Chapter 19 - Jane Austen in the Park

I felt so free. Women were still in arranged marriages, having their feet bound, and in other male-dominated situations all around the world, but not in America. We were equals with our men. We had the pill. Surprise babies were a thing of the past. We could smoke cigarettes, go to college, have jobs. We could go wherever we wanted to go and do whatever we wanted to do. What a privileged time in which to be born. We could wear jeans and sit cross-legged on the ground and get high and read books all day, and eat out in restaurants whenever we could afford to. We did not need our father’s brother’s, uncle’s, boyfriend’s, husband’s permission to do any of these things. What would Jane Austen think? I picture the clothes she had to wear, the socially orchestrated life she had to live.
I’m in the park by the rose garden sitting on the brick stairs at the end of the brick walk, just enjoying the warm sunniness of the day and the smell of cut grass and roses. I’m wearing an embroidered Indian white on white top of lightweight cotton and my khaki carpenter jeans with the little loop for a hammer. My white Dr. Scholl’s sandals are thrust out in front of me. I’m resting on my elbows, catching a few rays. I turn and open my eyes and I see Jane Austen walking towards me down the garden path drenched in dappled summer sun and shadows filtered through the old maples and oaks that line the path. She doesn’t see me yet. She seems to float down the brick walk in her long skirted dress, head high, back perfectly straight. She has slipper-type shoes with low heels. They are off-white with a bow on the front. Her dress is in the Greek style, empire waist, loose skirts flowing softly to the tips of her shoes. It looks like an everyday dress, cream background, small floral design, maybe roses, in pinks and greens, perhaps a chintz. The dress has a V-neck with a wide creamy cotton collar, spotless, and sleeves just above the elbow with a crisp creamy lace edge. She has the handles of a woven handbag twined around her gloved right hand. It’s one of those small pouch-type bags, pulling on the handles closes the top of the bag. Her hair is brown, piled atop her head, no loose ends. She has a summer straw picture hat on her head, pink and green ribbons around the brim, trailing down her back. A puzzled expression crosses her delicate features. She doesn’t recognize her surroundings.
She sees me and her puzzlement increases momentarily before she takes control of her expression. In spite of her control, I can see that she is scandalized. I remember I am braless. Perhaps, though, that is the least conspicuous of my transgressions.
“Good morning, Ms. Austen,” I say.
“Where am I she says?” forgetting her usually excellent manners.
“You’re not really here,” I say, “you’re just a figment of my imagination.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I was somewhere that made me very happy,” she says, “I wouldn’t want to get lost.”
“Where were you? Was it heaven? What was it like?” I ask.
“Oh we’re not allowed to talk about that,” she says.
“Please sit down. Sit down here on the steps with me.” I say, moving down a few steps to make room for her big dress. Maybe we could have a conversation.”
She is not overly fastidious. She sinks gracefully to perch on the top step. She looks me over.
“My dear,” she says, “what are you wearing. I have never seen such clothing. Pants on a women! Where are your undergarments?”
“Call me Zoe, Ms Austen”, I say, “This is the year 1969, and my friends all dress like this. We’re members of a large social movement called ‘hippies’.”
“1969?” she repeated astounded, “America? Hippies?”
Her eyes started to glaze over.
“We have a commercial for cigarettes that says ‘You’ve come a long way, baby.’ We are also in the middle of a social revolution called the “Women’s Liberation Movement’,” I say, “I got you here to see what you think of our new freedoms.”
“Cigarettes? Commercial? Baby?” she echoes, still not focusing as I would have liked.
“Cigarettes are tobacco rolled in paper,” I tell her, “a commercial is an advertisement and, since women can smoke cigarettes openly now and they once could not the ad is speaking to women. Baby is modern slang, used to show how cool and hip women are now.”
“Cool?” she says, “Hip?”
“Never mind,” I say, I really just wanted you to notice how free we are. We have a pill. If we take it everyday we don’t get pregnant. We can have as many lovers or as much sexual intercourse as we like because we are protected as long as we remember to take that pill. We don’t have to wear skirts all the time and we don’t need the protection of a man. We can come and go as we like, even have an education and a career.”
She thinks, taking in all I have said.
“My dear Zoe,” she says, “you are not as free as you imagine. Given the nature of some men, who can be as evil as the Devil, I think you will find that total freedom for women is a myth. And while the idea of an education for women is wondrously marvelous, and even having projects that occupy the mind is a concept I can grasp, a woman’s reputation will always be important and must be guarded at all times. Women, like men, will never be totally free. Free to do what? To be low and depraved. Sexuality, free of love is an abomination leading to the basest kinds of behavior.”
I didn’t argue, although this encounter had not gone quite as I expected. Apparently Jane did not envy my freedom as much as I had hoped she would. I just gave myself a knowing little “I know better” smile and made my politest good-byes. I was satisfied with the contrast between our situations, certain that I was infinitely more sophisticated and that modern women should have knocked the socks off of Ms. Jane Austen. All of her warnings were just anachronistic (excuse me) “bullshit”. (She would have frowned over that vulgarism, but, to underline my point, I was free to say it.)
I stood up, took one last whiff of the roses and walked home, by myself.






