Save the Date

A couple of weeks ago I received a 'Save the Date' letter in the mail. The date: October 9,2009. The occasion: my 45th high school reunion! Can you believe that? I can't! Of course, I was a child prodigy, a mere toddler when I was in high school. Yeah, right! Anyway...I rsvp'd that I could possibly come and received an email a few days later from one of the women on the planning committee....Becky Ray....and a great wave of nostalgia swept over me (see blog entries from earlier this week). Becky and I were in the same 4th grade class at Orangethorpe Elementary School. The school year was 1955-56 according to the class picture I dragged out of the bottom of a drawer in my office. More on that class picture in another post; the picture shown here is one that Becky emailed me. Where she found it, I haven't a clue because I truly don't remember it ever being taken. But there I am, bottom left (wish I could claim to be one of the cute ones...alas not). The adorable girl next to me is Patty McGuire and Becky's identified the girl standing on the far right as Martha Tabor. Martha was one of my best friends in junior high, so this picture must be circa 1958-59. Neither of us can identify the other two girls. Maybe our friend, Mary Wiechec, will know who they are. Mary was my best friend in 4th grade; we lived walking distance to each other's house. She's also on the reunion planning committee, and Becky emailed the picture to her as well. Schoolmates from over 50 years ago, connected by the Internet. Who would have ever guessed that when we were 9 years old?!

Summer of 1967

Okay....this is the DVD that I didn't watch last night. I think I left it at Travis' last summer for him to watch. It didn't dawn on me until I put a CD of the Festival in my DVD player that...oops, not the DVD! That's what happens when you become a woman of a 'certain age.' So instead of watching the summer of 1967, I'm listening to it as I write this. Specifically listening to Jimi Hendrix, and even without the visual cues, I remember exactly, precisely, in vivid color his performance and all the others at Monterey. My friend, Christine, and I drove to the coast from Bakersfield where we were working. A year out of nursing school, we thought we were pretty worldly...good jobs, boyfriends, living in an apartment with a pool. But the Monterey Pop Festival was a truly eye-opening experience! We drove into a world filled with hippies and flower children, psychedelic colors and peace signs, long hair and pot. And music--wonderful, wonderful music. We went eager to see Booker T and the MG's, Lou Rawls, and Otis Redding and left enthralled with Janis and Big Brother, Grace and the Airplane, and Eric and the Animals. And Jimi! Oh my! I'd never, ever seen or heard anything quite like Jimi...raw, rhythmic rock and roll with a stage presence that was sexual and overpowering. Chris and I weren't the only ones in the audience that were totally blown away when he set his guitar on fire as the grand finale to his performance. Damn, that was good! It was truly the dawning of the Age of Aquarius that weekend in June. We felt embraced by love and good vibes and peace even in the midst of the huge crowd of really 'out there' people. Or maybe it was just a contact high from all the pot?

We worried a bit as Otis took the stage in the final set Saturday night. Would this crowd of flower children even like him? Not to worry....Otis literally brought down the house. All of us were dancing in the aisles by the time he finished playing. I find myself smiling even now forty years later remembering all those good vibrations from the summer of 1967.

1968

I have been washed by waves of nostalgia the past couple of weeks. Why is that?? I think some of it has to do with being of a 'certain age.' It's hard to be nostalgic about anything when you're 25; it's only with age that you accumulate worthwhile memories. And it's only with age and experience that you can place those memories in perspective. So, my next few blog posts will focus on some of those 'waves' that have come my way recently. Echoes of 1968 reverberate. This picture of Bobby Kennedy was taken by a friend of mine...actually in 1966 during a Colorado speech. Art was a still photographer for CBS back then; he made me several copies of photos he took of RFK that year. Bobby was my first political 'love.' I was too young to vote for his older brother and still too young to vote for Bobby in 1968. Inspite of not being of voting age yet, a friend and I went to hear him speak in San Diego a few days before he was assassinated in Los Angeles. I wept when I heard the radio announcement that he had been killed.This was only one of the tumultous events of that year. The Viet Nam war was raging, Martin Luther King was assassinated, there was violence at the Democratic National Convention, the 1967 summer of love had given 'way to the 1968 summer of hate. Listening to 'Hearing Voices' this morning on NPR, I was mesmerized by those events and others. I wept as I heard Martin's "I Have a Dream" speech. Forty years...we're almost there...hold on, Martin! The music of the era was the underpinning of the radio program. The Beatles, Joe Cocker, Aretha, Cream...songs of my young adulthood. I wept again...where did that idealistic and youthful time go?

Is this what nostalgia is about? Feeling sad, shedding tears, wondering if things have really improved in the past 40 years? Maybe...but I intend to pull out my DVD of the Monterey Pop Festival and watch it this evening. Let's see if the 1967 'summer of love' can lift my spirits! I'll get back with you.....