It was 1972. I had just turned nine years old and was starting to wonder what lay beyond my street. Don't get me wrong. It was a great street. In fact, it was the kind of street every little boy should live on. My best friend, Dana Eckman, lived just a few houses away. Elizabeth, my babysitter, lived a few doors down from him. She was a real pro. She had more toys than FAO Schwarz and would dump them all on the living room floor every time she came over. Mrs. Knight, my piano teacher, lived on the opposite corner. Her oldest daughter, Laura, read stories to me and all the other neighborhood kids on her back porch on summer afternoons. And the apple of my eye, Linda Coss, lived a few doors down in the only pink house on the entire street, surrounded by impeccable flower patches, and enclosed by a white picket fence. In my memory, bluebirds and butterflies circled above and around her house constantly, and the sun always shone a little brighter there. I loved my street, but something inside me - inside all boys, I suspect - pulled my attention toward the horizon, and new adventures.
Our house was on the corner of 26th and Pearl Street in Santa Monica, California, which meant it was exactly twenty-six blocks from the Pacific Ocean, the pier, the midway with all its rides, and one of the prettiest beaches in the state. My parents would take my brother and I to the beach almost every weekend but on long summer days, I would toy with the idea of making the journey myself. To my child's mind, however, the prospect of walking twenty-six blocks alone was akin to what Columbus must have felt before pointing his ships westward to determine once and for all if the world was flat or round.
Adults were mostly kind and trustworthy, but there was always that odd character - the square peg, the loose cannon - like the old man who sprang out at Dana and me one day as we took our usual route home from school through the alleys. Always on the lookout for new additions to our tree-house/fortress, we had stopped to look through his trash can. (They were all short and metal back then, so it was easy for kids to see into them. The upgrade to tall, plastic bins was one of the most heinous offenses against children to take place in the 20th century. Unfortunately, pre-pubescent boys were too disorganized to march against Washington and have the monstrosities abolished, and it's too late now. Tree-house decor everywhere has suffered immensely as a result of that horrible decision.)
Sorry, I got sidetracked. Oh, yeah. The crazy, old man.
Our hearts jumped as he yelled, "What're you boys doin' back here?"
"Uh . . . nuthin!" I said, holding his trash can lid.
"Nuthin?" he yelled, squinting at us with his one good eye.
"You're sniffin' glue! That's what you're doin'!"
Dana and I looked at each other, confused. I couldn't figure out why anyone would intentionally sniff glue, though there were times when I did rub Elmer's Glue all over my hands, let it dry, and peel it off, but that was just for fun, or to pretend I was a leper to scare the girls on the playground.
While we were trying to figure out what he meant, he snatched the metal trash can lid out of my hand and let out a roar that would have made Bigfoot envious. We ran for the hills.
"And stay away from that glue!", he yelled. "It'll rot your brain out!"
Boy, he sure hated glue.
As I sat on my front lawn plotting my first solo expedition to the beach, I wondered how many more crazy, old men there were lurking about, waiting to jump out and accuse me of being a glue sniffer. But my fear gradually became contempt. Why should I let a few crazy people scare me? Most adults were okay, and I could run pretty fast in a pinch. Besides, I figured I would just stay on the sidewalks where the normal adults could see me if the mysterious "white slavers" my mother sometimes talked about tried to abduct me. I wished Dana could have come with me, but he was visiting relatives in Utah for a whole month, effectively ruining the first half of my summer.
It is true that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" but for me, it was twenty-six blocks. I stared down the sidewalk until it disappeared in the distance.
Twenty six, measly blocks. No problem.
Ah, who was I kidding? Twenty-six was a huge number. I doubted I would even live to the age of twenty-six. It wasn't even that long ago that I had learned to count that high. But I steeled my resolve, shooed the fear away again and took that first step into the unknown.
I found a quarter on the sidewalk halfway down the street, and a clear quartz crystal in a flower patch near the corner of 25th and Pearl. This was already turning into a profitable venture! A few minutes later, 24th, 23rd and 22nd streets had become a memory. As I crossed onto 21st, however, strange music caught my ear played by instruments I had never heard before. It was coming from a house to my left, halfway down the street.
Then and still today, that neighborhood was very well-manicured, so even from a distance, this house stood out. I've always been partial to picket fences, probably because my one, true, endless love's house had one. This house had one, too, but unlike Linda's perfectly pruned garden, this was exploding with the wildest assortment of flowers I had ever seen, spilling over and between the pickets. There were at least a dozen adults in the garden engaged in various activities, but they were younger than my parents and definitely cut from a different cloth. In fact, they were the kind of people my father didn't approve of. On a few occasions, I had heard him describe them as "damn hippies."
"Look at 'em," he would say. "They're a scourge. They want to control everything except their own behavior. Probably haven't bathed in a month. Makes ya sick just lookin' at 'em."
These comments were usually made as we passed them in our car. I didn't know what to think about the hippies, but I did know that my dad seemed to work a lot harder than they did. He also dressed a lot nicer. Of course, it was natural for me to take my father's side. I was a boy, after all, and a father's approval is more important to a boy, or a man for that matter, than the approval of a thousand strangers.
My father's opinion of hippies was not improved when, the previous summer, a drug-addled man with long, stringy hair and a tie-dye shirt offered me some "candy" for a short ride on my new bike. He furtively showed me a zip-lock sandwich bag full of multi-colored capsules, like the headache pills my parents would sometimes take. It didn't look like candy to me.
