An American Tale, The Life and Misadventures of Susan Hapenny and the Boys from Company 10 (4)

 (This is a continuing fictional series in the lives of Susan Hapenny and her friends. This installment takes place in 1967, in Monterey, at the Monterey Pop Festival.)

"Our Weekend in Monterey"
 by Sue Hapenny

 (Special to the Monterey Voice)

(Last weekend, my boyfriend and I went to the Monterey Pop Festival. This is our story.)

My boyfriend George and I pulled up to the Haight-Ashbury Free clinic to see his cousin Sunny.  Sunny is a counselor at the clinic.  At 21, she is tall and blonde, with long hair, straight down her back.  At her prom, Sunny was known as Debbie. Now, she has legally changed her name to Sunny and embroiders flowers on her jeans.

Sunny is with Rocko. Rocko is also a counselor. Together,  they talk to longhaired kids who are freaking out on acid. Today there were five ODs. The day before that, eight.

Their charge now is Pluto. Pluto lies on a cot in the clinic. Sunny and Rocko give him valium and orange juice, and wait. Mostly, they wait. Pluto screams obscenities and believes he is Jesus Christ. 

Sunny and Rocko believe in free love. George and I are going steady, but nobody here believes in that. They told me this is the Summer of Love.

Tonight, we will crash at Sunny and Rocko's near Haight-Ashbuy; tomorrow, we'll drive from San Francisco to Monterey.

Friends file in to Sunny and Rocko's.  Sunny is in the kitchen, making brownies.

Friends listen to The Rolling Stones, eat brownies and laugh. After a while, they leave. George and I will sleep on mats on the floor. We'll be joined by 10 friends who also will crash at Sunny and Rocko's.  I don't expect much sleep.

Stinky is here, too. He is not with anyone, but he's not the only one. Sunny and Rocko's apartment attracts a motley crew of friends.  Going steady is not as important as hanging out.

This is not my parent's world, the world I grew up in.

I confess I don't understand the rules, the unwritten social language by which people converse.

This is something new, what's going on here at Haight-Ashbury--the panhandling, the long-haired kids, people strung out on drugs, something that looks innocent, but I fear is not. 

I feel as if everything that went before is now discarded, and that what we see is wild, chaotic, and dangerous.

Two weeks ago I was at the prom, my hair done. Now my hair is loose  and carefree, like I'm supposed to be.

The pressure to join is hard. 

I resist everything--the drugs, the desire to be like them, to live with seeming abandon, knowing that that, too, is a lie. 

I see that underneath the giddy surface of flower power and free love, lies the subconscious--the real power that is motivating people to break free of their constraints, doing something never done before. 

I'm afraid of this power that people have not yet unleashed, this power that knocks at us like Chinese water torture until we break down in drugs and tears, sex and violence, broken--our psyches and our hymens torn--like rags in the wind.

I'm having fun--more fun than I've ever had, but I'm watchful, too, as I observe the festival goers dance and sway.  I refuse to give myself over to their carefree behavior, even as I eat Sunny's brownies, more delicious and rare than I've ever eaten before.

 At the festival, we saw Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Simon and Garfinkel, The Who, The Grateful Dead. Ravi Shankar. We saw everybody. It was mesmerizing, and even as I resisted the urge to be like them, I became of them, I became with them,  as I swayed, on the grounds of the Monterey County Fairgrounds, along with 200,000 others that weekend.

I understand that Monterey was the first festival music festival of its kind. It was a rock festival.  There were no arrests, no injuries, no deaths, and most performers were not paid.

Many attendees had long hair. Unlike some, we had a place to stay.

I pretended to join this throng, as I danced and swayed. I pretended not to see what I know: that this is bigger than all of us, more than we can control, something etched upon our generation, for all time. 
 
 "Sue, that's quite a piece."
"Thanks, George."
 "Stinky, how're we coming on the driving?" George asked Stinky. "See any campsites we can stop for the night?"
"One a coupla miles back, George. Wanna stop at that one?"
"Yeah, if you can get back to it. "

*     *     *    

"George, he's got a gun," Sue said. "A gun, George."
George stared down the barrel of a rifle, pointed point-blank, straight at him.

"You folks plan on paying? Or did you just come to steal?" The owner of the KeWanEE Camp said.

"We didn't see anybody in the office," George said.
 "Pay now, or get the hell outta here before I blow your brains out."
  "How much?"
"Five dollars. Site number 67."

"Whew, Sue, that was close," George said. "Can't wait to get back to Rapid Falls."
"I know what you mean," Sue said. "I'm ready. Ready to go back home."
"What about you, Stinky? George asked. "Back to Little Mary's?"
"Nothing else going on," Stinky said. "Nothing."
"Stinky, Sue and I've been thinking. We're going to get an apartment together. You could move in with us. It'll help with the rent, while we're going to college and working."

"Dunno, George."
"Aw, come on, Stinky," Sue said. "We want you to be with us.  It will be fun. It will be the time of your life."

 Note: In future installments of "An American Tale", we meet Sugar, who gets mysterious visits from Frank, one of the seven boys from Company 10.  Sugar then meets up with Stinky; George and Sue continue to go steady, as they work and live, and grow up together in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Chapter 1: Chapters 2,3: Chapter 5: