While making my daily tour of favorite blogs yesterday morning, I came across Michelle Phillips piece about the the Monterey International Pop Festival
As much as I would like to say I was there as one of those young things dancing in their flowered frocks while something floated in the wind, I can't, but boy did I know it was happening. In 1967 I was half of "young executive couple with two children and house in suburbia". This was the surface picture.
Under the surface, I had gifted my then husband with a twelve string guitar. My brother in law with hair down to the waist of his long and lanky macrobiotic fed frame had stopped in for an extended stay and every day I went to work and every night we sang until the wee hours. In the morning I gathered the children to head out for day care while stepping over the bodies of still sleeping strangers. They came and went all summer, these young people who if still alive are now pushing or have navigated the bridge over 60.
Back then everything seemed so hopeful: There was an unnecessary war, protests in the street, a burgeoning civil rights movement, those peaceful flower people and some of the best music every written. Now we have another unnecessary war, no real protests since we don't have a draft, fear and locked houses behind locked gates, and an even greater gap between wealth and poverty. It may no longer be possible to bring back the hope, but we can do our best to live the dream.
Two songs that take me back to that place 40 years ago:
If You're Going To San Francisco
The anthem of the festival
On Susan's Floor
Wrong name, but they were definitely on my floor
