Joe Takes A Magical Mystery Tour To The Past

Summer of Peace and Love

My daughter and her husband, in their mid-20’s, are avid music lovers. They recently flew to New York to attend a Widespread Panic concert. During the four day weekend, they attended not only the concert on Friday night, but returned on Saturday evening as well. Their hours are for the young......3 a.m. and they’re still going strong. I’m up also at 3 a.m.----- standing in my dark bathroom. My bladder and I wake up about the same time.

The following weekend, my son-in-law participated in a guys’ weekend in Charlotte. The occasion----Widespread concert----another two nights worth. That’s a lot of concerts, I thought. But they have graduated college, have no children, have a house, good jobs, have only small amounts of debt, and aren’t breaking any laws---I’m keeping my mouth shut.

The other evening I sat in my recliner, reading...........and then not. I paused; my focus fixed on something across the room, yet not really focused at all. Concerts............youth..........hmmmm.........

It was the weekend of July 4, 1970. Danny, Mike, David, and I were rolling down I-85 to the Atlanta Pop Festival being held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Byron, GA. It would turn out to be Woodstock South.

Time has eroded most of what memory was recorded in my brain that weekend but still remaining are vignettes of sitting on the ground in a virtual sea of people that first night. B.B. King stood on the raised stage, illuminated in color from the two light towers anchored in the sea of people. His knowing fingers plyed the strings of Lucille--- her wailful response to his touch, amplified through banks of large speakers, mesmerized the masses.

The next morning, I woke up in the back seat of our car, the humidity already conspiring with the heat. Mike was sitting beside me dipping a saltine into a can of potted meat. Danny had gone for a walk-----I don’t remember about David. By late morning, the festival organizers tossed in the towel---estimates of the growing crowd already exceeded 350,000. Saturday’s heat would top 100 degrees. They declared it a free concert. Authorities were outnumbered and overwhelmed. One guy reported walking up to a Georgia Highway patrolman and asking for a light for his justrolled joint. The cop grinned, shook his head, and gave him a light.

After a late breakfast of Keebler cookies, potted meat, and potato chips, it was time for a smoke. Danny had returned from his scouting expedition with purchases to answer just such a need. We sat there with our smokes, while at the same time practicing holding our breath just in case we would ever need to do that. After a few minutes of this, I think we all decided that Danny’s purchase maybe wasn’t as good a deal as he’d been led to believe----Mike and I decided to go for a walk amongst the folks.

In the distance, some band was onstage warming up; hell, we were all warming up. As we continued walking, I noticed the ragged-edge of everybody’s bell-bottoms and the dust they kicked up, I noticed how the distant band was beginning to sound better finally, I noticed how everybody had begun moving as if very relaxed, and I noticed the beautiful naked blond girl that just eased by us----I turned to Mike to see if he had noticed her. I couldn’t see how he’d noticed anything----his window shades were pulled about halfway down and he was sporting a Stan Laurel smile. It had become a beautiful morning, everybody we met was friendly, and we didn’t mind the heat so bad anymore.

The fence appeared right before us. It was constructed of five-inch wide boards that were probably seven feet high. There were many of them which made up the fence and they weren’t standing totally vertical; no, they were on about a sixty degree angle. We started talking about the fence, how each board was certainly cut nicely. We talked about the trees that these boards were probably cut from. We moved down to our right.

Upon closer inspection, we noticed the grain in each board and spread our palms wide to feel the texture. As we moved along, to our fascination, some of the boards had worm holes in them; some didn’t. Mike declared that his dad once had some boards like this but that they didn’t make a fence out them. We stopped and laughed at that. We kept examining this really unique fence, noticing the rusty nails which we had to stand on our tip-toes to touch. Somewhere behind us, seemingly at a distance, people were laughing.

You could expect that at a festival, we surmised. Examine the boards----move to your right----lots of them to see. Finally, the laughter became so continuous, we turned. There were a couple thousand people sitting right there! For the past twenty minutes or so, they had watched us progress from their far left to right in front of them. The stage for all the acts was on scaffolding directly behind the fence and above us!

Jimi Hendrix played on that stage that night. We were there all three nights---I guess I saw him----it’s been too many years; I just don’t remember. I do remember reading that he died ten weeks later in London of a drug overdose.

Hendrix isn’t the only one no longer with us. My friend David, who I’d known since I was two, died in ’74.....cancer. When we heard the news, Danny, Mike, and I sat together and cried. Cancer also took Danny in ’04----I hadn’t seen him in years. Neither had I seen Mike, so I got on the Internet and started doing people searches. I ended up calling several people.....wrong Mike.......no, don’t know him. There was so much we could reminisce about. True, we’d kind of gone separate ways with me taking the more conservative route, I guess. I was still looking for him when I saw his obituary in the paper---staph infection.

Guys, I miss you. I hope to sit with you again some day........not too soon, mind you. If you don’t mind, could you get us tickets to see Hendrix? And have you spent any time with the King? Well yeah, him too for sure, but I’m referring to the one with the peanut butter and fried banana sandwich in his hand. Oh, one more thing.......I love ya’ll.

Joe is a fictional character in Eddie's novel, Bahama Breeze. He also plays a lead roll in the follow up cinder block best seller, Dixie Chicken.