No Memory

I was over at Sharon's and she had some photo albums in the kitchen, that she was going to bring back down to Diane in Maryland.  I had my camera in the car so I decided to browse through the albums and shoot pictures of the pictures.  

I came across a few that were obviously taken on the same night, at a party my parents had in the coop.  Based upon the furniture and the Christmas stuff on the walls and windows, it had to be from December 1971. Back then, the heat and water were kept turned on in the coop all winter because my mom was a Camp Fire Girls Leader, and our meetings were held in out there, during the school year.  

Left to right:  Uncle Yim & Aunt Glady Wilkowski, my mom in the groovy pantsuit, Aunt Evelyn in the yellow and Irene Edquist.  Glady & Evelyn are sisters; Irene is Aunt Eve's daughter and Sha & Di's mom.   The Edquists and Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy always came up from New York, from Christmas through New Years.  

My parents.  I'm still wondering what possessed my mom to buy that pant suit.

Aunt Eve & Uncle Dick.

Irene & Hal Edquist.

Dear friends of the family, Gene & Carol Morrow.

Mom & Dad, Carol & Gene.  See the cigarette in Gene's hand?  It should be noted that of all the adults in these photos, my dad and Hal were the only non-smokers. All of us kids were raised around copious amounts of second hand smoke.

I was surprised to see this one of me, Sharon & Diane as part of the set of pictures from that night.  I have ZERO memory of it.  ZERO.  And clearly it was a night to be remembered, based upon the happy faces depicted in these photos.  I had just turned 7, Sharon was about to turn 9 and Diane was 6-1/2.  

Obviously there was music if Sharon & I were dancing.  How is it that I have no memory of this at all?  And where were the Morrows' kids, Marybeth, Gene & baby John?  Why weren't they here?

Why don't these photos jog my memory?  I wish they did.  :-(

An Amusing Piece of History & Diatribe Against Rock-n-Roll

Our office was recently recarpeted for the first time since the building was built in the late 70's.  As part of the preparation for said project, we spent a week packing up stuff from the insides of all the various pieces of antique furniture in the office, and pulling out the drawers to make the heavy, old wood pieces easier for the crew to lift.

When I pulled out the drawers from the side board, I noticed a yellowed piece of newspaper that had been under the drawer for the past 40 years.  I eagerly perused the edges to see if I could find a date, but couldn't. However, based upon the movies listed below, and the other event ads, I would have to say this is from 1971.  Further examination shows that it came from a newspaper in Spokane, probably the Spokesman-Review.  Deb told me that the sideboard used to belong to a former associate's parents, who lived in Eastern Washington in the 60's and 70's.  

Dig this ad for a strip club called the Kon Tiki, located on the Washington-Idaho state line.  I had a good laugh at the names, "Star Bright The Boom-Boom Girl" and "Linda Love The Blond Tempest."  And the "MEN-MAKE YOUR reservations NOW for our big MEN'S SMOKER, Monday."  Does anyone know what a "men's smoker" is?

Now this is a drive-in double feature I would LOVE to have seen!  Not that I'm a huge fan of Joan Baez but I dig Crosby Stills Nash & Young who played at this Big Sur show.  And I have always loved the movie "Gimme Shelter".  The Grateful Dead wrote a killer song about that disastrous and deadly Altamont show called "New Speedway Boogie".  Apparently The Fantastic Plastic Machine is a 1969 documentary film that follows California surfers as they go to compete in Australia.  So that would have been cool to see with the other 2 flix.

A local Spokane theatre group doing "Oliver".  Check out the way phone numbers used to be written back in those days:  "FA 5-0081".   The El Ray is an X rated movie theatre, b/c I checked out the Linda & Abilene movie at IMDB and it's definitely an adult film, although it's not clear if it's hard or soft core porn.

This star gazer chart was way too hard to figure out for my number challenged mind, although I think I'm gonna play the Sagitarrian numbers in the lottery.  Wouldn't it be a hoot if I won using them?

Films showing that week were "Summer of 42" and "Klute" among others that I never heard of.  Mickey Mouse was at the Spokane Coliseum that summer, and it only cost $3, $4 or $5 for tickets!!

But the reason this clipping was saved by the former owners was not for the ads I just showed, but because of this article on the other side, "Sheep in Wolves' Clothing" An Issue:  Pastor Clay Cooper admonishes his congregation, South Hill Christian Church."  I almost dismissed it and didn't read it, but I was intrigued.  I only scanned the top half of this article, but it's almost a full newspaper page long.  All 4 columns are written in this teeny tiny type.  It reads like a manifesto against the evil that is Rock and Roll.  I started reading it at breakfast one morning and by the time I was done eating, but nowhere near done w/ the article, I was laughing so hard.  

Poor Pastor Clay has a real issue with the decline of the Western Civilization, thanks to false prophets like the Beatles, Rolling Stones & The Monkees (?!?!?  Seriously?  The Monkees?).  He rips John Lennon a new one.  He admonishes the younger members of his flock for wearing short skirts and long hair. 

When I started reading this article, I had no idea what it was going to be about, but I assumed politics or the Vietnam War.  I never would have guessed it was a tirade against the hippies and Peace-Love-Dope Generation.

It starts out in the first column quoting scripture, warning "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."  Here are some of my favourite quotes:

"Ashtaroth was the heathen patroness of sex and Baalism was a sex cult symbolizing fertility with its rituals conducted outdoors (a la Rock Festivals)..."


Sounds to me like Pastor Clay is secretly turned on by what he sees and suffering such self loathing that he lashes out against it.  I bet he popped a chubby every time he saw one of those hot little scantily clad hippie chicks and absolutely hated himself for his weakness.  He secretly self-flagellates himself each night for having been tempted to head up to Max Yasgur's Farm in '69 and spend 3 days wallowing in the mud with the rest of the nekkid hippies, high on acid.

"Before the dawn of Beatlemania these same "sheep" wouldn't have been caught dead in the House of the lord without their Sunday-go-to-meeting-best.  But the Anti-Christ Four set off a deteriorating chain reaction affecting manners, morals and habit which is even infiltrating the Church.  Male slovenliness and female frowziness are now the in thing.  Congregation after congregation is sprinkled with the long-haired, the ungroomed, the unwashed; and females ape Jezebel's wardrobe.  Sheep in wolves' clothing?"


The Anti-Christ Four?  What is this guy on???

"By what logic can a Christian youth patronize the godlessness of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, the Mamas & the Papas, the Monkees, et al, by buying their albums, enjoying their sex-exciting, drug-inducing music (?) which admittedly is 'calculated to turn on the chicks," paving the way to 'smoke pot and bed down?  This is the openly-avowed purpose of the beat of the music and the suggestiveness of the lyrics of some of the above-mentioned.  Are they worthy of a Christian's financial subsidy and hero worship."


Wow.  I think Pastor Clay was feeling quite left out of all the fun!  I admit to some relief that the Dead didn't make his list of offenders.  But the Supremes?  What was wrong with them?  They were popular before the late 60's rock music!  Is that his racist way of saying that kids shouldn't listen to that 'black music' or something?

"John Lennon describes our virgin-born Saviour as: 'A garlic eating, stinking, little yellow greasy facist bastard Catholic Spaniard.'  How can any Christian in good conscience ape Lennon's appearance, buy his album, read his book or adopt his lifestyle?"


Did Lennon really say that?  I know he made a comment about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus was, which was taken out of context, but I never heard a quote like that attributed to Lennon.  Anyone know?

By this point, the good Pastor is good and warmed up, and only 3/4 of the way down column #2, and there are still 2 more long columns that follow, with more of the same ranting and railing at those heathen hippies, criticizing those parents who "see no wrong in allowing their juveniles to follow scraggy Pied Pipers (and well groomed ones, too)...Parental permissiveness can, none the less, be blamed for much of humanity's plague being considered here."  I can only guess that the 'well groomed Pied Pipers' to whom he refers would be the leaders of those weird cults like Werner Erhard's est 'seminars'.


I found this particular quote interesting, b/c my mom used to make similar comments about how she would watch as I became transfixed as soon as my rock music was on.  She compared it to an episode of Lost in Space where Will, Penny & Dr. Smith were on a planet inhabited by perpetual teenagers, who would succumb to mind control through rock music.  The second the music started, the teenagers would ignore everything else and just start their groovy dancing.  I can guarantee you that my mom would agree with this religious whack job's diatribe.  She hated the 60's too.

Pastor Clay then goes on an extremely long and boring rant about long hair & beards on men, and women's skimpy clothing, comparing them to the harlots of the red light districts.

He urges his followers to copy what the Ephisians did, when they burned all of the trappings of the pagans who worshipped Diana, stating that must be done.  Then finally brings his manifesto to a dramatic conclusion with:

"This is the attitude disciples of Christ must take with regard to Rock and Roll albums and the female fashions, male coiffures, mannerisms, jargon, books and all other accoutrements belonging to the Mamas and Papas, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Supremes, Monkees, and all the rest of their multiplying musical, writing and acting ilk.  The standards of a Christian's conduct, appearance and nonconformity to evilly-oriented modes are high; but not higher than the standards of the Book. 'Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.'"


I wonder what happened to this guy.  I have him pegged for about 40 or 45 in the photo that accompanies his column, so I suppose he could still be alive and in his 70's.  On the other hand he may have died of heart failure if he saw the way things are today.  Let's face it, this generation of young people make the hippies look quite tame & well dressed.  If Pastor Clay was worried about mini skirts in 1971, I wonder what he'd think of the "Victoria's Secret Underwear Show", "Bad Girls", "16 and Pregnant" and all the other shows like that.  And he doesn't even address his views on homosexuality.  I can only guess that he wouldn't be real on board with the country's growing tolerance of open homosexuality either, or the teen and twentysomething kids' open experimentation with their sexualities.  They don't even consider oral or anal sex to be 'real' sex!

So this newspaper scrap was quite a find and a great look back at life in 1971.  And I admit, after I found this paper, I lifted up the drawers to see if there was anything taped to them....like money or war bonds or something.  Alas, there was nothing under there.  But still, the clipping is pretty cool!