a little too young for the summer of love (5/29/66 is me) but my mother used to tell me they called it the Summer of Love because I was such a joy to be around that year. Seriously.

I was only 11 and living in Wisconsin but these are some memories of the time.

1. I was in a dime store looking at comics on the rack and this guy with long dark hair down to his shoulders and a full beard came in and started to look at comic books too. He looked like Jesus. I wondered what some guy that looked like Jesus was doing reading comic books. Or maybe it really was Jesus? What was this about? He was a lot harrier than the Beatles. I pondered on this one. This was before all the media attention. Probably earlier than 67.

2. On tv that year there seemed to be two views of the world that I saw many nights on the evening news or in magazines. One was the image of soldiers tromping through the jungles and swamps of Southeast Asia, or of firefights, or of the wounded being loaded on to helicopters and of coffins being unloaded from planes and the nightly body count.

The other images I saw were from San Francisco or New York and were of guys playing guitars or flutes or bongos sitting around in a park with beautiful women with long hair and either miniskirts or long flowing dresses. Or of dancing to loud wild rock and roll with electric guitar solos in dances that were free flowing and didn’t have names. There was colorful clothing and beads and long hair and flowers and incense and words of peace and love.

It seemed that there were two choices for my future. The choice for me was obvious.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman-Song of Myself

is when I was born, so was kind of "there" in the fabled Summer of Love.

Sorry, weak attemt to fill in the wisecrack void left by C.C. Joe!