Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
So many fragmented groups had it up to fucking here that incendiary exchange could hap-
pen as soon as not. Sticking a flower up your gun barrel or flashing a peace sign to a hardhat
were taunts, so a few hippies got clobbered, proving the hippie point. Fringe extremes were
most often embarrassingly violent or soft and felt as stupid then as they still do today, maybe
more so, because that was an original time.
Yet through the din came Donovan's soft, sweet dirge in a lyric so poetically removed yet
specifically compelling that it soothed the aching spirit of a generation in a lullaby with a
heady downbeat. Yes, the elders of our time had chosen to remain blind, and way down below
the ocean was where we wanted to be—
she may be
.
Undulating rhythm over the pulse of the revolution affirmed the value and victory avail-
able to those who would tune in, turn on, drop out. Psychedelic drugs likely influenced more
people outside the military than in, but that's conjecture, and the demand for psychedelics in
Vietnam was formidable. Who of the right mind or whatever mind remained wouldn't want a
change of mind, away from the jungle war? Vietnam soldiers were swamped, fighting for life
in a hostile environment. They needed time away, to see a reality above and beyond a chronic
reality of extreme violence—the world they'd been drafted into. Who wouldn't rather gaze on
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
than kill or be killed?
A milestone was the baby boom transit from adolescence to adulthood. It came fast and
slow, with the best and worst the world had to offer. Lasting impressions formed from the cru-
cibles of limitless fun and horror.
What was manhood? It was a toughness that few boys were up to but all were required to
attain. Manhood got knocked down on all fronts. In some quarters it got back up. We were
warned to trust nobody over thirty. Thirty was out of it or worse: thirty took its marching or-
ders from the most extreme military/industrial mentality America could conjure, beginning
with Lyndon Johnson, ending with Dick Nixon, suffering William Westmoreland on the way.
Johnson got duped; Nixon and Westmoreland were dupers.
That was the world unfolding in the summer of '69.
David, Bruno and I hitched a ride to a kibbutz that made knives—stamped steel butter
knives you might see in any diner. The place was nice enough and hospitable, even welcoming
with open arms, embracing, nearly grasping. The managers reminded David and me that we
were landed citizens in Israel, because we'd been born Jewish by definition, meaning that our
mothers of record were Jewish. A Jewish mother could be verified and,
mazel tov
, qualify us
for Israeli passports. We could stay for life and do God's work, if we chose to do so. David
pondered the offer. I thought, ho boy.
Our host seemed giddy with prospects and further assured that Bruno's lack of a Jewish
mother was not a problem. Bruno seemed like a good boy and a hard worker and would be
welcome, and immigration would not be difficult, if we chose to stay together. It felt like an-
other drat.