 

Chapter 17 - USA, 1969

In 1969 the five most watched TV shows were: Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Gomer Pyle MSMC, Bonanza, Mayberry RFD, and Family Affair. A half-gallon of milk cost 55¢, gas/gallon, 35¢, one pound of butter, 85¢, one loaf of white bread, 23¢. The minimum wage was $1.60.
Movies we watched in 1969 included: Sweet Charity, Funny Girl, Midnight Cowboy, True Grit, Take the Money and Run, Goodbye Columbus, Alice’s Restaurant, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Oh What a Lovely War, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, The Sterile Cuckoo, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and They Shoot Horses Don’t They.
Slaughterhouse Five, The Love Machine, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and Portnoy’s Complaint were all on the New York Times Bestseller’s Lists.
Everywhere everyday life reflected the split between the “counter culture” and the “mainstream” culture. At least it did to me. Even the news seemed split between the two camps.
The “counter culture” news went like this. The Two Virgins album released by John and Yoko was banned from stores as pornographic. Early in the year Heard it Through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye was the #1 hit. The Beatles made their last ever appearance as a group performing on the roof of Apple Studios. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was cancelled for political reasons when they had Joan Baez as a guest. Jim Morrison of the Doors was arrested for allegedly exposing himself during a show. Biafra threatened to become “one of the great catastrophes of modern times.” The Chicago 8 were indicted after disturbances and demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention. Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman. In April Aquarius (Let the Sun Shine In) by the 5th Dimension was the #1 single, followed by Get Back by the Beatles. The #1 album was Blood, Sweat and Tears. Police removed a group from People’s Park near the Berkeley Campus causing one death. Dr. Timothy Leary was convicted and sentenced to 5-30 years for bringing marijuana from Mexico to Texas and failing to pay taxes on it. John and Yoko held a Bed Love-In in Toronto for world peace, harmony and love throughout the world.
In May the #1 album was Hair. Rolling Stone guitarist Brian Jones was found dead from accidental drowning with high blood levels of alcohol and barbiturates. In August Charles Manson and his followers committed bloody murder. The Woodstock Nation convened. In the fall the #1 single was Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones and the #1 album was Blind Faith by Blind Faith. Bob Dylan changes his sound and is backed by the Band. Monty Python’s Flying Circus airs in the US for the first time.
October 15th is Moratorium on War Day with huge marches in major cities. Rumors say that “Paul is Dead.” The #1 single is I Can’t Get Close to You by the Temptations and after that Green River by Creadance Clearwater Revival. Jim Morrison is arrested for public drunkenness on a flight although the charges are dropped. The #1 album by November is Abbey Road by the Beatles. There is a huge Washington War Protest on November 16th. On December 6th the Rolling Stones are at Altamont Speedway. They allow the Hell’s Angels to act as bodyguards. One fan is killed when he rushes the stage, others are injured. 89 Native Americans occupy Alcatraz. They want funding for cultural centers among other things. A Gallup poll in December results in the statement that 22% of college students have tried marijuana. Tiny Tim and Alice are married on the Johnnie Carson Show.
The more “mainstream” events of 1969 also reflect an era of deep change. In January, THE FTC PROPOSES TO BAN CIGARETTE ADS ON TV AND RADIO STATING THAT CIGARETTE SMOKING POSES A SERIOUS DANGER TO PUBLIC HEALTH. Lyndon B. Johnson bids farewell to Congress. Jack Griffith at Cal Tech first photographs the DNA double helix through an electron microscope. The trial of accused assassin of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, begins in LA. Throughout the year planes are hijacked to Cuba. Richard Nixon is inaugurated. The #1 single is Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells. James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the assassination of Martin Luther King and is sentenced to 99 years in prison. At the Grammies, Best Record goes to Mrs. Robinson, while best album goes to By the Time I Get to Phoenix. In late spring Sirhan Sirhan is convicted to death in the gas chamber.
In May one of the bloodiest battles in Vietnam occurs, the “Battle of Hamburger Hill.” The FBI discloses that it authorized wiretaps of Martin Luther King right up to the time of his death. In June a rubella vaccine becomes available. Charles Evers is elected the first ever Black major of a biracial city. The #1 song is In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans. Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge in Martha’s Vineyard at Chappaquiddick Island with Mary Jo Kopechne. She dies and he fails to report the incident for ten hours. On July 30th Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon. He utters the famous words, “The Eagle has Landed.” Jackie Onasis celebrates her 40th birthday. Hurricane Camille hits the Gulf Coast leaving 320 dead. MacDonald’s introduces the Big Mac. Ho Chi Minh dies at 79.
The first stage reduction of troops in Vietnam is completed in August. The #1 song is Sugar, Sugar by the Archies. Marcus Welby, MD and The Brady Bunch premiere on TV. A report is released which states that violence on TV leads to real life violence. 140,000 GE workers go on strike. The #1 song is October is Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley. A Supreme Court decision says segregation in schools must end at once. Maxi skirts are shown. The President announces complete withdrawal of all troops but does not disclose a schedule for withdrawal. Sesame Street premieres.
In the fall the #1 song is Wedding Bell Blues by the 5th Dimension, the #1 album is Abbey Road by the Beatles. In November Wendy’s opens. By December 60,000 more troops have been pulled out of Vietnam.

