Category: Stories From My Life

Gridiron for Leg Irons

In the winter of
Nineteen hundred and sixty-four
Something was going on,
Called the Vietnam War.

But all we could hear,
At the stadium that night
Was the roar of the crowd,
As we continued our fight.

But older friends
Had joined the fray,
And died in a swamp
Many worlds away.

The play was called.
And I started my run.
As another friend died
Under the gun.

The play I remember
Was Buck- forty-five
As the government kept telling
Us, lie after lie.

Then came the day
They said I must go.
But I stood on the line and shouted
My NO!!

They locked me in chains,
Both hands and
Both feet.
But the mind of the boy
Would not face defeat.

The judge said,
Son, “what will you do?”
I said, “Your honor.
It is all up to you.”

If you think I was wrong, then
To jail, I must go.
If you believe I was right
There’s a great Broadway show.
Perhaps we could go.

And with those words
In the blink of an eye
I traded the gridiron
For leg irons
And two years
At Danbury FCI.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Midnight and Me

A wonderful world happens after Midnight.
Lonely and creative hearts come out to play
No longer hushed by the glare of an unforgiving day.

The graveyard shift,
Or so some call it.
A place where
The dead are laid to rest.
With other undesirables.

In radio
And other lonely places
Time passes slowly.
Midnight creeps to 1, then 2
Then to 6 a.m.
It’s where people drift
When there’s no place left to go.

For me, it was my voice, my opinions,
And my music that was my shovel.
Losing myself in thoughts
Alone in the middle of the night.
Ideas and music flowed like wine.
And I lost all track of time.

Then the phone would ring.
Oh no, not a ring!
You can’t have things ringing
In the On-Air studio.
A red flashing light,
Endlessly flashing, flashing, flashing.
Becoming a silent scream
Refusing to be ignored.
Answer me,
Answer me, answer me.
Phone call,
Phone call.
And many flashes later
I answer.

The voice said
“My name is Midnight.
Would you play a song for me?”

A wonderful world happens after Midnight.
Lonely and creative hearts come out to play
No longer hushed by the glare of an unforgiving day.
So do the strange
and the deranged.
A cross-section of life begins to drift
In and out
On the graveyard shift.

The musicians finishing up their gigs.
Dropping by
Because
Where do you go after 2 a.m.
When there is no place to go but home
And home is no place to go.
We had that in common,
The night people
And I,
As we tried to
Be glad to be alone
When all we wanted was to cry.
Sometimes it worked.

Midnight was neither a lonely heart
Nor a musician.
Just a night soul on a quest for tomorrow’s meaning
And yesterday’s reasons.
A late-night spirit who came to listen
Not just to the show
But to the lonely gravedigger.

And then Midnight would listen more
More from this lonely
Drifting vagabond
Wandering through town.
Both the ringmaster
And the clown.

Through so many passages
In my life, Midnight came to listen
Again, and then again.
Helping me through the
The dark dances of a searching soul
The journey of one growing old.
Dreading the dimming of the light.
Cursing the flickering flame
Fading in the middle of a winter’s night.

And many years later
Midnight came and cared again.
I guess I never really let Midnight know
How much they helped to make my life
A possible dream
Keeping me from going too far adrift
there on the graveyard shift.

It’s time I let you know
You gave my life a special glow
Pushing time along.
Your memory travels where I go.
Thank you for all that could have been.
And for what was.
Lost in the glow of life’s footlight.
Now dimming.

Goodnight, Midnight, goodnight.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Something There Is

Something there is that is special about the smell of pine trees on a hot, dry, still day in the Deep South. As an 8 or 10-year-old boy, I had the joy of living on a very large farm in Tennessee where there was a long dirt road that led to a nearby lake, not a lake at all but a watering hole for the cows. It was, to be sure, no more than a hole dug in the dirt that was filled with water, sometimes by the rain, sometimes by some mysterious creek that would form and roll down the hill from the farmhouse, and sometimes, I suspect, by my grandfather. Surely no fish could survive there, but my grandfather had me believing that the mother of all catfish lived in this muddy hole, so there I would go. My fishing gear was a long stick with some twine and a bucket of worms.

