SKYPILOTCLUB HOME PAGE
Mr. Babbs was a buddy and neighbor of the late Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; Sometimes A Great Notion; Kesey's Garage Sale; Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, a children's book; Sailor Song; Last Go Around; and a collection of essays entitled Demon Box, which a friend borrowed five years ago and never returned. [Marcia: I want my book back.]
In 1964 Babbs and Kesey were the de facto leaders of a scruffy band of free spirits named The Merry Pranksters who made a cross country odyssey in a psychedelically painted ex-school bus they named "Furthur" with "Weird Load" painted on the back.
The driver was the late Neal Cassady, a natural speed freak and literary icon made famous as the character Dean Moriarity in Jack Kerouac's 1957 book, On The Road, and as the central character in his Visions Of Cody.
Author Tom Wolfe wrote about the Merry Prankster journey in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, published in 1968, and mandatory reading for every sophomore boy who wanted to run away from home to get loaded and laid in a tie-dyed heap of stoned hippie bodies.
Mr. Babbs' site is sad and funny at the same time. It has pictures of old hippies with bulging bellies and gray hair attending what looks like a counter-cultural VFW cookout, their free love, free dope and free chalmydia days long since cast aside for raising families, paying mortgages, and now babysitting grandchildren when their parents need a break.
I kinda wish I had joined those folks in 1968. But I was a short-haired Navy vet, a registered Republican with two jobs and a full-time college student whose own mother thought he was too stuffy for his own good. No exactly a candidate for the Woodstock Generation.
As it was, I thought most of the patchouli reeking, draft dodging, furry headed hippies were spoiled refugees from the middle class playing at poverty with their gawdawful macrobiotic diets and glassy-eyed readings of Herman Hesse's books. Oh, and The Hobbit was also big among the dopers who could read without moving their lips too much. Jesus H. Christ.
I did have a distant connection with that bunch many years later when I was drying out in the same VA hospital where Kesey had worked as an orderly, stealing LSD from the psych ward to share with his friends. At the time he was enrolled in Wallace Stegner's creative writing program at Stanford, along with Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove. Okay, enough with the name dropping.
My snarkiness about the 60s hippies aside, I sometimes wish I had been on that bus.
I'd post a picture of the bus, but this e-blogger service is being difficult. Tech support is no help. Neither is swearing, but it makes me feel better.
Comments?
I was married in 1962 and had babies in 1967 and 1970. My husband was a crew-cutted chemical engineer and I was a grad student and T.A. at UMass, and then at Miami of Ohio. I had no time or respect for hippie hijinks. Having been born and raised in Colorado, I could not BELIEVE the mess they created there, camping all over the place in the mountains (with no sanitary facilities), killing people's cows for food, lying stoned on sidewalks all over once-beautiful Boulder. HOWEVER, I first read Lord of the Rings in 1966 and it has given me joy all my life. (The Hobbit is a children's story and I cannot understand how Peter Jackson is going to make a two-part epic of it, but I am withholding judgment.) Don't shoot the dog; keep me on your mailing list! I enjoy your writings! -- Eve
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I do enjoy a good read by someone else on occasion, and I especially enjoy your rather good hand at it. -- Zoey
Thanks, Zoey. Instead of sending you a Wal*Mart gift card in appreciation for your nice comment, I’ve entered your name in the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes.
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I love your blog and envy your trip to Alaska!!!!! -- Cyn
Cyn is a former Alaskan who lived in Juneau.
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Fabulous read! -- Julisari
Juli: I’ve always respected your intelligence and judgment. Got any nude pix?
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Well ...at first I thought you were a teenager writing, then you seemed to grow into a 25 to 35 year old, then I realized you were an old geezer like me and your writing made a lot more sense and it was much funnier, since it wasn't coming from a wise ass teenager. -- PlaceboDomingo
Yup. Just another old fart with an advanced case of arrested development.
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Wow, you make it sound so wonderful. Everyone I know who has gone to Alaska has raved about it. I hope i see it one day. -- Angel G.
It will change you.
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Very nice, Mike. The only thing was that I was the only one to vote against the softball team [ being named] Liquor in the Valley, but I had agreed I would adhere to majority vote. Someone of my station (Indian princess) would NEVER come up with a name like that. -- Sandy
Who am I to argue? Arguing with an Indian princess is not a good career move.
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I found it interesting to read about you and the wheelchair treatment, followed by the blog about the cigarette tax. -- Brat Patrol
I know, I know.
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So, you DID enjoy the trip, events, family ties and the scenery? -- Kent
Immensely.