Chapter 18

My 1969

My boss decided to leave the Head Start grant project. He appointed me his heir apparent so I was expecting a promotion and a substantial raise. On the strength of these expectations I bought a new car, a sports car, an Austin Healey Sprite. It looked cute but was really a cheap piece of shit (yes, my language was evolving). It crumpled like a tin can if anything so much as touch it. The front end was dented almost as soon as I registered it. Jonnie was driving and did not notice that the car in front had stopped. I shrugged it off, but did not report it to my insurance. It wasn’t too bad. Rich boy Jonnie did not offer to pay.

My promotion never materialized. The federal government decide not to renew four of the university grants. Our grant was one of the four. Apparently our praise/blame study did not wow them. Not only was I not promoted: I was once again unemployed. With a brand new car (which only someone raised in poverty would have purchased in the first place)! Ineligible for unemployment payment, federal grants being year-to-year contracts! Quel panic! I just did not know what to do. Without work I was free to smoke cigarettes all day, ashtrays full of butts, cigarettes barely within my budget as I had some savings. Looking for a job was definitely in order, but the job search was not going as well this time. I typed an updated resume and hauled out the old teacher clothes, but my new curly afro-style hair was not impressing employers. And I probably smelled like patchouli. Annie, since she worked retail, was often home days. She worked crazy retail hours. She wanted to go, to do, to hang out. In July we went to Newport to the jazz festival. This festival usually concentrated on classic jazz, but in 1969 they invited people like James Brown and Led Zeppelin, The town had no idea what they were in for. Annie had a black Malibu convertible that she loved. We set off one sunny July day. In Massachusetts we picked up two young hitchhikers who ended up being from the same street we lived on. This is the way things went in the 60’s.

We had no tickets to any of the events, and could not devise a way to get inside the fences. Sometimes we hung out near the fences to listen and watch through the links, but usually we wandered around town, or along the sea wall by the Newport “summer homes” (mansions), or at the beach.

So many people came that the town was overrun. Gas station owners parked cars in front of the rest rooms so that no one could get in. Restaurants put up signs, “no shirt, no shoes, no service” or “you cannot use the rest rooms unless you are a patron.” We, fortunately, met some people who let us use their motel bathroom for a small fee, but physically we were slightly dirtier and a lot less comfortable than usual.

The group we really wanted to see was Led Zeppelin. Late Sunday it was rumored that they were not coming. The rumor spread like wildfire. Someone told Annie that this was not true. They actually were coming. Everyone started to leave but Annie would not go. We inherited some tickets from people who were convinced the group would not appear. We entered the concert grounds for the first time and saw Paul Winter Group and B.B King. Around midnight, when the crowd had gotten pretty sparse, Led Zeppelin arrived. It was electric. We all stood on our chairs and rocked out. We left for home about 3 am. Annie was vindicated. I would never be allowed to forget this.

In August we went to Woodstock. We packed up the Austin Healey, clothing, food, borrowed tents, sleeping bags, and headed down the New York State Thruway to Yasgur’s farm with about 250,000 other people, another quarter of a million having already arrived there.