Alongside the road grew wild strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, an occasional apple tree, and other edibles provided uniquely and only by Mother Nature. In the deep thickets, mysterious creatures of the woods were hiding. It was an absolute certainty that the biggest catfish ever caught would be brought back to the farmhouse on that day. It didn’t matter that the catfish was the ugliest fish to ever swim in the water and that deep down inside I hoped to never pull one out of that hole in the ground, much less have to pull one off a hook. There was still no doubt this would be a banner day in the world of catfish catching (or with any luck at all, no caught fish, and the dream would be alive for tomorrow).

The farm belonged to my uncle and aunt on my mother’s side, and my grandfather also lived there. He was probably around 90 at the time because he died at 98 when I was about 18. He lived in the basement of the farmhouse, a place he had made comfortable with blankets handwoven from the sheep’s wool and pillows made from burlap bags stuffed with chicken feathers. There was a huge fireplace that not only served to keep the basement warm but vented heat throughout the house. I remember him carrying over his shoulder large logs from the woods, cutting them into fireplace-size pieces, and loading up the basement for the winter. My grandfather never saw a doctor and would sit on a stump and pull his teeth. As I said, he lived to be a very healthy 98, and I sometimes think he would still be going strong, but it was time, and he had other things to do.

I treasure a true working man’s farm, especially in the Deep South in the 1950s. Did you ever smell a barnyard filled with pigs, cows, sheep, horses, dogs, and chickens on any given blistering day? Did you ever catch the sweet smell of pine trees and honeysuckle?

It was long ago, but I’m sure the road is still as dusty, the sun still blazes down as hot, and bare feet still hurry to the cool water, bringing relief to the feet and fish to the pole. Something there is about such a day that lives fresh in the mind of the man that was once the boy walking on that dirt country road. Something there is that refuses to separate one from the other, the boy still walking down that road and the man simply standing to the side, not remembering but watching, as a witness to the experience, keeping that juncture of time alive. Perhaps in that way life continues.

I wish I could find that place again and stand on the back porch of that farmhouse and smell those smells like the man of today and not the boy of yesterday. Something there is that is delightful about that thought.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Once There Was a Time

Once there was a time. It was a perfect storm of music, issues, and people all coming together at just the right time in just the right way in just the right places. Once there was a time that I think will never be equaled, and sometimes when I feel old—and those times happen more and more to me every day now—I see something or hear some music from the 1960’s and very early 1970’s, and I remember and  I smile. I smile knowing that yes, once there was a time, and I was there.

A very good friend told me once that I was his favorite hippie, and I told him it was likely that I am the only hippie he knows given our age difference and that we old hippie radio DJs are a dying breed.

I think many younger people today, and even some in my age group who might have somehow escaped the scars of the sixties, don’t realize that their idea of hippie is not what they might think. All hippies were not pot heads dancing naked at Woodstock or jamming to the Dead at the Fillmore. To me and to a lot of others, it was a belief, a lifestyle, and a commitment that while the world was not perfect, we could and would make it better.

I said “scars of the sixties” because of something I call “movement casualties.” We are the survivors who once believed so strongly in–and forgive me for using these terms—peace and love and making changes for the better, and then we watched as all our hopes crumbled. We watched as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King fell to hatred stronger than our love. We watched as Brian Epstein, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan­­­­­­­­, ­­Phil Ochs, and many others left us behind. But we kept on believing, and maybe for many the final blow came when John Lennon was killed.

We old hippies learned that all the things we thought we could do were not strong enough to stop bullets of hate or the despair of a drug overdose or a raging social or political lunatic.

My friend replied to my statement about being a dying breed by telling me it was time to pass the torch and joked that he would start growing out what was left of his hair, growing it long. I said the tie dye was optional, but he would need either a peace earring or a pendant.

Just recently I realized that I was indeed tired. Maybe I had continued the struggle longer than most and got tired of trying. I posted this on Facebook last Wednesday: “I quit. I am tired of jokers and fools and arguments. I am tired of trying to convince anyone that certain things are just plain wrong, so I quit. I tried. Now go on and believe what you want, do what you want, and say what you want because it has become obvious that nothing, I can say will make a difference in your way of thinking. So, I quit.

Maybe I should go put on some Grateful Dead or John Lennon music and remember and be glad that once there was a time. It was a perfect storm of music, issues, and people all coming together at just the right time in just the right way in just the right places. And I was there.

But then I remember what my friend Daniel Berrigan said when he turned 80 and was asked when he would stop resisting and struggling for change. He said, “The day after I’m embalmed, that’s when I’ll give it up.” He remained true to those words until he died at 95.

