1969 and Then Some

by Robert Wintner

  Learn to chew tobacco with your asshole and keep a chaw tucked in your cheek. When the proctologist tells you to turn around, bend and spread, do as instructed. When he comes in close, spit tobacco juice right in his eye.

  I laughed, on cue. What a visual. He was a family physician, practiced in delivering difficult prognoses—so went our review of grim options in a series of sessions at his house. He assigned the book, calling it the most important homework of anybody’s education. We would review and develop those ideas that seemed appealing, except for the last idea of chewing tobacco. “You’re on your own there.” He chuckled. What a relief.

  We reviewed choices and consequences, including sentencing patterns. That would be prison sentencing. He called it a serious game; with luck we would avoid the dead serious.

  In a short time packing up and heading north seemed like the best option, but an interim option emerged. By refusing induction, civil rights and civil law would not be forfeit. Draft counselors across America had focused on induction refusal in one place, clogging the court dockets there, allowing more time for the God-forsaken war to end. The strategy was based on faith that the madness must end, though it seemed eternal, without conscience.

  It would be another fifteen years before Journey would capture the love that lingered for San Francisco, an icon of the most lovable components of American culture, including tolerance and the informed intelligence to consider differences among people. San Franciso could pluck heartstrings coast to coast on a reference of lights going down in my city . . .

  The tune recalls the love all around us in a lyric of refuge, rendering the essence of home, as in home free. San Francisco made sense, so I—we—would make the pilgrimage, because we belonged there . . .

  Bolting to Canada was a last resort, to be implemented only after refusing induction in San Francisco, the interim strategy. First off, we would attempt to avoid the Vietnam War by failing the pre-induction physical. Here too draft counselors across the country ran the odds on failing the physical. Strategy was based on statistics—all in the days of the telephone as the single form of communication, when all phones were wired to walls. With no cell phones, no internet, no email or social networking, no 24-hour news, no nothing but the fervor of a few good women and men, we wended through the maze, feeling the love all around us where we least expected it. This was justice in America in a compelling mobilization of conscientious individuals. This was a golden, glowing opportunity of historical magnitude, realized.

  In short, hippies were a phenomenon becoming a subculture around the Summer of Love in ’67. But in spite of non-conformity as a golden standard, nearly every inductee tried to fail the physical by being a hippie—stoned, dressed funny and talking cliché. The army couldn’t draft a bunch of hippies, except that it did.

  My draft counselor, a short, squat, unimposing fellow of impressive skill, pushed his black glasses back up flush and poo-pooed the hippie idea. No standard precluded military service on the basis of looking or acting strange—to a point. Of course that point was the difference between normal and genuine strangeness. With thousands of would-be failures showing up daily as hippies, he could not recommend the hippie approach.

  He advised psychiatric treatment. We had time for a series of sessions that would be billed and paid for—don’t worry about the expense; it was covered. Following those sessions, the psychiatrist would document severe instability and/or psychosis in a letter that I would take to my physical. The rest would fill in. Read the book.

  I read, developing my strategy and awaiting notice as June graduation and death approached, inexorably. Its arrival at last was a relief.

  Greetings . . . From 1001 Ways, draft counselor guidance and personal improv, the strategy was ready for unveiling. Every inductee was allowed to postpone the physical. We could count on one postponement. We could request a second postponement and might get it, but we could not count on the second postponement. We got one. Every inductee was allowed a change of venue on the physical, especially with a hardship factor. The closest Selective Service exam center was St. Louis, convenient but deathly in its low percentage of failures. This pattern may not be related to Missouri’s political inclination, or maybe it’s an accurate reflection. Denver, on the other hand, only seven or eight hundred miles away, had a favorable failure rate on the military induction physical. I applied for a change of venue to Denver based on hardship, to help ailing Uncle Fester or some silly shit. Any reason could be suspect. How could anybody need to be anywhere when they were going to be in Vietnam in two shakes? And they knew it! Come on.

  I got Denver with a six-week lead on my physical. My draft counselor called this timing perfect, and it would also allow for more planning on a move to San Francisco to refuse induction, if I passed the physical. Meanwhile, I wore long sleeves, long pants, shoes and sox and a hat to avoid the sun, to become white as a shut-in. A month out, early August, I ordered a bag of Dexedrine from Brother, a standout stoner of the western world. He felt that five milligrams daily would do the trick over a month. I weighed about 140 in those days. My counselor said the actual number of pounds would be incidental to the hollow cheeks and eyes, the gaunt physique and skeletal demeanor. Oh, boy. I ate nothing. It was easy, because Brother fucked up, oops, and got a bag of thirties instead of fives—that was thirty milligrams of Dexedrine, with the teeth gnashing and electric energy that did not sit well indoors. He blamed it on those fucking tiny numbers. I could not survive thirty-milligram dexies daily, but that was okay, because success and failure merged. I threw in the towel on the whole fucking Dexedrine deal because I was ready to die at home and didn’t give a shit about anything but seeing another day, even if it was in a jungle war. By then the dexies had done their deed. Oh, you can spot a speed freak.

  Goodwill was good for a lime green shirt with a texture, faint puke stains and long sleeves, along with some baggy, straight-leg pants with cuffs—nobody had straight-leg pants but deviates and derelicts not welcome near a playground. Goodwill was also good for some ragged wingtips. I ground holes into the soles and took the heels down to half on an odd, pigeon-toed angle. I stopped clipping fingernails and toenails a month out and chipped half the buttons on the shirt with pliers, because 1001 Ways said chipped buttons were a sure symptom of fucked up crazy insane. I put these clothes on ten days out. So that was the end of bathing too.

  Strung out, wired up, ribs sticking out like a xylophone, I stopped brushing my teeth eight days out. Six days out I dulled some scissors so they could chew the edges of the nails. 1001 Ways said chipped nails were as fucked up crazy as chipped buttons.

  I got a crew cut and stopped shaving four days out. I hadn’t eaten much, but a bowl of beets three days out made a terrific juicy dump just in time to cease anal hygiene on a high note. It felt good, with a sense of completion, like a forty-yard pass to the end zone, kind of, but without the marching band or the pompom girls. Two days out I scraped a few chewed fingernails up in there for some beet shit residue—gently, to avoid injuring the tender sphincter membrane—and I sat in the glow of yet another great play in a great drive down the field. Yet that golden interlude darkened as I wondered how (the fuck) I could get through the next two days. I’d jumped the gun.

  Then again, that level of commitment would have made Betty Boop proud—dropping to 122 from a skinny 140 in so few days, jacked up on amphetamines, dirty, hungry, raw and eye-popping bona fide creepy, I realized all over that I hadn’t jumped a goddamn thing but finally grasped the reality upon us. Kenny Visser confided that he was scheduled to split a few months earlier and then rescheduled to split in July. He rescheduled again when my strategy developed, just to drive me to Denver. I couldn’t very well drive myself. As it was, I lay in back on the floor next to the spare tire. Kenny called it an honor and an ultimate goof. He stayed in a groove, listening to tunes, turning the radio down near sundown to confide his daily depression.

  I passed the physical. Bummer. Unbelievable. Kenny Visser had the
good manners to squelch the told-you-so, but he couldn’t resist a wry eye on passing the joint on the way home.

  My draft counselor wanted a complete debriefing. I told him the war machine needed too much fresh meat, that my delivery, appearance and demeanor at the induction physical had been impeccable—that the guy administering the written test begged me not to wig out. The guy had come in close to the little desk where I slumped and stared to whisper that he was A-OK with acid and anybody who wanted to take acid. His whisper went loud enough for everyone to hear, because he was getting emotional in his effort to avoid a scene, because a scene would look very bad on his report. He swore to God that he was pulling for me to fail, please God let me fail, but please don’t freak out in his part of it. Please. Put down any answers you want or no answers at all but don’t freak out.

  The written test was also a challenge.

  We live in the United States of

  a. Mexico

  b. United States

  c. America

  d. all of the above

  And so on. Many guys in the testing room took all the time allowed to give it their best and get it right.

  The army shrink asked the questions we’d rehearsed. What would I do if an intruder broke in and threatened the lives of my family? I shuddered in response and told the shrink I’d kill them.

  Kill who?

  What?

  The army shrink scanned the crumpled and shit-stained letter I’d brought from the psychiatrist. “Who paid for your sessions?” I stared, trembling to the negative.

  My draft counselor did not commiserate but went directly to Plan B, refusing induction in San Francisco, reminding me that the San Francisco district court docket was backed up four years. Four years loomed like another round at the State U. But this four years had to be better. San Francisco was the birthplace of the love all around us after all, and it was a vibrant setting of a dynamic culture where a young man could find himself in productive pursuits. My draft counselor ended that phase of counseling by assuring me that San Francisco was our target city by choice, not chance.

  In those days of Love it or Leave it, Dick Nixon’s “silent majority” demanded that “America” be defended. The majority was never asked to fight the jungle war. Some military personnel came from silent majority families, but the vast majority of silent individuals did not volunteer for combat action.

  Weighing choices became tedious and depressing. Continuing debauchery helped to distract thoughts from the jungle war. The year after college saw college grads swelling the work force—not the professional work force. Positions weren’t available to a guy as good as dead, I mean drafted. Pearl diving, slinging pizza and pitchers, picking up pop bottles for the 4¢ redemption, working the orchards, parking cars, bussing dishes, trash pickup, anything for a buck and a half an hour to pay the rent and buy some groceries was what we’d come to.

  Some did not feel deprived. A regular job—something to develop—was not a logical next step for many persons veering from the common career path. Are you kidding? We wanted away from that. As free spirits we could live forever. Work was unsavory by definition, something you could not feel but spent your time doing for money and stability. And security.

  We worked hard but didn’t call it work because an art form offers no security. Experience could be an art form in itself. It rarely paid. Months passed on assessment, rationale and waiting.

  Into the Wilderness

  COMPARE AND CONTRAST 17th Century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvel to the appearance and/or reality of the prosaic meter and/or iambic pentameter rhyme of Shoo-fly or Frogdick. Filling a composition book stone-cold ignernt on a topic—any topic—felt natural. Loaded for bear, a successful student of the times could view final exams as an exercise in superiority with the mental dexterity most available to the young at heart. The view from the cloudbank led to passing grades and a college degree with a major in huff and puff. Or would that be puff and huff? The 17th Century metaphysical poetry professor wore a bow tie and a cheap suit for his monotone lectures, extolling one stanza or another for exquisite meaning. Metaphysical poetry in mid-Missouri? What an amusing juxtaposition!

  We felt so clever, goofing our way to a college degree—but it was faculty mercy that got us through. Professor Bowtie freely gave the C- to keep errant, goofy boys out of the jungle. Alas, I passed my physical to become another college grad qualifying for house arrest. I scoffed at the State University’s invitation to graduation. What would they do? Praise my unique achievement? Predict leadership into the future? Assure brimful potential? Fock.

  Running into an old flame from high school after four years of world-changing events felt like a milestone. Our mutual worldly development gave rise to intimate discourse on topics we’d hardly considered in high school, and the old familiarity of youth was a certain comfort in challenging times. In a spirit of continuing discovery and repetition, we became friends all over again. That’s why many people marry. I had no choice but to keep real life on hold, to wait things out, to hang around campus in limbo, working menial jobs, keeping up with the good times and goofs.