We weren’t allowed to get anywhere near the farm, had to park the Austin Healey along the side of a country road with cars lining the verges as far as the eye could see. You had to walk from there. We left everything locked in the car except my cigarettes and joined the freak parade. Oh, it was wonderful! All around us a whole hippie nation, young, in “high” spirits, each one more hip than the last, music pouring from speakers rigged to telephone poles, a sunny summer day. Part of something so huge, so much to see, gorgeous long-haired guys, no shirts, dirty blue jeans, sandals. Long-haired women all rigged out in long flowy dresses and beads and sandals, jeans and Mexican wedding shirts-headbands, arm in arm. Joints were passed, jugs of wine were shared, tabs of acid were dropped. It was better than any New York City Easter Parade, better than the Ascot races, a parade of a new world set to a rock beat. Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Bad things were rumored, but we did not see anything scary. We were peaking. The whole world was peaking.

We had walked for about an hour when cars started to come through again. Apparently the flood overcame the ability of the police to control it. We ended up riding on the roof of a station wagon, full inside, with more people on the tailgate. The sun went down on our new age caravan and eventually we climbed down and spent the night at a campsite in the woods with friendly strangers. A slice of bread handed to us by a compassionate soul was all we had to eat.

When we woke up it was raining. Started out as showers, soon a downpour settled in for the long haul. We had no umbrellas, were water soaked, our hair draggled around our faces, as was everyone’s. People still trying to be playful, but with slippery clay mud everywhere it go messy. Lit a cigarette, it turned soggy and broke apart after a few puffs. The road was the only place you could actually walk without sliding so we set out to walk back to the car far away down the country road. Annie had to go to work on Monday. The rain stopped, we dried out, but it remained overcast. Now two lanes of people, those walking out and those still walking in. Still a grand and interesting passage with everyone eyeballing everyone else and the music again from the speakers. Finally, the car, a quick snack and home, back to my unemployed reality.

 

Chapter 16 - With the Taylors

Sundays were spent back in Smithvale with my real family. It took only fifteen minutes to get there but all day to get back in the rhythm of the family. Life at the Taylor household went on much as it always had with a few changes. Felicity was married so she no longer lived at home, Tyler was in Vietnam, and Gertie was a new bride. Only four of the eight Taylors were living at home. We seemed to be split into two families, the grown ups and the kids. Robert, Emily, Rebecca, and Morgan were still home, past the Robert torture days, into the “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” days. The revolution hit the younger four somewhat, the older three not at all. Robert had mutton chop sideburns and wore his hair longer; the girls wore flowered mini skirts and dresses with white go-go boots. Their hair was long and straight and their pant legs were wider. The styles in public schools were changing.
My family welcomed me, but they were withholding judgment. I still had a good job, I was evolving slowly, but I fit in less each time I visited. Even so Sundays unfolded as tradition demanded. We sat around the living room and chatted. We watched Felicity’s new baby, took turns holding and feeding the baby, we laughed and ate and celebrated being Taylors.
Our family was actually larger because Felicity came with Dean and the baby, Abby, Gertie and Jason came with their puppy, Waffles, and Tyler’s pregnant wife, Sara was usually with us, Tyler being always on our minds and in our conversation.
Augusta would cook Sunday dinner and then all of us “girls” would help: peel the potatoes, cut up the vegetables, set the table, clean the pots and pans. We no longer fit at the table and often had to eat buffet style. In summer we always ate outside on picnic tables, weather permitting, and sat around the semi-bare backyard in lawn chairs. Hobart’s grass was slowly coming back as backyard games died out.
In the summer of ’68 Hobart had to deal with a cement block cellar wall that was buckling. He was grateful to have new male energy in the family, and although he missed Tyler, Dean and Jason helped fill the void. They also helped with the cellar wall project. First they had to install jack posts in the basement to hold the house up while the wall was removed. Then they had to dig out the offending cellar wall to expose and remove the old cement blocks. Most could be reused with new mortar. They had to rebuild the wall, fill in along the outside and lower the house slowly back onto the new wall. This was a huge project and a hungry one, so lots of cooking was also required.
I kept going home, almost every Sunday, even though I had to wiggle my way back into the family each time, even though it became clear that my family approved less and less of my lifestyle. I helped with the cooking, sat around and talked, talked, talked, did dishes, set tables, and held Abby whenever it was my turn. I found my family hopelessly conservative and square, no revolution happening here, which should have been a clue that the cultural impact of the hippie movement was not quite as widespread as I imagined. I refused, however, to believe that my family reflected the American majority more closely than I did. I loved them, but felt that I was in the mainstream and they, in a little backwater somewhere. Felicity was still styling herself on Jackie Kennedy Onassis for heaven’s sake. Who’s judging whom?
Once in a while Annie came with me to visit my family or I went with her to visit her family. Annie’s family lived out in the sticks. She was the oldest in a family with ten kids. Most of her sisters and brothers were quite young. They thought we were as cool as we thought we were. At Annie’s house we played baseball with the kids or sat in the crowded kitchen and talked with her mom, Wilma. Her Dad, Harwin, would bustle in from his travels, order Wilma to find some papers he needed for one of his real estate deals and then disappear again. I think Annie’s family had more money, but less available cash than mine. Annie also had a brother who was born hydrocephalic and irreversibly brain damaged. He was treated like any other member of the family, dressed each morning and carried downstairs, but he could not sit up, could not feed himself, and would always wear diapers. Everyone lived his or her life around him, and all the care of him fell to Wilma, who fortunately was a cheerful and sassy soul. His disability affected every aspect of Annie’s family’s life. Annie took very few people home with her. She loved her family but her desire to escape was palpable. We didn’t go there often.
On Mondays, in our pretty apartment by the park, we would wake up to our jobs and our music and our friends, our movies, our concerts, our barhopping and our increasingly more frequent highs. We felt more at home with this life than we did with our own families.

