Country Views - Easter 1969 did not disappoint

By Tim King

Easter has always been a disappointing time for me. The problem is advertising. Just before Easter comes there are ads showing people dressed in clothes that convince you that the weather will be so soft and mild that you’ll want to roll in the green grass and sniff dandelions.

Then, the holiday arrives. You’re decked out in lightweight spring clothing so you can go to grandma’s for baked ham after church. But outside there’s a blizzard howling. Bunnies, dandelions, and green grass for Easter were a figment of ad agency imagination.

Easter disappoints me.

Easter 1969 was different.

It started right before college spring break.  At lunch, on final exam day, I pulled up a chair along side Doug, Zach, Tom, and Arnie. As I dug into over-done pork chops and canned peas, chased by scalding coffee, I learned something. They were up to something big.

They weren’t headed to Daytona Beach or Padre Island like thousands of other college kids. These guys, my best long-haired hippie friends, were headed to the intersection of Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco for the break. By the end of my third leathery chop, we decided there was room for all five of us - plus Paula - in Tom’s red VW bug.

Within three hours I’d knocked off that last final. I don’t remember if it was in physics or phy-ed. What mattered is that by midnight we were jammed in the Bug somewhere in South Dakota.

Our only stop was Cheyenne. We ate oyster stew at a truck stop and  Paula got on an airplane to California. She had reached the surprising conclusion that the Volkswagen was crowded.

So, we cruised from Cheyenne through Salt Lake, with a 2 a.m. break to ogle the Mormon Temple, down the streets of Reno, up and through the Snowy Sierras, through the Central Valley, and right up to an open parking spot by the street sign for Haight and Ashbury streets.

We were all scrunched and folded into the shape of the little car as we piled out of it. But a soft Easter week breeze caressed our faces and bent bodies. A guy, a scrawny shoeless fellow, greeted us on the side walk. His blonde hair came to his knees and he looked like he hadn’t eaten since last Easter break.

“Welcome to Haight Ashbury,” he said, and to each of us he gave a great juicy bunch of green grapes. As he did so, he smiled warmly at each tired traveler and then walked away.

We spent the next days exploring the Haight neighborhood and the Ocean at Muir Beach. It was good, but soon over.

My friends needed to return to the land of Easter blizzards. Not me. My college roommate had borrowed my VW. He’d driven it to Richland, Washington. I figured to ride home to Minnesota with him.

I hitched rides up the coast. Hit Portland. Headed west along the Columbia River Valley through apple country. A US Marshall, and his wife, picked me up. They were on holiday.

“Me and the little wife had a murderer to extradite from Missouri to Oregon. Figured we’d take in some scenery,” he told me.

We talk about law. Life. Kids these days. I told him I’m broke. Hungry. When he let me out we were high up on the Oregon desert plateau. It had just rained. Sage was on the breeze. The Marshall reached a hairy paw out the driver’s window and shook mine, real firm. Then he handed me two one-dollar bills and looked me square with his pale blues.

“Keep your nose clean, sonny.”

I got to Richland. The car was there, but no friend. He was in Seattle. By Easter Saturday I was broke again. The gas gauge was on the wrong side of empty. I spent the night under a park bush.

On a warm and soft Easter morning, I brushed the grass from my hair and went in search of a church. I found a Lutheran church and I was deeply moved by the pastor’s sermon. So moved, that after services I went up and told him I was broke, hungry, and needed a place to sleep the night.

He gave me two bucks. He didn’t tell me to keep my nose clean because, I suppose, it was Easter Sunday and everybody was doing just that. He told me where to find a mission.

I bought three gallons of gas for one dollar, put the other two in my shoe, and went to the Salvation Bible Mission. I was welcomed there. I was given an Easter Sunday lunch of hamburger-macaroni casserole with all the coffee and buttered wonder bread I wished.

I lunched with men who surpassed my uncleanliness and after lunch we sat on the sidewalk and leaned against the red brick wall. The sunshine warmed our faces. Later, kids in a convertible drove by, took pictures of us, and then laughed.

For our evening hamburger-noodle casserole we had to sing from a hymnal. I have never since enjoyed singing hymns as much as that evening amongst those men. By nine we had all been checked for lice and sent to our bunks.

Snow fell in Minnesota that Easter evening, but I was not disappointed.