Cars in the Summer of Love

Cars in the Summer of Love

This could be a long post...and I am not at all sure how I am going to talk about that summer and ties cars into it. But after viewing the exhibit at the DeYoung Art Museum celebrating the 50^th anniversary of that event I think I have to try.

I was and was not part of it. I was a continent away and deep in my own problems in a world that was in large part apparently dead or otherwise immune to the seductiveness of that explosion of consciousness and creativity.

Much of Gainesville was out of touch...and what was touched was, at least in public, only grazed by the music and apparently nothing else. No protests, no “Be Ins,” no civil rights marches, no fiery anti-war speeches. Underneath all that might have been percolating, but on the surface not much was visible.

I had returned from my cross-country (OK...half cross-country) jaunt with the Sprite to once again bury my head in my books, but at the same time I was rapidly changing. While I was not quite ready for Candy's apparent new sexual freedom in her relationship in KC with John and Sue it was not because I saw anything particularly wrong morally with the idea of three (or more) somes or “open marriage.” I could wrap my head around the idea...but was not up to the reality.

But this did fit with other awakenings in me that I was becoming increasingly aware of, and uncomfortable with, the myths versus the realities and the potentials of life in America in the face of Vietnam and the “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit” conformism, especially in conservative North Florida. But it was largely my Yamaha motorcycle and not the car which was my means to gain both space and time to just think.

The rural roads of Alachua County became my Walden, and the bike my muse. The world and path of education, marriage, job was beginning to look much different than I had previously envisioned it.

It was Tom Wessling who was the catalyst into the mind expansion of drugs as well as using that to facilitate creative expression in writing and graphic art. Tom was my roommate, along with Marcia. Though she was officially still an on-campus dorm resident, for all practical purposes she lived with me-her lack of presence at the dorm being covered by friends there. As a senior I was pushing hard to try and finish my schoolwork and get my degree by June, but it was increasingly apparent that was not going to happen...despite always taking a heavy load of classes and even staying in town over the summer and taking classes while working as a DJ at a local radio station, there were still too many credits left to not require one more term.

But it was neither relationship tension, of which there was none, nor classroom pressure which kept me wandering the back roads on the bike. There was more just a growing itch and feeling both that something was increasingly wrong with the world as it was being presented to me in Florida versus what might be possible elsewhere, along with feeling I was trapped by my military commitment. And there was something totally and increasingly obviously screwed up about that!

I was not an early convert to cannabis, no less more potent psychedelics. And it was not a topic you discussed with anyone you were not really sure about. So when “Time” magazine did a cover article the gist of which was that the weed might be less harmful than the government's “Reefer Madness” publicity stated, two things went through my overly analytical brain...I might be willing to try the stuff to see for myself, and if they are lying about this what else might they be manipulating for their own nefarious purposes? And of course Vietnam had to be the 800 pound elephant in that discussion. But one thing at a time. Once I expressed the first thought out loud Tom got off the coach, went into his bedroom, and tossed a baby food jar of pot in my lap when he returned. I'd been living with the guy for a year and he was not about to tell me he was smoking that whole time until and unless he felt he could trust me. My best friend and yet on that topic everyone was paranoid. And this was even before Nixon and the DEA.

I was already in hot water with the Air Force over Vietnam...and more. I don't recall if it was during that summer or the year before, but along with the rest of my upper classmate ROTC students, I had to attend a six week camp at Eglin AFB in the panhandle...as unlovely a place as I could possibly imagine. My only relief from endless drills and exercises was a weekend pass mid-way through the month-long ordeal. The Sprite and I hit the road as hard and fast as that little car could move...I blasted out of the state with my foot planted to the floor...only to realize I had nowhere to go and no one with which to go.

I spent the weekend sitting on the floor of a motel room in Mobile, thinking about how totally fucked I was. The supposedly fine “officers and gentlemen” in camp were a bunch of brawling, drinking, bragging jocks who somehow made the experience harken back to the fraternity rush party I had attended as a freshman...the same attempt to convince everyone how cool and grown up you were, while in reality you had no chance at living the life you were claiming. These guys obviously got drunk but just as obviously did not pick up and go to bed with...anyone, no less the multiple couplings they claimed. But I was told by the AF major we reported to that I was rated dead last by my “peers.” I might not have said it out loud but I clearly remember at least thinking that...these were decidedly NOT my peers.

