days long gone

Seventies Memories


Militants
wannabe’s
boycotters
hippies
Wounded Knee
U.F.W.
bellbottoms
platform boots
polyester shirts
Walter Cronkite
Viet Nam
in black and white
The guys coming home
Concerts
Santana
Grateful Dead
Tower of Power
CCR
Red Bone
Malo
Filmore West
Spinada
Colt-45
lids
strobe lights
black lights
red lights
Friday night
Livingston High games
Go Wolves!

Those were our times
of love and bummers
bustin’ loose
gettin’ ripped
growin’ up
thinking never
gonna die
nature tricked us though
aged us
almost overnight
burnt out
a lot of us
now the news
goes like this:


Have you seen so
and so lately?
heard they moved out of state
heard they’re doin’ life in Quentin
heard they’re hangin’ on by a thread
heard they remarried their third time
heard they hang fryers at Foster Farms
heard they turned you-know-what
heard they’re hooked like fiends on the crap
heard they’re rollin’ around a wheelchair
heard they look tore up from the floor up
heard they still trip with PTSD
heard Danny and Peter
Bobby and Albert
o.d.’d
heard Tony had cirrhosis
died on the street
heard Debbie is tweeked
heard Victor
Daniel Paulie Reuben
livers gave out
too many drinks
heard they found Pee-wee butchered
front of the Bullfrog in Merced
heard one-eye Steve got scattered
in pieces
along shoulders of ‘99’
heard Guy got tortured
left in the trees
heard Andrew got three slugs
at a party in Turlock
spent twenty years in a wheelchair
was found dead in a motel in Sac
heard Gary a three striker
is doin’ life
draggin’ a Korean store clerk
stealing a twelve pack of beer
heard crazy Julio got blasted
in the head
in Stockton stealing a bike
heard Bullwinkle got the big C
his liver
just like that poof he died
heard the rest are doin’ ok
some raised kids
some got business’s
some still work in the fields
some never left town
became community involved
and what about Manny?
He’s still being Manny
trying to get out a book.

Whenever
I turn on the radio
hear songs from the seventies
they evoke profound memories
when we were young
wild
free
full of laughter
dreams
when music wasn’t so serious
a little more discreet when
the valley wasn’t
a kaleidoscope of gangbangers
roads weren’t ranges
for target practice
when partying was
a celebration of coming
to age
self-identity awareness
a badge of honor.
In them times
there were Drive-ins
from Merced to Stockton
making out there
was heavenly
I remember
after the high school games
win or lose
the parties or gatherings
at the Doll-House
Palm or Rocket
or Blueberry-Hill Café’s
goin’ to the show at Courts Theater
hangin’ out in front of little court house
or at Memorial Park in the dark
whispering sweet nothings
in girls ears
working summers in the fields
for school clothes
or the County fair
I can still taste in my mind
Burgers at the Wolf-Den
the Portuguese sopas
where uncle Tony marched with trombone
for Turlock City Marching Band
dippin’ in the box at the big canal
on Westside Boulevard
dances at the Legion Hall …
Ahhh…
The seventies:
What a time.