Mentors

He wore an ascot.  Even in the early 1960s, very few people wore ascots and none I had ever known. It takes a certain flair and a lot of chutzpah and mounds of dignity to wear an ascot, and wearing an ascot in New York City in the early 1960s could only be accomplished by the cream of class.

Mentors

He wore an ascot.  Even in the early 1960s, very few people wore ascots and none I had ever known. It takes a certain flair and a lot of chutzpah and mounds of dignity to wear an ascot, and wearing an ascot in New York City in the early 1960s could only be accomplished by the cream of class.

Standing on a windy corner in Manhattan in the middle of January as I had done on many mornings, waiting for the man who had become my mentor, it seemed the wind did not bite as much and the cold did not cut as deep.  I knew he would round the corner at any moment, sporting his brightly colored ascot and scarf and warm smile. He was never late, and I was there to learn my craft from someone who knew what it would take to make it.

Henry Bartel taught voice in New York City, and he was an on-air working professional at no less than a classical music station, a classical music station in the world’s largest city, New York!  Henry taught me how to properly pronounce names like Igor Stravinsky (you must roll that name), although  I aspired to be more like Wolfman Jack, Murray the K, Cousin Brucie Morrow, and Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg, the Big Jocks who helped make Rock and Roll what it is.  It’s easier to say Lennon than Stravinsky.

You might think that Henry, a man of accomplishment in an ego-infested industry, would have such a big ego he would not have time to teach a young upstart, but just the opposite was true, and it was not an easy task. Born in the south, I had a slight southern accent, not the kind of sound that would be accepted in the major markets of our country.  Added to that, I was one of the most timid people on earth, and most professional teachers/broadcasters would probably have suggested I get a job in a library.

One morning I waited for his arrival, expecting to see that big smile and brightly colored ascot come around the corner, and Henry was late.  Henry was never late and was the first to tell me there is no word for “late” in Broadcasting, and I have lived by that my entire life.

As time passed, another professor walked by and asked “Dan, why are you here today?” I began to answer, and he stopped me and said, “Henry had a heart attack in the back of his cab this morning. I’m sorry, Dan, he is dead.” During the rest of my time in New York, the wind was harsher, the cold relentless, and the days a darker gray.  I never had a chance to tell Henry Bartel what he had meant to me and how much I had appreciated his help, but I went on to live my dream.  The shy kid with the southern accent worked in some of the best and biggest cities, including New York.

I don’t think there have been many times just before throwing the mic switch to “ON” and “GO UP, LIVE! ON AIR!” that I do not remember the man who helped make it all possible.  I will always remember Henry.

Midnight And Me

The person called Midnight is a blend of folks I came to know on the overnight gigs I have done in radio. My radio days are
forever behind me now, but those lonely voices on a
telephone still call me on cold and lonely nights.

Midnight and Me

The graveyard shift,
Or so some call it.
A place where
The dead are laid to rest
With other undesirables.

In radio
And other lonely places
Time passes slowly.
Midnight sweeps to 1 then 2
To 6 a.m.
It’s where people drift
When there’s no place left to go.

For me, it was my voice, my opinions,
And my music that were my shovel.
Losing myself in thoughts
Alone in the middle of the night.
Ideas and music flowed like wine
And I lost all track of time.

Then the phone would ring.
Oh no, not a ring!
You can’t have things ringing
In the On-Air studio.
A red flashing light,
Endlessly flashing, flashing, flashing.
Becoming a silent scream
Refusing to be ignored.
Answer me,
Answer me, answer me.
Phone call,
Phone call.
And many flashes later
I answer.

The voice said
“My name is Midnight.
Would you play a song for me?”

A wonderful world happens after midnight.
Lonely and creative hearts come out to play
No longer hushed by the glare of an unforgiving day.
So do the strange
and the deranged.
A cross-section of life begins to drift
In and out
On the graveyard shift.

The musicians finishing up their gigs
Dropping by
Because
Where do you go after 2 a.m.
When there is no place to go but home
And home is no place to go?
We had that in common,
The night people
And I,
As we tried to
Be glad to be alone
When all we wanted was to cry.
Sometimes it worked.

