From The Summer of Love to Woodstock West

"Tried to hitch a ride to San Francisco

Gotta do the things I wanna do..."

In February, 1967, I was a sophomore living in Wright Quadrangle at Indiana University. The winter had been going on for about a century, it seemed, and I was beginning to think I would never see another warm day. Classes were dull and I had lost interest in being a student. The Vietnam War raged on. The Civil Rights movement was in full-bloom. I had attended rallies against the former and for the latter but cold weather was keeping everyone inside. An epidemic of stir-craziness was affecting us all. On top of everything else I had broken up with my girlfriend. That was one of the few things I had to feel happy about – more like relieved, but here it was a weekend night and I had no date. The dorm was a ghost town and I needed something to do.

I walked down to the room of my friend Ken Riffle to see if he wanted to do something. He did… he wanted to go drinking and make the rounds at a few local establishments and, unfortunately, I was an underage liability. He offered to pick up some beer on the way home and said maybe we would get together later. I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. I moped back to my room and saw that Dave Swinney's door was open. Dave was a psych major from Queens who lived across the hall from me. I stuck my head in and said hi. It turned out Dave was in the same boat as me — no girlfriend, nothing to do, and Dave certainly did not need to study. I always considered him to be a mass of brain material in the form of a human being.

Dave was 21 and could have gone out with Ken, but instead said he wanted to go to the Kiva — a campus coffee house in the Union building. He said he had read about the act playing there and thought it should be good. I decided anything was better than staying in my dorm room so I tagged along.

We almost didn't make it. Dave was wearing shoes with slick leather soles and twice during our walk over there he slipped on ice and landed on his butt.

Undaunted, we arrived and ran into some guys we knew from another floor. We ordered soft drinks – no alcohol allowed on campus. The act was pretty good. I don't remember the name of the group but it played a variety of folk and semi-rock songs peppered with not a few double-entendres. Pretty entertaining. At one point the lead singer said he and his group were headed for San Francisco later that year. He talked about a "Hippie Fest" that was apparently going to be a big thing, and how great it would be for people to gather there for the biggest celebration ever of peace, love and harmony. And drugs. And girls.

Dave and I started the trek back to the dorm. We took a different route back which would be better lighted and less likely to have more ice for him to fall on. We didn't say much. Finally, about the time we reached Showalter Fountain, a campus landmark, we both had the same thought, "You ever been to San Francisco?" Neither of us had.

That was the start of the adventure.

To be continued...