And that was by far not the most serious conclusion I was reaching about the whole Vietnam thing. And those questions I was asking out loud, and the answers somehow were sounding like they belonged in the same bin with “Reefer Madness.”

So, when it was over....back on the motorcycle for many long rides in the hills. The only answer I could think of was to at least defer the madness by applying for Grad School, which I was planning to do anyway, since my career goal at the time was to become a professor, hopefully with UF so I could continue to live in Gainesville, a town I had come to deeply love. While Steppenwolf's “Magic Carpet Ride” was not released until the following year, in 1967 the Yamaha was already filling that role.

But there were other fragments of new ideas that were starting to coalesce for me that ultimately pointed West.

When my discomfort led to me leaving Kansas City and Candy (They really did have some “crazy little women there”) I decided I might as well explore some new parts of the country, and routed myself south through Dallas, including a few moments at a memorial to JFK overlooking the place where he had been murdered three years earlier. I had made a photographic journal of the trip (which I still have), and took a snapshot which later became one leg of a trinity of art I will explain in a moment.

At the start of my senior year I had begun writing...sort of rambling half poetry half narrative stuff just trying somehow to exhale my growing tension and discomfort onto a page. I've got all that stuff still too, and on occasion it is a good “level set” to re-read it and think about my life then and now. But I also had a yearning for graphic expression, though I didn't realize it until I lived with Tom, for whom art was always his passion. Dad had tried his hand at both oil painting and photography, and I commandeered his paint set (yeah, got that too...I'm not a hoarder but I don't easily part with things which trace and echo my personal development). Thus it was easy for me to jump right into oil on canvas. To this day I love the smell of linseed oil...it evokes deep memories.

Later, when I started photography, I tried to blend it with painting for some early experiments in multi-media. I quickly learned that I had skill with a camera that I totally lacked with a paintbrush, and the Sprite and the bike became my “magic carpets” leading me to capture visions in silver all over my surroundings...yet another way to try and temporarily escape the pressure cooker.

I don't remember exact dates but somewhere in this era I produced three paintings...the trinity I mentioned above, which to my amazement at discovering today, really express that gnawing feeling of “wrongness” that ate at me around that symbolic summer. I don't remember the order I painted them, but today they clearly address culture, religion, and politics...and after viewing them it is obvious to me why I began to embrace Timothy Leary's mantra of “turn on, tune in, drop out.” I never fully did the third, but looking West ( to see the East, oddly) became increasingly at first an interest, later an obsession, and finally a life choice.

The first painting I call “The Hero.” Even with the insanity of the War and the government, the South and Gainesville worshipped football as if it was a religion. And Steve Spurrier, the then quarterback of the Florida Gators, if not God certainly was Jesus with a number 11 on his back. It was impossible, even as little sports oriented as I was, to not get caught up in the fever. So I did a huge painting of what it seemed like to me. The stands full of colored dots...an undifferentiated mob of worshippers. They face the field with its obscure talismans of stripes and numbers, upon which are arrayed the rows of temple virgins (cheerleaders) and high priests singing “hosannas” (the marching band), in front of the god on his throne.. faceless (all the figures are faceless... this is because they are roles and not people and change with the years, but also because...I did not have the skill to paint faces). The god has his arms upraised, and is standing on top of a huge pedestal which is really a marble and gold trophy. He wears, on his vestment, the number “11,” Spurrier's number. So much for society. You could easily substitute the military for the band and LBJ for Spurrier. The worship service, at least for the first years of the War, would be almost identical.

The second painting was a long, narrow vertical. Against a blood red background I painted a church with two towers. On the front of the towers there are several large Pepsi-Cola bottletops, with their cheery “Pepsi” lettering and red, white, and blue patriotic surround. Hanging by his cape from a cross on the top of one of the towers is a very emaciated Superman. I have not a clue what I was thinking at the time, but now muse about maybe a “God is Dead” thing or perhaps “no Super Hero is going to save us from this mess” and yet somehow the “Pepsi Generation” is marching cheerily on? At any rate, it is clear that things in my world seemed pretty dark and unlikely to get brighter any time soon without me changing something.

The third painting is perhaps the most disturbing. I was sorry it was my perky little Sprite that had brought me to it. When I stood at the colonnade overlooking Dealey Plaza in Dallas there were only three other people there...three white habited nuns. The only other item in the frame is a floral memorial...not one of those semi-spontaneous and overwhelming displays of teddy bears and flowers that now seem obligatory at every scene of horror we face daily, but what looked like a very official wreath on a stand...much like the one placed by presidents at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier each Memorial Day. Simple and somewhat poignant scene, right? But not the way I portrayed it.