Midnight was neither a lonely heart
Nor a musician.
Just a night soul on a quest for tomorrow’s meaning
And yesterday’s reasons.
A late-night spirit who came to listen
Not just to the show
But to the lonely gravedigger.

And then Midnight would listen more
More from this lonely
Drifting vagabond
Wandering through town.
Both the ringmaster
And the clown.

Through so many passages
Of my life, Midnight came to listen
Again, and then again.
Helping me through the
The dark dances of a searching soul
The journey of one growing old.
Dreading the dimming of the light.
Cursing the flickering flame
Fading in the middle of a winter’s night.

And many years later
Midnight came and cared again.
I guess I never really let Midnight know
How much they helped to make my life
A possible dream
Keeping me from going too far adrift
there on the graveyard shift.

It’s time I let you know
You gave my life a special glow
Pushing time along.
Your memory travels where I go.
Thank you for all that could have been
And for what was.
Lost in the glow of life’s footlight

Now dimming. 

Goodnight, Midnight, goodnight. 

 

 

Someplace, to Rachael

I still have the picture

And the memory of a cold snowy night

In Washington

In the early 1970s, I was living in Washington, D.C., as part of CCNV, the Community for Creative Non-Violence. I would get gigs speaking at coffee houses, bars, and the occasional college or university. It was all part of CCNV’s outreach, attempts to bring awareness, first to the Vietnam War, and later in D.C. to the brutal conditions of the homeless population. Sometimes my appearances were only personal, reading poetry I had written either as a child or young adult or before, during, or after prison. It was at one of those personal times, a time when I was feeling overpowered with loneliness and confusion while reading in a coffee house/bar just off DuPont Circle, that I met Rachael. Rachael was a military brat whose dad worked at the Pentagon and just saying hello to me could have caused all kinds of problems at home, but she did say hello at a time when I desperately needed someone to say hello. I know at the time we both needed a friendly hello.

( podcast reading at bottom of the poem)

I’m balancing on a barstool

Caught in a solitary light

Reading my poetry

In a coffee shop

Just off DuPont circle.

 

The night is cold

Snow falling in quiet wisp

Like little wintry feathers

Searching for angels lost in hell.

 

You’re listening to me

Tilting your head just so to one side

Chin cradled in the palm of your hand

Arm curving to rest

On the wooden table where

A glass of wine sits waiting

Untouched.

 

Your ring sparkles,

Held in the soft glow of Tiffany

Like a beacon

Guiding the way

To you.

 

It clings close to your finger

Afraid of slipping away

Afraid to be lost

Lost in the dark

Lost in the cold

Lost in the lonely.

 

We spent that night

And more together

Clinging close to each other

In frightened desperation

Afraid of slipping away

Afraid to be lost

Lost in the dark

Lost in the cold

Lost in the lonely.

 

One morning you were gone

Leaving a picture.

You’re tilting your head just so to one side

Chin resting

Cradled in the palm of your hand

Arm curving away

Leaving me

Like your wine

Untouched.

 

Your final words

Fading in my memory

Like the image you left:

“If you ever need or want a warm place to stay

You know where to find me.”

 

That was more than 50 years ago.

I have never looked for you

Even when I was cold and lonely.

 

I don’t remember the name of the coffee shop

And I’ve lost the old poetry

But I do remember you

And the ring

And how you would tilt your head just so

To one side.

 

I still have the picture

And the memory of a cold snowy night

In Washington

Tucked away safely

Caught Red-Handed

I remember thanking her, and as I rolled back to sleep I realized that if it were true, that the war was over, then this would be the first time in my adult life that I would not have the Specter of Death, the Vietnam War, skulking around the corners of my life. What would I do now?

Beginning at the age of 16, there was one big scythe swinging over me, ready to chop me down like the end-of-summer wheat and anything my future might hold. Any success I would ever have in love and life hinged almost daily on the events in a land very far away that many had never heard of. And the scariest part of all was having little control over how these events would shape the immediate years of my life. It all depended on how the reapers in D.C. would handle them. All the power was resting in the hands of a few old men hungry for dominance and embarrassed by failure. But at 3 a.m. on January 23, 1973, a friend woke me to tell me that the Vietnam War had ended.  I remember thanking her, and as I rolled back to sleep I realized that if it were true, that the war was over, then this would be the first time in my adult life that I would not have the Specter of Death, the Vietnam War, skulking around the corners of my life. What would I do now?

