Prologue
Spring, 1970
There was a time
when I drove up and down this country
like it was one big map
From New York City to the Florida Keys
From Selma and Montgomery
To Hibbing and Duluth
From the Atlantic to the Pacific
From the Blue Ridge Parkway to Highway 61
It was a different time
1970
Our country was bloodied but not yet beaten
JFK had been shot and killed, then Malcolm, then Martin, then Bobby, then more
There were violent race riots in the streets
Yet we still wanted to believe
We were mired in Vietnam, the first war America ever officially “lost”
But long-haired, counter-culturals like me
wanted to change the world for the good
We celebrated the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and “give peace a chance”
Years before Jonestown, the decimating march of AIDS, the end of the Cold War, the Clash of Civilizations
The times they were first a changin’
And I wanted to see it all
Kerouac had written it, Dylan had sung it
And I wanted to stop in every city I ever heard of
To get me “some experience” like Jimmy Hendrix had challenged us
Before he and Janis and Jim of the Doors all overdosed on too much of it
Sex ‘n drugs ‘n rock ‘n roll
I was in Wild Bill Hickok’s jail in Deadwood, South Dakota, on September 18, 1970
The Day Jimi went down
Sherriff Deadwood Dick McGraff led me into the communal day room of the jail
Where all the Indians and outlaws were huddled around a single tv
They all took one good look at me
With my long ringlets of Jewfro hair
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I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, I mean New York
But Sherriff Dick told me I could keep it, my hair, if I “kept it clean”
Yeah, it was a different time
Before hippies turned into yuppies turned into bobos (bourgeois bohemians) turned into hipsters turned into Millennials
Before ideals succumbed to money, succumbed to getting a job and raising a family and paying back student loans and the rent
Before Apple and Google and Facebook and Trump
Before Reagan and Clinton, the George Bushes and the miracle of Obama
Before we stopped believing in our leaders and started watching our parking meters
Before big money bought politics and there was no 99 versus an impotent 1 per cent
Before the end of the American Empire
Or… just at the cusp
It was 1970
When I drove a blue 1964 Pontiac Tempest
with a green and brown camouflage left rear fender
up and down America
When she was still the Land of Opportunity and the Great Melting Pot
When the green metal queen still welcomed the poor and huddled masses
Who made up our country of immigrants
Brits and Germans and Poles and Jews
Finns and Irish and Italians and All
Even after we kicked out the Chinese who built our railroads
and interned the Japanese who were on the wrong side of another war
Long after we wiped out the natives with smallpox and broken treaties and trails of tears
Before we built xenophobic walls along our southern borders and turned back hungry refugees from our fearful shores
America was still great, or so we liked to believe
And I wanted to discover every bit of her
By soaking up her history and geography and dialects and foods
I wanted to meet her people and learn her songs
Songs of freedom, songs of protest, songs of the open road
Songs to, and of, myself
Who was I?
What was my country?
I was 22 years old in 1970
And I had a lot to see, to learn, and to… experience…..