Dallas 1969

Was it '69?
I'm not certain. Somewhere around there. It was another century, a lost existance, so long ago.
My friend Doug had just returned from Woodstock. He didn't talk much about it but when he did a look of separate understanding took over his face. Like he knew something none of us ever could. Like he had been - There.
Monterrey was already being made into a legend. I even had a Joplin album that was recorded there. My imagination grew wings as I listened to it in the darkness of my room.

There was NO WAY I was going to miss another one.

And we heard about Dallas. The Dallas Rhythum and Blues Festival.
Johnnie Winter, Canned Heat, Creedance, Jefferson Airplane, so many others I can't remember and every day was started by that new group called Grand Funk Railroad.

I was out of school for the summer. There were about 8 of us and we decided not to go in a pack like that, so we set out at intervals. Two of us would stand on the highway hitching. When they got a ride the next two would start. It was ok to hitch back then. Don't do it now. They've invented some really strange people lately. We set out from Tulsa so Dallas wasn't a long haul.

Before you ever got to the town you knew something different was happening. The 'Head' culture was ascending on the area from around the U.S.A. We called them Heads. History people will tell you they were hippies. Not exactly so. The hippies weren't prevelant. They didn't last long. They were a small bunch of young naturalists who gathered in California in the late sixties and the news media over-hyped them totally, as the news media is want to do.
The hippies moved away to country communes and left behind the new movement that we called Heads. We called ourselves that simply because outsiders looking in thought we were all dopeheads. There was a lot of marijuana smoking going on. Then LSD hit the scene and after that came more damning and taxing drugs. I didn't go that far but allowed myself to be associated with many of them. The music, the protesting, poetry, changed society, all that was done by the Heads and not the hippies.

So anyway we noticed, nearing Dallas that stranger and stranger groups of people were concentrating into the same direction. It was exciting to see long haired compatriots with thumbs out, in backs of trucks, in VW vans, sitting at roadside. You knew where they were going. We were going there too. They were going to do it again. They were going once again to the magic of musical gathering.

Just outside of Dallas there's a lake and a whole lot of vacant land. That's where we went. When you got there there was absolutely nowhere to go. And everyone did that. Everyone just stopped. Everyone just went nowhere. There were so many people and so many vehicles that nothing really moved. There was no food. Very little water. Lots of music and lots of drugs.

Deep within the campsites where the land was antlike and behived with stoned out longhaired Heads, you could walk down the road (which wasn't being used as a road anymore) and shop for various types of marijuana and hashish and LSD and peyote and mescaline because they were all laid out on blankets with labels. A very strange longhair guarding the wares. I realized there was no way these guys were going to get busted because a policeman would have to grab the guy and grab the drugs and then figure out how to get all that out of this huge and stoned crowd. The policeman would probably never be heard from again.

That weekend I saw a little over 200,000 people all together in one place. I always judge now, what a lot of people is like. I know what they look like. When someone talks about a million people I just multiply that memory and I know what a million people must be. A quarter-million (almost) is a bunch of people. A quarter-million stoned people is a mess.

Free love was prevalent. No one really knew anyone. Everyone loved everyone.

There was a tented area where lost souls were encouraged to go when they'd taken either too much or too powerful hallucinagins. As soon as you walked in you were greeted by wonderful friendly people who sized you up immediately to see if you needed help. You could sit in the straw and smell incense, drink water or wine, or scream and run around in circles. Most people who went in uncomfortable came back out again in love with the world.

At the stage area there was an intercom system that must have been hearable for miles. And constantly there was someone reading information over the system. If there wasn't a band playing someone was reading information to the masses. "John Barton meet your party at the yellow horse tent south of the stage". "The pink acid is bad stuff and we recommend you avoid it". "There is a water truck under the big blue tower near the large barn by the road".
etc.

I was woken each morning by a parade of drunken? stoned? crazed people following an old hipster. He had a very loud voice. He was banging cans together and shouting "Armadillo" and the single file parade behind him were also banging whatever they had responding "aaaarmadillo". He'd scream "Armadillo" they'd scream "aaaaarmaaadillo". Why? I dunno.

Where was my campsite?
I really don't know.
Wherever you lay down was where you were. Whoever you were with was who you were with. If you approached an uninterested girl, it wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like she would get mad and call her huge friends or brother. She might just say no. You'd say ok. That's that. There was too much free love going around to bother with negative situations. AIDS and Herpes hadn't yet been invented.

I never saw a fight. I never saw an argument. Everyone just had fun .

It was three days of glory. Three days of love. Three days of music. Maybe it wasn't Woodstock but it was my rebirth. And I'm so glad I was there.