At the time, I was living at the corner of 13th and Euclid street in Washington, D.C., a part of the U Street Corridor, sometimes called Cardozo/Shaw or Cardozo. From the 1920s until the 1960s it was the city’s black entertainment hub called Black Broadway and the heart of black culture in D.C. I lived there in the 1970s before the area fell to the sickle of gentrification, changing the demographics.

The house I lived in was part of the larger Community for Creative Non-Violence, simply known as CCNV. The house had been started by Mitch Snyder who would later become known as one of the most influential people ever involved in the struggle to help the homeless and was the subject of a made-for-television 1986 biopic Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story, starring Martin Sheen. We worked closely with our companion house in Baltimore called Jonah House, which had been started by Phil Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest, after he was released from Danbury Federal Prison, a residence he had been given by the powers-that-were because of his acts of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. Before this, as a priest in the deep south, Phil had been involved in the civil rights movement and the freedom rides and was one of the first white priests, if not the first, to take part in a civil rights march in the south.

But now we all had a question, the same question that paced through my dreams that night in January. What do we do now? Where to put all the energy that once went into bringing an end to the war? Resistance to oppression in all its ugliest forms from racism to war must continue.  Mitch and the rest of the Euclid Street members felt that helping the homeless was the greatest need. Phil Berrigan and Liz McAlister and the rest of the Jonah House people felt that nuclear disarmament was where we should put our efforts. Because I had started life in the “Atomic City” of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where my dad had worked for the Manhattan Project, I grew up with some of his thoughts on nuclear weapons and war, and I was leaning toward the Jonah House group, which I joined, and moved to Baltimore.

While refreshing my memory of my time with Jonah House, I came across a line written by Phil Berrigan and Liz McAlister in their book The Time’s Discipline: The Beatitudes and Nuclear Resistance from November 1975: “Dan Sanders, Jim McNeil, and Phil Berrigan painted ‘Disarm Now’ at the embassies of the nuclear club.” This “club” was all the countries having nuclear capabilities, and in fact, we had done that at the British, Indian, and French embassies with stencils we had made the night before and cans of red spray paint. So armed, we left Jonah House in Baltimore under cover of night and drove to Washington, D.C. with our maps and previous reconnaissance (remember, this is 1975, a time before computers, cell phones, and GPS systems).

It was a cold windy night in November as we made our way around corners and under cameras. Looking back now, I think I may have felt almost Ninja-like—Dan Sanders, Peace Ninja—yeah, that was me. But we soon ran into one big problem, the wind. While spraying the stencils to the sides of the buildings the wind blew and the red paint ended up all over our hands. But we completed our mission and moved on to the next embassy. At around two in the morning, as we roamed about looking for the Russian embassy, it became clear that either the Russians had heard about us and moved the embassy or we had the wrong address based on or own bad intel, but we continued the search.

I always seemed to be the driver on our adventures, but it wasn’t for a quick getaway, not in a VW bug, and when I saw the flashing lights and unmistakable sound of a police car siren in back of us, I pulled over and a plain-clothes government guy with a plain face got out of his plain-looking car and walked toward me. I remember looking at Phil and saying I think we are done for this night. As the plain-looking man stood at the car window asking for all the necessary documents, driver’s license and registration, I knew we were done for more than the night when I handed him these things with hands covered in red paint. The three of us were quickly handcuffed and taken off to jail, and to this day I do not know what part of D.C. we were taken to. The three of us were put into one cell and the processing began, as one by one we were taken out for interrogation. I imagine they wanted to compare the stories they got from each of us. They took me first, and I was asked by the plain-looking man in the plain-looking clothes what it was we were trying to do. His plain face did not break into even a plain-looking smile when I said we were trying to find a hardware store for more red spray paint. Phil was the next to be interrogated, leaving me and Jim in the cell. Jim, a seminary student, asked what kind of time I thought we might be facing and I said considering we defaced the property of three foreign governments I figured about 5 years apiece or 15 years, and Jim gasped and said, “I can’t do 15 years. I have a test next week!” 

We were held overnight but released the next day when the British, the only ones to react, dropped the charges. But from that shaky red-handed beginning almost 50 years ago people like Elizabeth (Liz) McAlister, peace activist and former nun of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, and others at Jonah House still carry on what is now known as the Plowshares movement, so-called from the writing of the prophet Isaiah who urged the people to “beat their swords into plowshares” and learn war no more. Their aim is to stop nuclear proliferation, and they were still in jail as recently as the fall of 2019 for nonviolently and symbolically disarming the Trident nuclear submarine base in Kings Bay, Georgia, on April 4, 2018. I am so proud to have been part of the beginning of that continuing effort.

The Last Hurrah and Me

This song was recorded and released in 1975. I first heard it that same year as I walked into the first bar I ever visited in Boston, The Last Hurrah located in the Omni Parker House Hotel, that is where Billy Joel’s uptown girls visit. Imagine that, a lost hippie peacenik revolutionary pretty much non-drinker walking into The Last Hurrah in Boston at around 4 on a hot afternoon, this is uptown business and financial district so you can imagine I was not dressed like the rest but I do think I impressed and they served me.  The Parker House and The Last Hurrah Bar were the unrivaled political hotel and restaurant of Boston, thanks to their location across the street from Boston’s City Hall, it was built-in 1865. People like James Michael Curley (mayor of Boston who is said to be the model for Edwin O’Connor’s protagonist in his 1956 book The Last Hurrah) often were seen at The Parker Houses’ main dining room. And by the way, I had no idea about any of this before a year or so later, hell I was just a long-haired hippie peacenik a rebel without a cause for the first time in my adult history and figured I’d try a beer. As I seated myself at this long wooden bar and looked around at the overall well-polished rustic look of the place the piano player was still holding my attention and he was playing and singing this song and I have been loved, and I have loved, and I have loved this song from then on and every once in a while I have met an old lover.   https://youtu.be/Q5Eoax6I-O4

 

Once There Was a Time

­­­Last week I shared one of my favorite radio memories in “A Radio Christmas to Remember.” This week I’m returning to another time and place. Just like everyone else, this time of year is my time for remembering, regretting, and rejoicing. Beginning in January 2017, I’ll start writing new blogs and do what I like to do, which is to tell a good story. Until then, I hope you’ll like these blogs from months gone by of memories that seem like lifetimes ago.

Once there was a time. It was a perfect storm of music, issues, and people all coming together at just the right time in just the right way in just the right places. Once there was a time that I think will never be equaled, and sometimes when I feel old—and those times happen more and more to me every day now—I see something or hear some music from the 1960’s and very early 1970’s, and I remember and  I smile. I smile knowing that yes, once there was a time, and I was there.

A very good friend told me the other day that I was his favorite hippie, and I told him it was likely that I am the only hippie he knows given our age difference and that we old hippie radio DJ’s are a dying breed.

I think many younger people today, and even some in my age group who might have somehow escaped the scars of the sixties, don’t realize that their idea of hippie is not what they might think. All hippies were not pot heads dancing naked at Woodstock or jamming to the Dead at the Fillmore. To me and to a lot of others, it was a belief, a lifestyle, and a commitment that while the world was not perfect, we could and would make it better.

I said “scars of the sixties” because of something I call “movement casualties.” We are the survivors who once believed so strongly in–and forgive me for using these terms—peace and love and making changes for the better, and then we watched as all our hopes crumbled. We watched as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King fell to hatred stronger than our love. We watched as Brian Epstein, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan­­­­­­­­, ­­Phil Ochs, and many others left us behind. But we kept on believing, and maybe for many the final blow came when John Lennon was killed.

We old hippies learned that all the things we thought we could do were not strong enough to stop bullets of hate or the despair of a drug overdose or a raging social or political lunatic.

My friend replied to my statement about being a dying breed by telling me it was time to pass the torch and joked that he would start growing out what was left of his hair, growing it long. I said the tie dye was optional, but he would need either a peace earring or a pendant.

Just recently I realized that I was indeed tired. Maybe I had continued the struggle longer than most and got tired of trying. I posted this on Facebook last Wednesday: “I quit. I am tired of jokers and fools and arguments. I am tired of trying to convince anyone that certain things are just plain wrong, so I quit. I tried. Now go on and believe what you want, do what you want, and say what you want because it has become obvious that nothing I can say will make a difference in your way of thinking. So I quit. More on this on Sunday.” Well, here it is Sunday.

Maybe I should go put on some Grateful Dead or John Lennon music and remember and be glad that once there was a time. It was a perfect storm of music, issues, and people all coming together at just the right time in just the right way in just the right places. And I was there.