old rutted path now paved so that the act would be impossible. It would have to wait hard winter and frozen asses, if that same scenario came up again.)
Here’s the thing thought she, Diana, from the sticks, from the Iowa fresh-mown fields, new to Harvard Square summer of love and Boston college scene school didn’t take birth control pills or have any other form of protection that day, although she was fairly sexually experienced (some wheat field farmer boy and then the usual assortment of colleges guys, some honest, some, well, one- night stands). And he, he not expecting to be a savior sailor that day carried no protection, hell, condoms (and, truth, his circle, the guys anyway, and really the girls knowing what the guys expected too, left it up to their partners to protect themselves. Barbarians, okay). So before they could hit the bushes, before they could lose themselves in the stormy throes of love he had to run up (yes, he ran, so you knew he was sexed-up too) to Doc’s Drugstore (no longer there, since Doc passed away many years ago and his sons became lawyers and not pharmacists) on U.S. 1 right in the center of Ogunquit. And red- faced purchased their “rubbers” (and wouldn’t you know there was some young smirky high school sales girl behind the counter when he paid for his purchase, jesus, with that knowing look of I know what you are up, mister). So as the sun started blue –pink setting in the west and to the sound, the symphony really, of those swells clanging on those rugged cross rocks they made love for the first time, not beautiful sultry night pillow love in some high-end hotel (like later), or fearfully (fearful that her prudish dorm roommate would bust in on them) in her dorm room but fiercely, fiercely like those ocean waves crashing mercilessly to shore. The time for exotic, genteel, gentle love-making (“making it,” out of some be-bop hipster lexicon their want to way of expressing that desire) would could later, later intermingled with the seventeen differences and sixteen almost reconciliations.
Funny too in that same sad sack love way they early on had vowed, secular vowed (no, not that Perkin’s Cove love day, sex is easier to agree to, to make and unmake than vows, religious, secular, or blasphemous), that they would not, like their parents fight over every stupid thing.. That night in her dorm room after that full day of activity they stayed up half the night (hell with a little benny that wasn’t hard, and perhaps they stayed up all night, and although her roommate never showed that night they did not, his version, did not make love) remembering his Velcro Ma wars and, as she related that night and many night after, her Baptist father repent sinners weird wars. He related in detail his various wars, wars to the death that left him with no option, no he option except to leave the family house and strike it on his own, on his summer of love terms if possible, since he had sensed that wind that storm swell coming for a while and was as ready as any “hippie” (quaint term, although he did not, and never did, consider himself a hippie but rather traced his summer of love yearnings to beat times, to be-bop boys and girls with shaded eyes and existential desires). She related in detail her devil father, with seven prayer books in all his hands on Sunday and a thwarted creep up to her room every other day, and of his bend bracero hatred short-changing the wages of the wetbacks who came via train smoke and dreams to bring in the crop (or have the complaisant county sheriff kick them out wage-less, or with so many deductions for cheap- jack low rent shack barely held together against the fury of prairie winds room and board, food just shy of some Sally (Salvation Army) hand out in some desolate back street town (and Adam knew of such foods, and of kindly thanks yous but that was give away food not sweated labor food) that it made the same thing. Justified of course by some chapter and verse about the heathens (Catholic heathens and he, the father , still fighting those 16th century religious wars out on prairie America and, and, winning against hard luck ,move on to the next shack and hand-out worthy food harvest stop, endlessly), and their sorrows .
