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Authors: S. R. Mallery
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took me to my first anti-war protest rally, giving me the complete lowdown on Nixon's recent behavior at the White House, how our president had watched a football game on TV while a massive protest was happening outside his gates. No doubt EVO's Finest was itching to tell me more but there we were, already at downtown Broadway, with thousands of demonstrators chanting loudly.
I checked out the buttons around us: Make Love Not War, Hippy Power, God is on a Trip, You Can Fight & Die but Can't Drink At 18 , and Student Power. The Hare Krishna people were out in full force, as well as the Anti-Rally die-hearts holding placards of God Knows What's Right and shouting, “Love it or leave it! Love it or leave it!”
Some national guard were also present, their rifles locked and loaded but when a Flower Child came up to one of them and placed a flower down the barrel of the guard's gun, the crowd broke into a roar of approval and even the guard, in spite of himself, cracked a smile. The most impressive speaker was Abbie Hoffman. What a firebrand! You could just feel the energy rev up several notches as soon as the American flag-shirted Yippy rolled out his first pitch. “Revolution is not something fixed in ideology,” he boomed, “nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit and folks, remember…” He paused for effect. “…the only way to support a revolution is to make your own!”
The crowd went wild—clapping, cheering, whistling well into the dimming afternoon and darkening night, when everyone grew strangely quiet and all the lit candles, handed out by the organizers, flickered and glowed.
“Lily! Lily, come on!” Stephen whispered, taking my hand and leading me into a building, up in the elevator, and out on top of the roof. “Look down,” he ordered.
It took my breath away. A thousand or more lights twinkled, like Christmas tree lights strung out in rows on a floor, about to be placed on a tree. Suddenly, I remembered our family's holiday tree decorating parties, when friends would come over and how Sam particularly loved being there with us. Sam. What was he was doing at that very moment? God only knew.
I was lost in Dreamland when Alicia pounded on my door.
“Hey!” she bounced in. “I've just come from the most amazing place!
Was everything always shrouded in the superlative with her? “Where?” I yawned.
“It's called the League for Spiritual Discovery.”
“Okay. So what's so amazing?” My second yawn lasted longer than the first.
“Their leader is the great Timothy Leary, the one who said, “Tune in, turn on, drop out!” She plopped down on my bed, her legs in a Yoga-style pretzel. “He has a place up in Millbrook, New York and we're gonna go there this weekend!”
“We are?”
“Yeah, Babe! You told me you've got the weekend off. It's all set. I'm borrowing my cousin's car.” Exiting, her “Pick you up Friday morning!” floated behind her.
Eighty miles north of New York, Route 44 led us by gently sloping hills packed with dense forests, wide open fields offering lazy cows a steady munch of grass, and a bucolic lake with water lapping against its shoreline. Alicia blathered on about the blast we were both about to experience, not shutting up until she cut the engine and we both stared up at the sixty-four room Victorian mansion. Numerous people were outside on the front lawn, laughing, twirling, and acting strange. Alicia thought they were way cool, I was reserving judgment. We could hear shrieks of laughter flowing from the house, and proceeding up the front steps, we were met by a Harvard student on a serious LSD trip.
“The essence of all beauty is in your eyes,” he leaned in towards Alicia, ignoring me. She grinned and gave me a poke in the ribs.
“See what I mean? We're gonna have a great time!”
I said nothing.
Inside, everywhere you looked were copies of Leary's The Politics of Ecstasy and Harvard
I checked out the buttons around us: Make Love Not War, Hippy Power, God is on a Trip, You Can Fight & Die but Can't Drink At 18 , and Student Power. The Hare Krishna people were out in full force, as well as the Anti-Rally die-hearts holding placards of God Knows What's Right and shouting, “Love it or leave it! Love it or leave it!”
Some national guard were also present, their rifles locked and loaded but when a Flower Child came up to one of them and placed a flower down the barrel of the guard's gun, the crowd broke into a roar of approval and even the guard, in spite of himself, cracked a smile. The most impressive speaker was Abbie Hoffman. What a firebrand! You could just feel the energy rev up several notches as soon as the American flag-shirted Yippy rolled out his first pitch. “Revolution is not something fixed in ideology,” he boomed, “nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit and folks, remember…” He paused for effect. “…the only way to support a revolution is to make your own!”
The crowd went wild—clapping, cheering, whistling well into the dimming afternoon and darkening night, when everyone grew strangely quiet and all the lit candles, handed out by the organizers, flickered and glowed.
“Lily! Lily, come on!” Stephen whispered, taking my hand and leading me into a building, up in the elevator, and out on top of the roof. “Look down,” he ordered.
It took my breath away. A thousand or more lights twinkled, like Christmas tree lights strung out in rows on a floor, about to be placed on a tree. Suddenly, I remembered our family's holiday tree decorating parties, when friends would come over and how Sam particularly loved being there with us. Sam. What was he was doing at that very moment? God only knew.
I was lost in Dreamland when Alicia pounded on my door.
“Hey!” she bounced in. “I've just come from the most amazing place!
Was everything always shrouded in the superlative with her? “Where?” I yawned.
“It's called the League for Spiritual Discovery.”
“Okay. So what's so amazing?” My second yawn lasted longer than the first.
“Their leader is the great Timothy Leary, the one who said, “Tune in, turn on, drop out!” She plopped down on my bed, her legs in a Yoga-style pretzel. “He has a place up in Millbrook, New York and we're gonna go there this weekend!”
“We are?”
“Yeah, Babe! You told me you've got the weekend off. It's all set. I'm borrowing my cousin's car.” Exiting, her “Pick you up Friday morning!” floated behind her.
Eighty miles north of New York, Route 44 led us by gently sloping hills packed with dense forests, wide open fields offering lazy cows a steady munch of grass, and a bucolic lake with water lapping against its shoreline. Alicia blathered on about the blast we were both about to experience, not shutting up until she cut the engine and we both stared up at the sixty-four room Victorian mansion. Numerous people were outside on the front lawn, laughing, twirling, and acting strange. Alicia thought they were way cool, I was reserving judgment. We could hear shrieks of laughter flowing from the house, and proceeding up the front steps, we were met by a Harvard student on a serious LSD trip.
“The essence of all beauty is in your eyes,” he leaned in towards Alicia, ignoring me. She grinned and gave me a poke in the ribs.
“See what I mean? We're gonna have a great time!”
I said nothing.
Inside, everywhere you looked were copies of Leary's The Politics of Ecstasy and Harvard
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