Chapter 15 - 1968

It was the summer of 1968. I was done with teaching for now and out looking for a job. I found one almost immediately at the university in the Psych. Department. They had a federal grant to study Head Start programs around the state to see if pre schools were an effective use of government funds. I was impressed. I did not realize that our government exercised such detailed oversight. I thought they just saw a problem, threw some money at it, and let the chips fall where they may, until they took the money away and threw it at some new problem. But, anyway, not the case with Head Start. Apparently twelve different universities scattered around the nation where conducting a variety of studies. All of the projects were set up to test all Head Start students at randomly selected centers both pre-program and post program.
I worked from a little office, on the other side of the same park where I lived, with some very interesting characters. Our secretary, Jackie Jarvis, was from Jamaica. She could speak the “patois” of the island. She was exotic and, at times, raunchy. Our boss was blond, Scandinavian, gorgeous, and from a wealthy family. I was a tester and a coder. Reenie, the other tester was a thin blonde dying to be in love with our Jonnie. The three of us would be scheduled out of the office traveling several days per week and in the office coding the days when we weren’t traveling. Most of our traveling was done as day trips. At one center we did have to stay in a hotel for a week at a time. This was a busy job and a great job. Of course, four-year-olds are not very verbal, so IQ questions were pretty basic. Introduce subject to cow, show picture, say - “This is a cow.” Show next page with cow mixed in with other animals. Ask, “Can you find the cow?” Head Start children were often even less verbal than a typical four-year-old as Head Start looked for children who were “disadvantaged” in some way (often in several ways). Some of our urban kids had never before seen or heard of a cow. The rural kids had. It made a difference, but even so you could see that the tests revealed information about cognitive content and process. Other tests asked basic questions – What is your first name? – What is your last name? – Point to red. – Point to the circle. – Who is your best friend in school? Every child in our sample schools was tested.
Jon, Jackie, Reenie, and I loved our jobs. We felt the task was relevant and the job was not difficult. We were all so light-hearted together, laughed so much and smoked so many cigarettes. You could smoke cigarettes almost anywhere in those days, except in the Head Start centers. You could smoke in offices, in restaurants, in cars, in homes, at outdoor rock concerts, in hotels, in airplanes. Reenie and I smoked up a storm riding to the various centers while she pined over Jon, who, if we were to believe Jackie, was not interested in women. Reenie refused to believe it. So we would smoke and Reenie would yearn as we criss-crossed the state testing four-year-olds. We also had to have a year-long study. We chose the area of “positive” and “negative reinforcement” or “praise” and “blame”. We would quantify the amount and type of “praise” or “blame” given to each subject on a grid, code our findings in FORTRAN and forward them to the federal government.
Every Friday we would rest in the office and Jackie and Jonnie would start. It always began the same way. “Jonnie, my left tit itches,” Jackie would say, in her lilting island way. And they would be off, on a perfectly safe but exceedingly hot sexual riff while Reenie and I listened, at first shocked silly, eventually used to it, happily entertained.
Although I was busy during the week I was still available to go barhopping with Annie on weekends. Sometimes Reenie came along. Luke still showed up from time to time with some pot that we were all happy to smoke. We’d get the album cover and the papers and the rolling lessons would begin. Rolling a good joint took time and concentration especially if it wasn’t the first one of the evening, if the music, maybe a Beatles album, was sucking you in and out like a tide and everyone was mellow and hungry. Small, tight, and uniform were the qualities you were judged on. As the “j” passed from person to person, as breaths were held all around the circle, the “j” could not fall apart enroute and had to last down to the hot rolled paper at the end when only a roach clip would safely hold it. Sometimes there was hashish in a small pipe or a hookah or a bong. People dropped by, time flew away like bubbles- oh, look at that – pop – gone – where’d it go, next bubble – oh-h-h.