Once again blood was the theme. Clear to me Vietnam was much on my mind. This is also a long, narrow painting, though this time horizontal. The white of the colonnade stands in stark contrast to the totally crimson background. Everything floats on this sea of red. The wreath is there, but the colors of the flowers struggle to be seen against all that oppressive red. And the nuns? Again faceless, and in black instead of white....and with high and pointed hats looking for all the world like some menacing KKK trio (yeah, I know they wear white). Pretty much obvious what I was thinking about the dangers of religion as well as the political climate of the times.

When I applied for a deferment from active duty commissioning to attend Graduate School I did not know I was going to be turned down. Though the application was submitted on time, the Air Force claimed it was past the deadline...yet another indication in my accumulating body of knowledge that, when they (the evil “they” could be a company, a person, or, of course, the government) want to screw with you they will find a way. Nor did I know, at that time, how strongly the “Cool, Grey City of Love” and its summer was pulling on me...but I was beginning to suspect.

The album “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears” came out in 1966. Yeah, I have it...but the second version of the cover, where they covered up the toilet with a banner. I believe the first song I heard from it was actually “Monday, Monday” and I remember rushing to buy it and only then realizing getting it home on the motorcycle was going to be a challenge. I had no place to strap it on and no saddlebags, and trying to keep the wind from ripping it out of my hands as I fumbled with the controls was, in retrospect, a pretty dangerous way to ride. But I made it...and only then heard “California Dreamin.” Uh-oh.

The album went home on weekend visits with me. The Sprite didn't hold much, but that record occupied the passenger seat and not the trunk. I remember playing it and staring out the picture window of the folks' apartment in Cocoa and just...wondering. Mom saw the wistful look in my eye and even though it didn't happen for a few more years, I think she knew. Mom's always do, sometimes even before you realize it yourself.

At the end of 1967 I finally had all the credits I needed to graduate. I now had my feet in two worlds...the “normal” straight one, and the world of the hippies, drugs, and music. I had appealed the denial of deferment from the Air Force, and while I waited enrolled in Grad School. Oh yeah, Marcia and I also got married. And I discovered photography.

Tom had checked out a book called “The Complete Photographer” from the local library. He wanted to add photo elements to his paintings. I picked it up and was immediately hooked. I “got it” technically and realized it could allow me to express myself at a level I was highly unlikely to reach in painting. I could either learn that quickly with a camera, or spend years and money I didn't have to see if I could develop as a painter, perhaps to no avail.

Besides, it was a lot easier to carry a camera on a bike than painting gear. Our kitchen became an ad-hoc darkroom, as I wanted to control the process and final execution of my visions. A single print I did not long after perfectly illustrates how the bike and my art could work together.

Krystal is a chain of hamburger joints which I think is still around. They were a “White Castle” type of format...small white buildings with a limited sit-down counter...perhaps a cut above WC in quality. There was one in Gainesville on University Avenue just a half block in from 13^th Street, the main North-South drag. I don't recall why, but on this particular night I was troubled by something...I dunno, there was plenty to be troubled about such as the War and my struggles with the military...what I do know was it was not with Marcia. Our relationship was still solid and growing. My typical pattern would be to go out for a ride or drive and just try to decompress, though not normally at night, and certainly not as late at night as it was when I took the shot. I think it was at least 11PM and maybe even later, judging by the lack of the normal University Avenue traffic. I was on the motorcycle. Of course night shots mean long exposures, and the clarity of this would tend to indicate use of a tripod...but how the hell I would have been able to strap that to the bike is beyond me. I was pretty good at exposures as long as ¼ second without one...so maybe that is how I made the shot. The lack of movement of cars and the people in the Krsytal tend to weigh against a really long exposure.

At any rate, the point is the car and motorcycle often became the way to the photos. I would set out with no agenda or destination in mind, but would just use the concentration required to see things of interest to shoot as the means to relieve whatever tension provoked the drive or ride to begin with.

The “Summer of Love,” like all summers, ended. But did it really? Certainly its influence continued far into the uncertain future, and as I wandered around the exhibit I realized that much of it is still with me, and I suspect many others. While 1967 was still relatively early in my own gradual “awakening,” a process that began before it and continued after had been set in motion which would, within three years, turn me and my life with cars West forever.