The Times They Are a Changin’

I was sixteen when the Woodstock concert rocked the world.

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It’s the summer of 1969 when Linda, moves out of my neighborhood, leaving behind the modest house where we’ve played since third grade. No longer can I walk two streets down, cut through a few yards, and in five minutes, find my best friend answering the door.  

To get to Linda’s new split level, I have to either ride my bike three miles down a busy road or cut through the golf club. I prefer the golf course because weekdays it’s a silent world apart, except for a few irate men in pants the colors of rainbow sherbet. I stroll across lush fairways, over crew cut greens spiked with festive flags, and through a short wood that opens onto Linda’s quiet lane.  

School is out, and I’m drifting like a heat wave above the scalding asphalt.   

Greg Meyers takes me out a few times. Our encounters are unmemorable save the fact that one night, on the way to pick me up, he runs over a mother raccoon. What to do with the baby circling the furry mush in the middle of the road? When Greg phones, I remember Linda nursed an orphaned robin into adulthood. Greg secures the ring-tailed infant in his glove compartment, and at my suggestion, drops him off at Linda’s sprawling new home.  

The black-masked baby is welcomed by Linda with open arms, but her parents say the racoon must remain in the family room on the same level as the garage with the couch and chairs from the old house. The newly furnished living room, mid level, is decorated with a sofa upholstered in avocado velvet. Linda’s mom has gone back to work as a Spanish teacher, and the wrought iron lamps and accessories reflect her enthusiasm for all things Latin.  

Up another flight of stairs is Linda’s bedroom. No more rock maple furniture from Ethan Allen. A wicker African chair with its grand circular back makes a cozy spot for cuddling the wild animal.  

This same summer my father buys a small, ocean-going sailboat and announces we’re cruising Buzzard’s Bay for our family vacation.  We put the vessel, named Dilly Dally, in at Marion, Massachusetts and sail across to Pocassett, spending our first night of many at a public pier. From there we cross to Matapoisett, touring the shoreline dotted with gothic cottages, picket fences and beach plum roses in full bloom. In New Bedford, we go ashore to view the massive jawbones, and delicate scrimshaw at the whaling museum.   

My father’s plan is to pass through the Elizabeth Islands at Woods Hole, and sail to Martha’s Vineyard. But thick fog and heavy rain keep us moored in Woods Hole’s enclosed harbor, the Eel Pond.  

To get from the boat to the small town, we must row our dinky dinghy. It accommodates only two passengers at a time. In my old Girl Scout rain poncho, I take a turn with my mom, rowing to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Before returning to the boat, my mom buys a few necessities at the Rexall Drug Store while I browse a kiosk of paperbacks. I select Black Like Me and Rosemary’s Baby. When it’s my brother’s turn ashore with my dad, he chooses Mad Magazine.  

Dilly Dally’s cockpit barely seats two people on a side. The cabin barely sleeps four. My parents bed down in the bow. My brother and I sleep in the stern, our sleeping bags stuffed underneath either side of the cockpit. Only our heads stick out into the cabin. My skull butts against a teensy nautical sink, my brother’s a midget stove. This means, in the rain, inside the boat, for two days straight, I’m cocooned in my berth, blazing through tales of the segregated South, and a demonic incarnation in New York City.   

When the sky clears, my father steers us under the drawbridge and through the narrow cut with its treacherous currents. In open Vineyard Sound, we’re quickly out of sight of land, blown before the wind like a speck upon mountainous swells that heave like water breathing.  

We make landfall at Oak Bluffs and spend the afternoon in the fairy tale village, riding the carousel’s flying horses and touring gingerbread houses painted the colors of cotton candy. For days we circle the island, enjoying Vineyard Haven, Menemsha, Gay Head, Chilmark, and Edgartown. We sail by Chappaquiddick and towards Hyannis, the Kennedy compound, on our way back to Buzzard’s Bay.  

Summer’ is almost over when I return from the family voyage. Linda’s raccoon is nearly grown and too feral to contain in the family room.   

She calls, “Hey wanna go to Woodstock. It’s a three-day concert.”

How could my mom have known what would happen on a dairy farm just an hour or so down the thruway? Whoever heard of black men like Richie Havens or Jimi Hendrix, singing anything but Soul? Whoever heard of a white woman like Janis Joplin wailing the blues? How did trippin’ Grace Slick of The Jefferson Airplane dethrone good-girl singer, Doris Day, as female role model?

By the time I start my junior year girls are allowed to wear pants to school. Not sleek, side-zippered slacks, but baggy men’s carpenter pants, overalls, and bell bottom jeans from the Army Navy store. The unmistakable scent of marijuana wafts through the school wherever students mingle in tie-dyed T-shirts and dashikis . 

At home, the cover of The National Geographic on our coffee table is devoid of giraffes and baby elephants and full of photos of Vietnamese children fleeing napalm.  

Somehow my whole generation came of age in three days of Aquarian peace and music only to be mired in mud. I can’t believe that was fifty-two years ago this week!

But no matter where you sail, the times are always changing, and the answer to every question blowing in the wind is

Jesus.

Therefore, “Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. ³ This is good and pleases God our Savior, ⁴ who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. ⁵ For,

There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. ⁶ He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.” 1 Timothy 2:2-6 (NLT)

This another excerpt from my upcoming memoir, Looking For God in All the Wrong Places: Coming of Age and Coming to God in the Woodstock Generation

Cover photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash