American Culture – Page 16

The cities glitter like jewels in the night. Towers encrusted in light and streams of red and white define the expanse where only tamed hills and water courses interrupt the hand of man. An artificial world with token trees and ornamental gardens, no food grows here, no herds of deer or buffalo. No cliffs or caves for shelter, no flowing springs.

But most of us live here, packed into tiny rooms in concrete buildings or houses set side by side, our feet traveling over pavement as we hurry from place to place. Like metal filings magnetically drawn to a cluster, we gather under a force we can’t change, the force of commerce, trade, collaboration.

Only hermits, cowboys, farmers, and ramblers populate the open land, understand the smell of approaching rain and how it waters the crops, the cattle, upon which the cities wholly depend.

“We’re in the headwaters. It’s pretty wild and wooly. There’s times we have to hike out. We have a highwater trail, and we park our car on the bluff and it takes about a fifteen-minute walk to get down to the house, because the creek’s roaring and we can’t get in or out.” Chapter 1

“If you wake up in the morning and you’re happy, happy to see the sun rise, happy to see your wife or husband lying next to you, happy to be doing what the day promises for you, then I guess you’re in a good place, you’ve done what you’re supposed to do.” Chapter 2

“On really windy days when we couldn’t cut, he’d climb up to the top of the tallest pine and tie himself on and yell and scream. I started doing that. He said, you’ve got to make sure you don’t drink anything for several hours before you go up, because you’re going to pee your pants, totally lose control. The tree tops would make a twenty foot arc—we’re talking Ponderosa pines, or big Douglas firs that are probably a hundred feet tall.” Chapter 4

“I did have to make a living since I was a single woman. I went to Wall Street at that point, doing marketing for tax shelters and oil drilling funds. Pretty successful at it, working for a big brokerage house and pursuing my alternative lifestyle at night, carrying my briefcase, getting on the subway every morning completely dolled up in my full douche regalia, going to work, and then on the weekends going to the Fillmore East and seeing the Grateful Dead. That lasted until ‘71.” Chapter 5

“I loved Haight-Ashbury. Before I went to Haight-Ashbury, my apartment was raided by the Fayetteville police on the rumor that I had a matchbox of marijuana. I had moved out three weeks before. Next scene, Haight-Ashbury. At Haight-Ashbury, people were yelling on the street corners ‘Acid, grass, speed, Berkeley Barb.’ It was like going to the candy store. You couldn’t get arrested.” Chapter 6

Category: American Culture

Cities

Excerpts, Aquarian Revolution