As I Recall 1968

School year 67-68 was my second year at the community college. As you know, I was an art major. Talk about a practical course of “study!” It was so easy. My own self and a few others were the stars in that tiny universe. We ruled.

I had done some student teaching. One of my old schoolteachers let me practice on her little kiddos. I perceived pretty quickly that I was not going to teach art, anywhere. Shudder.

No further practical goal was in my head at all. That’s the thing about 19. I was like a sea anemone, just letting life drift past my little tendrils, and tasting it. Most of what I was tasting was the painting and the music. I had guy friends, but nobody special. Now that I look back, that was mostly because I was oblivious, and they were hesitant! I met the Bird that year, but we were just friends.

It was a crazy year, like now, but not quite as deadly. The country was full of student uprisings. Students closed down the admin building at the UDub that year, but I missed that, being still in Everett.

Ah, Everett, Milltown as was. It had been a fishing and lumber town with a big local native contingent and was very left politically from way back. I paid zero attention to politics though. I was probably a squishy lefty if anything. I didn’t know any different. My parents were old school dems.

I think I hated the war in Viet Nam, as any rational kid did at the time. I had no opinion about tricky Dick Nixon. He was't even called tricky until later. After the old monster LBJ and his inept handling of Viet Nam, and his scar and his beagle, and his probable complicity in the JFK assassination, Nixon seemed relatively benign.

My school buddy who had worked for a year after high school was attending the college with me that year, so we roomed together in some old lady’s extra bedrooms. We had two rooms, but we kept all of our junk in her room, and we slept in mine. Now’days that would probably raise eyebrows, but I had slept with a sister all my younger life and it seemed normal, plus we could talk until we passed out.

She is the friend who hated Dylan and she listened to like the Fifth Dimension! Lol. She also liked Englebert Humperdink. No lie. This girl was the original square, but we were friends. She liked chick flicks too.

Sister in front, Carole in the middle, some kid peeking between.

My dad had given me a little car that year, the infamous Renault 4cv. It was a glorified lawnmower. It was so simple that I could keep it running. I often had to clear its gas jet. I would be stopped out on the freeway blowing the stoppage out of it and putting it back in and taking off.

Back then, gas station guys still picked on you for driving a piece of European junk. They offered to twist my rubber bands up for me, as if it was a toy.

I had painted mine orange with a brush!

Carole didn’t have a car, so our adventures were done with me driving. I remember a lot of car stuff. I liked to drive that little thing places where I was not supposed to, such as the walkways at the college. She would get down under the dashboard and hide. Sometimes we would drive out into the sticks and buy beer from some checker who didn’t give a rat’s how old I was. I used to costume to look older to fool em. Darker lipstick, wrong clothes.

Our landlady didn’t think we should go out at night. So, we would sneak out and roll the car out of the driveway and onto the street and then start it up. I’m sure she never noticed. Maybe.

My friend Carole had a record player. She let me play my awful records on it too. I liked the Doors, Dylan of course, was getting into Cream, was getting into some Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, Chambers bros. I was aware of the Dead, not much of a fan, and Jimi, same deal. I liked a lot of the old Motown records, but I didn’t own them. The music was terribly important, but access was not like now of course. Part of the reason I like YT so much is the tremendous access. I was too poor to go to shows. Never even thought of it until later. Did I omit mentioning the Airplane?

Life as an art student is the life of a smartyarsed grubby urchin of sorts. Nothing matters but the excellence of the work, and the all-important raffish pose of it all.

I never claimed hippiedom. I am not sure anyone ever said they were one back then. From popular culture you might get the idea that people were out there costumed up like extras in a movie, but not so in 68, certainly not in the PNW.  Guys were letting their hair grow longer.  One thing I remember was the fad of wearing those green army jackets, among the guys. Other people might call you one, judging you by your appearance, but I think that whole deal came a few years later. The Summer of Love, lol, didn't affect us much up here. I was a good girl in funny clothes. People who did not know me probably did judge me. Such is life.

I should add that before the 70s the clothes just were not the point.  The ideas were the point. In fact, part of the reason for the long hair and all, was that it was not the point.  Hair grew while you were being whatever kind of new thinker you were.

I never forgot that there was a God. My father put that in me from toddlerhood. I think my Lord kept me alive through some pretty silly stuff like driving the twenty miles to my parents’ house drunk from a party. There was some other stuff too.



1968. I turned 20 that September and went on to the University and everything was different.