Summer Shorts: Wrapping Up The '60s

Photos: Country Joe at Woodstock; Paul McCartney, back in the USA (from ABC web site); Target ad; President John F. Kennedy and Walter Cronkite; Country Joe today.

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Come on all you big strong men/
Uncle Sam needs your help again/
Got himself in a terrible jam/
Way down yonder in Viet Nam/
So put down your books and pick up a gun/
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun …
--- “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” by Country Joe and The Fish, Woodstock 1969.





By Pat Browning

Echoes from Woodstock.

Watching theYouTube video I’m struck by how young that crowd of 300,000 was. Young and still half-innocent, gathered up in a protest against a war and the government and all authority. Barry “The Fish” Melton is quoted as saying, “We didn't understand the forces we were setting in motion." At the time it was just sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Melton was co-founder with Country Joe McDonald of the '60s psychedelic activist rock band Country Joe and The Fish, famous for its "Fish Cheer" that preceded the five-piece band's most famous song "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag."

I love the YouTube video. The story is that Country Joe wasn’t supposed to go on just then but somebody found a rope he could tie on his guitar so he could strap it around his shoulder. Off he went, to do what turned out to be the Woodstock anthem. You can see the rope on the video.

It’s at http://tinyurl.com/pa64eh.

Advisory: The video starts with the famous Fish Cheer, which uses the infamous F-word.

The ‘60s were a tumult of assassinations, riots, protests and new music. Hitting a few of the highlights and lowlights – the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations of President John F.Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F.Kennedy, civil rights marches and murders, the Beatles, men on the moon, and Woodstock …

While tracking Woodstock I stumbled across a web site with interesting historical notes by year and by era, at http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/.

It’s good reading.

These 40 years later, Walter Cronkite died and took a lot of history with him. Paul McCartney is 67 but still “the cute one” and touring the U.S. And Woodstock has not gone away.

Books are being written. A movie is underway. There’s a big 40th celebration “WestFest” planned for Oct. 25 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Target is advertising Woodstock-themed goods aimed at kids who don’t even remember Snoopy and a sassy bird named Woodstock.

“The Fish” just retired as public defender of Yolo County in northern California, but he never gave up the guitar and tours with his own band. Country Joe has been on tour for 40 years and still has a million irons in the fire. He has a great web site at http://www.countryjoe.com/.

It’s fitting to bookend the photos with Country Joe in 1969 and Country Joe today, both press photos from his web site.

Makes a nice benediction for the ‘60s – Old activists never die, they just wear looser jeans.

Woodstock and Snoopy

by Jean Henry Mead

I’ve never been overly fond of live chickens. And because I grew up in Los Angeles, I never had the opportunity to acquire one as a pet. That is until recently. The only other writer I know who admits to having chickens as pets is Helen Ginger, who had six of them until her mother reportedly fried them for dinner.

My pet chicken was nearly pecked to death by others in her flock, so we rescued her. We didn’t think she would survive, but placed her alone in a dog run with a small igloo dog house. Somehow she managed to pull through and regrow her feathers. In fact, she did so well that she’s now as fat and sassy as any Rhode Island Red you’d ever care to meet.

We call her Woodstock, or Woody for short, because she and our Australian Shepherd really hit it off. “Snoop Dog” (Snoopy) heads straight for the dog run every morning where she and Woody greet one another like old friends. Woody has tried to dig out from her enclosure with Snoopy’s help from the other side, forcing us to reinforce the border with bricks and large stones. What would happen, we wonder, if one of them actually digs in or out of Woody’s pen?

Last winter we were worried that Woodstock might freeze to death in her doorless igloo, so we covered it with an old, heavy quilt. The quilt was still there not long ago because our spring weather has been exceptionally cool. When my husband went out to feed her, Woodstock was nowhere to be found. Was there a chicken thief in the neighborhood or had one of the neighbors’ cats managed to get inside?

We searched everywhere but couldn’t find a single feather. My husband then thought to look under the old quilt that slid from the igloo and formed a large clump. There she was, sitting on eight eggs that she had managed to hide in a hole just big enough to fit into. She was so glad to see Bill that she pecked him repeatedly. I guess it’s time to acquire a rooster.

Each winter a large flock of small birds makes our backyard home where they live off the chicken feed. Woody allowed them to cohabitate with her in her igloo for a while, probably thinking they were her chicks. But when the tiny birds grew large and fat, she unceremoniously booted them from the nest. It was hilarious to watch as many as twenty birds fly from the igloo with Woody in pursuit.

Now that it’s finally getting warmer, Woodstock hops on top of her igloo to survey her surroundings as though she were queen of the hill. After a few minutes she hops down and goes back to work scratching up her yard as though a farmer preparing a spring crop.

Woodstock's a friendly fowl although some of her breed have been known to attack animals and small children. According to the Wikipedia—I'm a research junkie—the Rhode Island Red is a utility bird, raised for meat and eggs as well as show. And speaking of eggs, I’ve never seen one as large as Woody’s, when she’s not busy hiding them. They're too large to fit into a jumbo egg carton and they rival duck eggs in size. Those giant, brown eggs are the best I’ve ever tasted.

The Wikipedia says that Rhode Island Reds are a popular choice for backyard flocks, so they must be someone else’s featured pets.