Sirhan was quickly subdued, the damage was done. He had gunned down Bobby Kennedy. Twenty-six hours later, the second Kennedy died for his beliefs and his plans to guide America toward peace.
Sirhan was arrested at the scene, and convicted of first degree murder. The investigation documented that Sen. Kennedy was killed by multiple bullets inflicted at angles that Sirhan could never have reached. The senator had several bullet wounds and Sirhan only fired two rounds.
The assassination ended the hopes of what Bobby could have done to end the nightmare 12,000 miles away.
~ ~ ~
As drugs were more plentiful during my senior year of college, I partied even more. I had more down time by skipping classes while trying to concentrate on computer programming.
The baby boomer population was taking shape, and with it the power to change. We needed to show people that we could not be stopped from acting out our minds.
“Listen to us,” was the call of our new generation. Consequences be damned, all that mattered was our attempt to show the world that we were free spirits and not a part of the established tight-ass generation where control was everything. We weren’t going to cower to empty authority nor let bullshit laws cloud our thinking. We protested whatever we thought was wrong.
Mainstream America fought our changes because of the messages we delivered and the unacceptable appearance of the messengers. In retrospect, it seems to some extent the rebellion of college kids in the ’60s converted our responsibility-driven lives to ideals that battered the rules of our parents’ generation.
College in the late ’60s rooted out a subset of the “boomers” that were identified by long hair, unorthodox clothing and a hip new language. A counter culture formed that was bonded by sex, drugs and rock music that wasn’t easy to dance to.
Some of the older generation called us “hippies,” or other derogatory names for baby boomers which included anyone with long hair, beards, beads, bell bottoms, “P” coats, boots, and other looks that said, “We are not your mother’s kids.”
Drugs and alcohol were catalysts that drove me away from the norm into a deeper way of thinking about the forces in my life. Getting high and dancing around black lights and strobe lights, grooving to “Foxy Lady,” “Purple Haze,” and an ever-growing number of rock bands gave me a glimpse where I was heading as I got in lock step with a new breed of people.
It was a time when social and moral barriers crumbled under the weight of the sexual revolution. The word was spread that sex was OK and free from responsibility, except those of us who created the “love children” to carry on our legacy. Having sexual intercourse and getting high became a rite of passage into some baby boomer circles, others tried communal living, and others lived by any variations thereof. It was a time when living conditions and personal practices were accepted by the whole.
Rachael and I got engaged in the fall of 1968 and planned a wedding after my graduation. We discovered in February 1969 that she was pregnant. We were confused and without many options.
Having a baby was one of the most life changing decisions a person could make, and we took it seriously. It was like we didn’t know where or how we were going to live after graduation, so our future was too unstable for a baby. At the time, aborting babies was dangerous, and pro-choice movements hadn’t gained the backing and exposure enough to help us, so she carried our daughter to full-term. I was excited to be a father, maybe in a naïve way, but I wanted the baby.
Our baby was truly a “love child” by any definition. Rachael and I were crazy about each other, and our love-making was passionate and usually unprotected.
After graduation my wife and I began the odyssey of our lives when we parted from everything familiar. We had our “love child” in the fall of 1969, so the three of us became a family, defining what our era was all about – love and peace.
All we had were ourselves in a strange city, but we had enough to be happy.
The events of my generation empowered me to follow my feelings of rebellion against the war and the establishment. I peacefully slipped below the radar and drifted farther away from everything my parent’s generation valued.
Chapter~3
1969 - 1974 Give Peace a Chance
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair transformed a cow pasture on Max Yasgur’s farm into a counter-culture, where minds were opened, people were high, and love was free.
August 14, 1969, was the first day of a planned weekend event to bring musicians and artists together in Bethel, New York, but the plan blew up as thousands of unexpected people arrived, which overwhelmed the imagination of the organizers.
Richie Havens was the first to perform on stage, crying out an emotional “freedom” ballad with original music he was creating, in order to buy time for the other performers who were delayed on the road to Woodstock. Some said Haven’s performance was the anthem of a generation.
Michael Lang, the festival founder, kept telling Richie to continue entertaining the few hundred thousand concert-goers who had arrived. When Michael saw and heard the helicopters appearing on the horizon, he smiled and Richie left the stage, drenched from the intensity that poured out of his music.
After a shaky start, the concert began to recover nicely, as other performers flew over the gridlocked traffic, which had become the only way in. Pictures from above showed the logistical nightmare as abandoned vehicles, rather than parked cars. At the time, no one guessed there would ever have been a need for a parking lot for these 450,000 people drawn to the party of the century.
Lower New York State was paralyzed by concert-goers who blazed trails to Woodstock for generations to follow. Overwhelming popularity of the festival drew an audience of diversified people that included students, hippies, hog farmers, and foreigners.
The Woodstock nation grew without boundaries, as the news of a gigantic rock concert spread throughout the country, kicking off parties where drugs and rock music set the stage for peace and love.
These pockets of people brought to the surface the unity of those at the concert, and everyone who identified with them. That was the essence of lifestyles which evolved in the ’60s and the way seeds of peace were planted by our new generation. Arnold Skolnick, the artist who designed Woodstock's dove-and-guitar symbol, described it this way:
“Something has tapped a nerve in this country, and everybody just came.”
As with most baby boomers, I think of Woodstock as the ultimate celebration that introduced our new generation to the world. It defined who we were at that point in our evolution, and gave the world a view of out-of-control self-indulgence with enough self-discipline to respect everyone and let peace be the only control. Bert Feldman brought it to mind, but Dickens said it first:
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”
~ ~ ~
By the fourth of July, 1969, Rachael and I were married, and moved to Connecticut where I took a job as a computer programmer trainee at a major insurance company. We lived in a one bedroom cellar apartment. We became friends with a couple of college kids in the building. He was preparing for law school while she was working on an undergraduate degree at the same university.
Smoking pot was a religion to them, so naturally I gravitated toward their grass, and the humor they created. Their tastes ranged from “Reefer Madness” to “All in the Family” to Eric Clapton, and their views were liberal on everything. Their relationship on the surface was nonstop comedy which induced tear-type laughing.
Working as a computer programming trainee was not as easy as I expected. My training classes consisted of recent college graduates, and it was obvious to me that many had taken computer courses.
Most people wore new clothes for their first job in the business world, but I wore my wool herringbone sport coat, which was the only dress Jacket I owned. I was not very stylish or cool in that hot summer of 1969.