  We rented an attic apartment and lived over the Wendell family. Geoffrey Wendell seemed old, forty-one already, and staid, with elbow patches, pipe smoking and chronic pondering. He ran the Audio Visual Aids Department for the University and observed without judgment the silly pursuits of wayward youth passing time. A prevailing theory of those days was that recreational drugs were illegal, because they allowed people to pass time in non-productive pursuits. Productivity seemed necessary for the war machine; such was the simplicity of our perceptions. A successful goof would utilize recreational drugs in the pursuit of nothing but fun. One huge success called for a card table setup near the street to display a dozen tinfoil cups filled with dirt. We tended shop on folding chairs, and the sign out front said:

  Hot Mud 10¢

  Just add water.

  We watched the market pass by, applying our degrees. Sometimes we answered questions. Geoffrey was impressed that zero return could provide so much, and he caught on: the goof shall set you free. He took a chair at the hot mud table one day to light his pipe. We lit up too, as a test, kind of. He said nothing, passing with flying colors, because Geoffrey was cool. We suspected as much but felt gratified to be proven correct. When the joint came his way, he said, “I’m not just blowing smoke here.” Geoffrey was a funny guy. I laughed. He smiled, “I’ve been watching. I hear what you say and how you say it. You’re good. You could be the one.”

  “Which one?”

  “You got a line ready.”

  “It’s not a line.”

  “Take it easy. I’m not saying a line is a bad thing. Look. I’m sitting on more electronic broadcast equipment than any fifty-thousand-watt radio station ever dreamed of capitalizing. Do you know who makes money in radio now?”

  That was easy. “The holy rollers?” The airwaves didn’t hum with come to Jesus and give; they wailed.

  “Bingo. We’ll call them the evangelicals.”

  “You want me to ask for money for Jesus on the radio?”

  “No. That would be fraud. Or, it should be. Do you know what cassette tapes are?”

  Everyone had record albums then, but we knew about cassette tapes—space-age gizmos with little plastic spools that let you play the tape over and over without a conventional tape recorder. They were meant to replace records but we didn’t believe it and didn’t like it anyway. Replace records? Why? Besides, they were just another version of the clunky 8-track tape. Audiophiles stuck to records. “Yes.”

  “Cassette tape is the ticket. We broadcast a radio show once a week for starters. All I have to do is apply to the FCC to occupy a vacant number.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “It is for me.” Those were the days. “At the end of the show we sell cassette tapes. Each tape has a show on it for five bucks. You can get the whole set of six shows for twenty-five bucks and save yourself five bucks right off th
e bat. I can get cassette tapes for about eleven cents, and the players for about three bucks. We’d have to order a bunch, but I can hide it. Once we settle in, I’ll sell the tapes and players to us at cost. That’ll account for the money.”

  “That’s not fraud?”

  “Only if we don’t pay it back. Then I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do, because you love God and you love The Word and you love the folks out there listening. These cassette tape players would run you thirty dollars each in a store. But we’re gonna send you the whole set of six shows—and throw in the player to boot—for forty-five bucks. Now you’re saving yourself fifteen bucks. Get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “We sell entertainment and hope for a brighter day.”

  “You mean we preach?”

  “You preach. You say whatever you want to say. I’ve heard you. Tell a story. Tell another story. Tell them God loves them. That can’t hurt, can it?”

  “Just go on the air and sell tapes and tape players?”

  He nodded, gaining momentum. “Just about. I’ve been thinking about this, and the puzzle parts keep falling into place, not just kinda but perfectly. You’re Brother Bob. It gets no better. It has a roll out the gullet with a pleasing feel and sound. And we don’t broadcast from the university. We head twenty miles up the road.”

  “You mean to keep it legal.”

  “No. We’d be legal anywhere. Twenty miles up we’ll be in Kingdom City. You don’t think Brother Bob from Kingdom City might play like hell across the Bible Belt?”

  Few people then grasped numbers relating to market share leading to dollars. Characteristic of the times, revenue was gross, but it made the difference between a hippie and a rock star. Rock stardom lurked in the collective consciousness; it could happen to anyone. Geoffrey’s idea could have generated millions. I said no. I couldn’t do that.