another road trip with the Rocketman...

I share the blaghosphere with a lot of peeps and like me on Facebook I don't spend a lot of time in other people's blaghs. One of the people out there is Charles Laquidara progenitor of Dwayne Ingalls Glasscock and an icon in Beantown radio land. The Big Mattress made me think about road trips back then, major ones and minor ones. 

We used to listen to WBCN 24 hours a day from back in the late 60's. I lived on Bay State Road across from a BU women's dorm with Bielitz and his crazy Ocelot who was the night stalker. Imagine living in a two bedroom apt across from a bunch of parading chicas {this was the 60's, they were not wearing a lot} with a 30 lb 3.5 ft long cat with black teeth. He was cool and would lay out on the fire escape in the sun with you and was a fabulous chica magnet:

    she: "is that a cat?"

    me: "yup"

    she: "can I come over and see you and your kitty?"

    me: "yup #80"

They loved to come over and hang out with us and I thanked the cat for years. You just couldn't be menstruating around the Ocelot cause it made him weird so we always had to either ask the question or just watch the fun.

BCN was king then and there was very little commercialism and a lot of music and controversial conversation from the on air peeps. You could work or go to school during the day in Boston and walk barefoot, smoke reefer and camp out on the Commons at night. Life was good except for the 800 lb gorilla in the room, the Vietnam War.

Rocketman and I decided to go to the People's Peace March to End the War in April of 1971. I had contacts through my work volunteering with RESIST, the national resistance to the war. I was involved with their planning and strategy group in Boston and got us a ride to Washington on a school bus that had all the seats removed so we could fit people in and the idea was to live in it while in Washington preparing for the march. 

I will admit to some cloudy moments over the three days involved around April 24, 1971 but I do remember that it was one of the most amazing times of my young life. Sure there were a lot of drugs and sex and rock'n'roll but there was enthusiasm and hope that this may have an impact if all these peeps do come to Washington. What I do remember:

• the Rocketman was over the top for the three days and it was incredible being there with him. The school bus ride was a collection of all types and all ages an a joyful, spirited ride through the night
• looking out at 500K people from the steps of the Capital Building with Country Joe and the Fish leading the Fish cheer, "give me an F"
• believing we could make a difference
• not getting arrested
• the Krishna's feeding thousands Saffron rice with raisins out of trash cans full of rice. we were all "Hare Rama ring" that day
• camping out on the Washington Monument with tens of thousands of others listening to a concert with Leslie West and Mountain and others
• doing Peyote wandering around with some anti war wench while the Rocketman was spending the night in the bushes shagging some chica
• Krishna's blah blah blah

The bus ride was a lot quieter on the ride back but the enthusiasm was still there because we still believed that the people determined the course of the country and not the White House wankers.

So I can read Chas's Big Mattress and remember how it was and who knows maybe he will read mine and just wonder??

As I'm on the Road this year without the Rocketman it has evoked memories of other road trips with him. April 22-25,1971 was one of the best. Just sayin. TmyO...