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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Stig / Major Tom on December 06, 2025, 09:04:44 PM
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I'll often drive my planned scooter route in the winter.
On pitch dark rural roads, miles from home, 2 hours before sunrise, temps in the 20's - is not a time or place I want to discover ice - black or otherwise!
If I know it's location - usually not a problem.
Previous winters:
(https://i.postimg.cc/HrM98xwM/Forzasnow11.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/p9tYfHCK/likesnow-(2).jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/qhJsFx9N/P1080978.jpg)
Nice day for a drive out for breakfast with daughter in Yellow Springs.
(https://i.postimg.cc/y8KqyZtm/20251204-101911.jpg)
breakfast in the UnderDog... old 60's style coffee shop. Open your laptop and nurse a cup of coffee for hours.
(https://i.postimg.cc/wjwWRRp3/20251204-104700.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/3R52k3dn/20251204-104750.jpg)
Trouble on the Group W...!
(https://i.postimg.cc/Dy8m3tzy/20251204-114507.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Jzjr1mVY/20251204-123937.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/0jJgcd9X/pinkcc.jpg)
Stig
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So c'mon Stig. How much of your evident love of YS dates back to your itinerant days in '67 SF?
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So c'mon Stig. How much of your evident love of YS dates back to your itinerant days in '67 SF?
First of all had to look up, "itinerant". It is what I thought -- No, I shouldn't be associated with those souls who moved about, by necessity, looking for work!
I hardly hit a lick in 1967.
Closest I came to working the whole year of 1967 was the 3 weeks I spent washing dishes and bussing tables in a SoCal IHOP. Rebuilt my bankroll - @ $60 - then headed up the shore to the Big Sur. After that it was cooking the odd meals for my room and board for an apt owner in Haight/Ashbury. He claimed he was a chess-shark. Made his $ at night in the coffee houses. I just turned 18 - his story seemed plausible enough to me. His gal friend was a stripper - and actually a real sweetheart of a girl.
My guitar and harmonica playing were only enhanced by the crowd noises in Union Square, and on Nob Hill and down at Fisherman's Wharf! I looked the part, so unsuspecting tourists still tossed coins in my guitar case!
When I hit about a buck eighty-five, I'd knock off work for the day :) Buy a loaf of sourdough bread and a pint of O.J.
I did smoke some, then - but usually only those cigs tossed from passing cars. (that story makes my daughter gag)
Late in the year - married an 18yr old SoCal girl - my inbred conservative upbringing said "your rambling about like Woody Guthrie might be OK for you - but you don't subject a young wife" to the goofiness that was Calif. in those days. Jan '69 bought a pair of cardboard suitcases and 2 GreyHound bus tickets to Mass. Pretty soon I received, by appeal, a Conscientious Objector draft status change - and was off to Ft Sam Houston, Texas, to train as a combat medic. Then it was off to the games in the central highlands of S. E. Asia.
I feel something akin to blessed for having experienced both Haight/Ashbury and Vietnam. Weird, huh? I didn't go looking for either. Just that, at 18 - school having no interest to me - I had to go Do something! Not that it was all great - but I'm glad for the experience. A LOT of it was great!
I understand that Haight/Ashbury has changed, not for the better - but Yellow Springs still hangs a banner at the entrance to the village: KINDNESS. And everywhere "acceptance" is the vibe to any and all.
We saw 3 young soldiers in cammo fatigues walking into the UnderDog for breakfast last week. They are just a welcome as are a pair of blue-haired girls holding hands.
Stig
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Still an old Hippie at heart then Stig. Ain't no shame in that. Haight/Ashbury to Vietnam! Talk about extremes or from the sublime to... Seems strange to read that you valued both experiences, but in a crazy way, I can see that. Both once in a lifetime and never to be forgotten?
Picking up discarded butts and smoking them - I can understand daughter's reaction, but I'm guessing all us (ex) smokers have done this at least once? Or maybe it's just you & me Stig! Ho hum, them was the days.
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Seems strange to read that you valued both experiences, but in a crazy way, I can see that. Both once in a lifetime and never to be forgotten?
I've read remarks of contemporaries who successfully avoided the Vietnam war - who now wonder if they might have missed something important experienced by others of our generation.
They seem to be confusing Vietnam with Woodstock.
Fires are horrible - but if your generation is on fire, who wouldn't want to be a fireman?
Stig
(https://i.postimg.cc/CdySTWdH/vietnam-medic22.jpg)