And they didn’t , didn’t act like their parents, their he and she parents, that summer of love, that overblown ,frantic , wind-changing summer of love, when they sensed that high tide rolling in, hell, more than sensed it, could taste it, taste in the their off-hand love bouts not reserved for downy billows (and he glad, glad as hell, that she, his little temptress she, had freely offered herself to him up on those rugged cross rocks so that he, when he needed a reason, coaxed her to some landlocked bushes, or some river, some up river ,Charles River, of course hide-out and she, slightly blushing, maybe, with the thought of it, followed along),taste it is the sweet wines handmade in some friend experiment , hey try this (and experiment yogurts, ice cream, dough bread, and on and on, too) , taste it in the tea, ganga, herb, hemp smoke curling through their lungs and moment peace, or later, benny high to keep sleep from their eyes on the hitchhike road, or later too, sweet cousin cocaine, cheap, cheap as hell, and exotic to snuffed noses to take away the minute blues creeping in, taste it in the new way that their brethren, that small crowd (after all not everybody got caught up in the summer of love minute, some went jungle-fighting, some went wall street back-biting, some went plain old ordinary nine to five- routining, some went same old same, old love and marriage and here come X and Y with a baby carriage , and mortgages , and saving for junior’s college and ,and, and…, offered this and that, free, this and that help, this and that can I have this free, taste it in, well, if you don’t want to do that, hell, don’t and not face Ma, or kin, or professional wrath (or she father fire and brimstone), taste it out in those friendly streets, no not Milk Street, not Wall Street, not the Loop, but Commonwealth Avenue, Haight Street, Division Street, many Village streets, many Brattle streets, many Taos streets, Venice Beach streets, all the clots that make the connections, the oneness of it all, the grandness of it all, the free of it all.
They, they made the kindness, the everyday kindness of it, the simple air-filled big balloon kindness of it like some Peter Max cartoonish figure, and when they filled that balloon with enough kindness and against the sluttiness remarks of high Catholic Ma disapproving of heathens (see not all bigots were out in the prairie wheat field strung out on the lord and, wheat profits) and she Pa disapproving of hippie (never was , beat, beat, yes) they married , justice of the peace high wind Perkin’s Cove consummated married, she all garlanded up like some Botticelli doll model picture (Botticelli’s mistress, his whore, from what they had heard, and she blushed at that knowledge), flowered, flowing garment, free hair in the wind and he some black robe throw around , and feasting, feasting on those rugged cross rocks . Too much.
And for as long as they could see some new breeze blowing that they felt part of they were kind to each other (and others, of course). Then the winds of change shifted, and like the tides the ebbs set in, maybe not obvious at first, maybe not that first series of defeats, that Loop madness in ’68, that first bust for some ill-gotten dope and some fool snitch to save his ass from stir turned on him, some brethren (he hated snitch, the very word snitch, from that time down in that rolling barrel slope in the water episode as a kid with his older brother, and he didn’t snitch on his older brother now name etched in black marble in Washington along with other old neighborhood names), that first Connecticut highway hitchhike bust as they headed to D.C. for one more vain and futile attempt to stop the generation’s damn war, that several hour wait in Madison for some magnificent Volkswagen bus to stop and get them from point C to point D on their journey to this very storm- driven San Francisco spot (a few blocks up over in North Beach the old beat blocks, Haight Street hippie having turned into a free-fire zone, that” no that is six dollars for those candles , not free anymore brother” sea-change, and the decline of kindness, first casualty their own kindnesses, their own big balloon kindnesses more less frequently evoked, more tired from too much work, more “sorrybut I have a headache ,”he too, and less thoughts about trysts in hidden bushes, or downy billows for that matter. Worse, worse still, he went his way, and she went hers, trying to make it (no longer their “make it” signal to chart love’s love time) in the world, hell, nine to five routining it but it was the kindnesses, those big ball kindnesses that went (and that they both spoke of marriage counselor spoke of missing), and seventeen differences, substantial differences, and sixteen almost reconciliations, they grew older and apart, and…
She left him for another man, another non-sea driven man, a man who hated the outdoors, hated the thought of the ocean (he grew up in lobstertown Maine and had his fill of oceans, of fierce winds, of rubber hip boots, and of rugged cross rocks thank you, she told him non-ocean man had told her) when she called it seventeen times was enough quits after they had spent a couple of months up in that storm-ravaged Maine cottage that he insisted they go to reconcile after the last difference bout where she, quote, was tired as hell of the sea, of the wind, of the stuff that the wind did to her sensitive skin ( big old sadness at that remark by him for he never said, kindness, said anything about that, or never said he could stop the ravages of time), and, and, tired of him playing out some old man of the seas, some man against nature thing with her in his train, unquote. Yah, she up and left him. Damn, and he had had thoughts of eternity, of always being around that smile, that quizzical smile, or the possibility of that smile, that he first latched onto that first Harvard Square night when he had smiled at her across the room, and she had smiled that smile right between his eyes at him.
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