We started out conservatively, me in my little teacher clothes, the stockbrokers in their office clothes. Annie and I continued making the rounds of the bars, admittedly sometimes setting off slightly stoned. But my new job did not require formal attire and we were living near a big university. Everyone was getting “hippified”, groovin’, with long swingy hair on boys and girls, afros everywhere, dreads. Gradually we put aside our mini dresses and our skirts and blouses. We shopped at the army-navy stores – painter jeans (both the cream and the blue), and work boots – at the import store – embroidered tops from Mexico and India. We wore beaded or macramé bracelets and sometimes headbands. Annie left her job working with the stockbroker. She took a job in retail. She was not so into the pot scene but liked being stylish so she looked the hippie part.
Summer was the best time to be a hippie because what was happening was a group phenomenon and people liked to parade around the university area with other “freaks”, or sit on a sunny hill, across from the main university business district, with very little grass, dubbed “the beach”. We attended outdoor concerts all that summer where joints were passed through the crowd. “Give peace a chance.” It was a huge love fest. We felt that we were all one consciousness, one mind, and one heart. Since the communication was mostly nonverbal except for whatever music we were listening to, and a few polite “man, want a hits” accompanied by an arm tapping yours with a joint held out for you, it was easy to be in sync. We all did our weekly work, but it wasn’t what our life was about. “We can change the world, rearrange the world.”
Lena came by our place with a kilo of grass. That was a lot of grass. Grass usually came in nickel or dime bags, which after you picked out all the twigs and seeds, had to be used sparingly. We knew grass was illegal so we did hide it. We also knew how to act straight even though we were stoned “out of our gourds.” But it didn’t feel all that illegal. Everyone smoked right out in the open. In the neighborhoods where we lived people smoked pot in cars, even at indoor concerts. Rarely was anyone arrested unless they were belligerent or rowdy. We called the cops “pigs,” but they usually showed remarkable restraint where we were concerned. I only realized how different the rest of the world was when I went home to Smithvale on Sundays. At first it was easy to blend my two world, but as I became more of a “stoner” it was much more bizarre to go home.
So Lena brought the kilo to our apartment and we all helped clean and weigh and package it. With her New York City connections she had decided to go into business. We got so high just breathing and handling the marijuana, not smoking it, just taking it in through our pores, a magnificent “contact high,” that we gave no thought at all to the legality, morality or anything but the pleasure of the music pounding around us, and the conversation, however repetitive and evanescent, and the high.
Sometimes there were parties with outsiders. Linda knew a lot of people. Annie always had some cutie hovering around. But I liked it best when it was just “family,” especially with Linda trying to steal all Annie’s men. I found I did not like conflict. I was a peacemaker. I wanted life to flow along happily from day to day without personal stress. Where there are people, there is always conflict, which even I, with all my talent and energy, could not defuse.
By the summer of 1969 we were many tokes away from the summer of 1968. Life was very, very good. Even news from the world outside reached us only intermittently. The fact that campus strikes could and did become violent registered. Black Power registered. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King made a huge impression. But our revolution was non violent. It was all peace and love. We were aglow with the wonder of “grass”roots, evolutionary change, at least some of us were. When Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated sadness and fear rocked paradise, but paradise steadied again and “Reefer Madness” ruled the day. “Don’t bogart that joint.”

Chapter 14 - Hobort

Hobart looked like James Dean in the pictures we had of him as a young man. Family lore has it that he marched to his own drummer. He didn’t like drinking, smoking, swearing, or womanizing. He was not religious, just had very high moral standards for himself and for everyone around him. He was actually a loner, who always longed to be by himself. His dream life was to be a hermit in a shack full of books. He loved to fish, and had obviously spent time hunting, although he never was really fond of hunting. He loved mechanical things; especially cars, and he always had a car, starting with a Model A. He also owned a few trucks over the years. As far as I know he never owned a new car in his life and the best car he ever drove was a luxury rental that he drove once. On that particular occasion it was the only model available when he and mom were driving home from Florida. He was into late middle age by then.
Although Hobart wanted to be alone, he rarely was. He was actually quite popular and had a close circle of friends and relatives that he apparently drove to picnics, parties, beaches, and various other low cost events. My mom hung out with Hobart and his crew for six years before they married.
Hobart had to drop out of school in the eighth grade. His parents were not able to find work. It was the depression. His first job involved making deliveries on roller skates, a messenger service. In his late twenties he opened a garage and gas station with one of his good friends. The garage was forced out of business when his partner absconded with the funds. There was a great deal of bitterness about this and their friendship never recovered. After that, Hobart, not married, went to work in factories. When World War II broke out he was not accepted in the armed forces for several reasons, one of which involved being the sole support of his parents and later because he was in an “essential war industry” which he never described to us. I cannot imagine my father as a soldier. He was a solitary man in his heart and soul, with none of that locker room camaraderie which seems to help men survive in such environments. I suppose no one can really picture her or his father jumping out of a foxhole with a blazing gun or riding on a tank or marching in mud, or running off a U-boat into a brutal rain of machine gun fire. The fact that he did not participate in the war as a soldier cut him off further from his peers. No Veterans of Foreign Wars for Dad, no old war buddies stopping by the house. The neighborhood men in Smithvale who were his peers had all fought in the war. He was suspect to them and he lost an “in” in the good old boy network that might have helped him have greater career success. He never acted as if this bothered him at all.
When he was not working he could be found outside doing something “around the house”. There was always yard work to do and repairs to the house, and cars to keep on the road. The cellar was his domain also. His workshop was on the opposite side of the cellar from the washing machine and was well equipped with hammers, screwdrivers, drills and saws; jars of nuts and bolts, tacks and nails, all organized along a shelf behind the workbench. Little boxes with tiny drawers held every small piece of hardware that might ever be of use. There were various motors and car parts scattered over the workbench waiting to be rebuilt or to be plugged in to the latest used car. Later there were shoeboxes full of vacuum tubes to repair TV’s and radios for extra cash.
Hobart was the kind of dad who made you feel that he would take care of his family, no matter what it took. He was also a judgmental dad who led by example. He ruled by disapproval and disappointment. He disapproved of drinking, smoking, lying, tattling, gossiping whining, and refusing to pull your weight. He had honed disappointment to a fine weapon. The worst thing any of his children or even his wife could do was to not live up to his high expectation. We all hated to disappoint Dad because his disapproval was expressed in silence, a silence that had a weight. He would seem crushed by the weakness of your character and you would have to atone for your behavior before the weight of his silence would lift.
It was a traditional household in many ways. There were girls’ chores and boy’s chores. Boys’ chores involved taking out the garbage and doing yard work with Dad. Girls’ chores included ironing, setting the table, picking up, watching younger siblings, and most dreaded of all, doing the dishes. We girls felt, to begin with, that the division of chores was unfair and of course they were, but this argument held no sway. We assigned ourselves turns at table setting and dish washing and drying. Although we had six girls for many years only three of us were old enough to do the dishes, Felicity, Gertie, and me. Our family made a mountain of dishes. Every evening after dinner there were dishes all over the kitchen Often we would get right to it, but there were always nights when we procrastinated, got interested in a program on TV, started reading a book, started a board game. If we waited just a little too long, Dad would snap. Then he would go out in the kitchen and do the dishes, his lips in a tight line. Then you were not allowed to jump in and help. You were banished from the kitchen and you slunk away to sulk in some corner of the house. Your banishment from parental favor would continue until the next day when you would usually, of your own free will, pitch in and complete some self-assigned chore to get back in Dad’s good graces. Even Mom would occasionally earn the silent treatment.
If Mom was the heart of our family, Dad was its conscience. He did not believe in holding others to a standard to which one did not hold one’s self. He also believed “actions speak louder than words.’ Although when we were young he sometimes had a “cocktail” or a “high ball”, by the time we were teenagers he did not drink at all and made it clear that he was disappointed if we did. Maybe he lucked out and missed out on that alcohol addiction gene which the rest of his family seemed to have inherited in spades, but it was clear that he exercised self-discipline. I never heard my father swear. Hobart’s worst curse was “Jesus H. Christ”, which made me nervous for his “immortal soul”. I learned about our “immortal soul” on the school bus. Every day I sat with a good Catholic girl, Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret helped me lament the fact that I wasn’t born Catholic. She told me that even if I converted, the best I could hope for was purgatory. I didn’t really buy into this as it seemed way less advantageous than my own religion in which going straight to heaven was a distinct possibility, but I did get attached to the idea of an “immortal soul.” Hobart never picked up a cigarette while he was my father, and he never mentioned whether he tried one as a young man. Dad’s father used to visit us on Sunday’s when we still lived in the city. He was a short, rotund Frenchman who wore a dark suit and tie and smoked big smelly cigars. He died when I was five. No one blamed his death on the cigars.
I don’t think my brother’s drinking or my smoking was a rebellious act against an inflexible parent. Although we did these things, it was always with the awareness of Hobart’s deep disappointment. His disappointment became ours, because, even though we did these things, we lost respect for ourselves as we did them. Just to drink or smoke proved that we were lacking in self-discipline.
Hobart had trouble dealing with a houseful of teen-aged daughters. He was extremely modest. We never saw either of our parents unclothed except in bathing suits or, rarely, pajamas. He not only had a houseful of teenage girls, but also, usually a houseful of teenage boys who were not family. He was adamant that we not appear downstairs until we were fully clothed. Gertie was the only daughter who did not take to modesty. She was the girl in the family who learned to change her entire outfit in the car, without showing anything at all. She was the sister who taught us how to remove our bra without taking off our shirt or blouse. She wouldn’t have minded changing in the middle of the living room. She taught herself the clandestine undressing techniques out of respect for Dad.
When Dad was in a light-hearted mood, he could be quite cheerful and fun. Sometimes when we did the dishes without argument or delay he would join us and treat us to a display of terrible yodeling until we were begging him to leave the kitchen. Or he would treat us to a chorus of “I have tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed while I cried over you.” In a good mood he would give us lessons in how to turn a light switch on and off with a dishtowel. Most of us can probably still perform this amazing feat. We spent a lot of time trying to keep Dad cheerful, but we were young and selfish and many an evening went by without a yodel.
Hobart was also our hero, sometimes a very awkward one, but he hated to see his children hurt or unhappy. Once we stopped to get ice cream cones at an ice cream stand on the main road through Smithvale. I got to ride “shotgun”, a privilege I never usually won. I leaned against my door as we pulled out onto the highway and fell right out on the road. My father’s reflexes were so swift, that he stopped the car, jumped out and stopped traffic before I even started crying. After he comforted me, with his adrenalin levels probably through the roof, he took me back around and got me another ice cream, this time making sure my door was locked.
When I was living in the apartment by the park I had a very bad day, a day when I could not stop crying – probably PMS, although we did not have that term. Hobart appeared at my door, probably sent by Augusta. It was clear that he had no idea what to do but he had aspirin for me to take, and a few food delicacies that he picked up at the market. He made me take the aspirin right away and then give him a tour of the apartment. I was very touched by his gauche thoughtfulness and he did chase my blues away.
Luke said that I overlooked my father’s flaws. He said that, for one thing, we didn’t have to be so poor. He said that my dad could have been a foreman at the shop, but he could not force himself to go against his nature or his own wishes, even for the sake of his family’s finances. I remember that this had been a tough decision for my father. He took his position as a union steward very seriously and felt by becoming a management employee he would be betraying his fellow union members. I’m not sure how Luke got his information; probably he had talked about it with Robert. Anyway, Luke insisted that Hobart should have made this sacrifice for his family. It was certainly an interesting new take on my father, but I really didn’t agree. My father’s strict personal values were important to me.
I could, of course, go on and on about Hobart, who couldn’t write a whole book about their father, but I’m almost done for now. Hobart’s one other outstanding trait was his very fine brain. He was smart. He understood electronics intuitively and could have been an engineer if born into other circumstances. The house in Smithvale had antique wiring. Anytime we wanted to add a modern appliance Hobart had to go down into the cellar and perform some electrical magic. Eventually he reached the limits of the current wiring arrangement. When the wringer washer gave way to an electric washer and dryer and a new electric range was added to the kitchen, a 220 circuit had to be added. Hobart drew his plans, bought his supplies, and rewired the house adding a brand new electrical box. It had to be inspected by some official agency after it was installed. They tried to give Hobart a hard time but it was correctly done and they ultimately had to approve it. He took a home course in calculus, when he needed it to qualify for a job off the main line at work, and he passed it easily. He spent many a night with all of us around the dining room table before he worked nights, helping us with our homework. He made it clear to all of us that education had a high priority in his view. Every one in or family finished high school and five of us completed at least two years of higher education. Robert and his friends christened him with the nickname “Brain.”