I said, "It looks like medicine."
"Nah, kid," he answered, "It's candy! It's really good, too! I'll give you some for a ride on your bike. I'll bring it right back. I promise!"
"I better ask my dad," I said.
I pushed my bike to the front door and went inside. My dad was watching boxing on TV, as usual.
"Hey, dad!" I said. "There's a man outside who wants to give me drugs for my bike."
He jumped out of his chair and knocked the screen door off its hinges. The man was already halfway down the block, all heels and elbows. My dad stood in the middle of the sidewalk and yelled, "If I ever see you again, you're dead!"
Despite this poor introduction, I was curious about this strange tribe who seemed to celebrate color and who always spoke and sang of things like love and peace and brotherhood. Those words sounded very nice to me, so how bad could they be? With that in mind, I interrupted my trek to the ocean and turned down the street to have a closer look.
From a distance, the garden had looked like the impressionist paintings my mother hung on the walls of our living room. But as I got closer, the colors became richer and separated as the flowers swayed and pitched in the cool wind from the Pacific. Giant sunflowers towered overhead, purple cosmos exploded like mini-supernovas, along with daisies, kangaroo paws, California poppies, black-eyed Susan's and dozens of other flowers that I had never seen before, all blending into one giant bouquet, separated only by a light brown, gravel pathway winding randomly through it all. The fence pickets had also been painted with rainbows, flowers, cartoon insects and the usual hippy words like "peace" and "love". The music was very loud but soothing. I know now that it was a sitar but then I just thought it sounded magical, like a ride at Disneyland.
One of the hippies was sitting on the porch reading. Another was standing in the center of the garden blowing bubbles that caught the wind and danced around the flowers before floating away into space. Another was passing a strange-looking cigarette to a girl with flowers in her hair. Another was sitting in the shade playing a guitar. Three younger girls, probably seventeen years old or so, all wearing colorful sundresses, were standing in a group, whispering and laughing. Inside the house, I could hear dishes clanking and a wonderful scent reached me that smelled like every delicious thing I had ever eaten mixed together.
I was so transfixed by this spectacle, and so fascinated to finally be this close to actual hippies, that I must have forgotten they could see me, too. My trance was broken by the three young girls saying, almost in unison, "Ahhh! Look at the cute, little boy!"
I looked behind me but no one was there.
"Yes, you!" one of them said. They walked to the edge of the fence. "Come here, sweetie!"
My parents had told me not to talk to strangers so I hesitated.
"Ah, he's shy. That's okay. We'll come out there!"
They came flooding through the gate. They were all as pretty as a spring pasture.
"He's adorable!" one of them said, kneeling and wrapping her arms around me.
The other two also knelt, hugging and kissing me. I stood in the middle as rigid as a plank, swallowed up in a sea of breasts, blonde hair and exotic perfume. I got the occasional hug and kiss from my mother's friends, but nothing like this. This was complete and total love bombardment, and I liked it.
They asked me where I was from. I told them I lived on 26th Street but I was going to the beach, doing my best to sound like an intrepid explorer. They asked if I was hungry but before I could answer, one of them ran in the house and brought out a frosty bottle of Coke (in glass, not plastic) with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Wonder bread. We sat on the grass and the man with the guitar showed me how to strum the strings while he held the chords. The rest smiled and waved to me when I looked at them. The man sang Puff the Magic Dragon to me, a very popular song at the time. I was able to sing along because my mother had sung it to me so often after tucking me into my bed at night. The girls asked me all kinds of questions and gave me advice about my small, childhood problems, mainly a bully at school who wouldn't leave me alone.
"Just keep being extra nice to him," one said. "Eventually, he'll feel like a jerk for being so mean to you."
That advice sure was different than what my big brother told me. He told me to kick him in the nuts.
In retrospect, I was probably experiencing my first contact high, but what an adventure I was having. I was having so much fun, I forgot all about the beach. The sunlight was coming in at an angle through the flowers and the shadows were starting to slant, so I knew it was getting late, too late to continue my expedition without worrying my parents. They gave me a lot of room to be a boy, but not that much.
I told them I had to get back home. They offered to give me a ride but I said I could make it myself, independent man that I now was. They walked me to the sidewalk and the three beautiful flower girls swallowed me up in their embraces again. It may have been that day that a deep and abiding admiration for women, bordering on obsession, was launched in me that burned much longer than even men with the wildest oats. I married late in life because of this obsession. The truth is, the obsession didn't end. It was simply focused on one woman only. The friendship and camaraderie of other men is great, but it is nothing next to the adoration of a woman. A man is no happier or safer in the grandest palace than he is against the belly and breast of such a miracle.
They waved goodbye to me as I staggered drunkenly away, my head spinning and my heart full of the love and peace that they swore their lives to. I visited their garden often in the months that followed until one day at the end of summer when I went to the house and found it empty, as if the summer had brought them and taken them away again. The garden was dry and the house, once so full of music and life, was dark. I cried. Over the years, though, the happy hours I spent in that garden feeling safe and loved has banished from my memory whatever sadness I felt the day I discovered they had gone.
Mother Teresa said very few of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Whether or not the "hippy" movement was a success, and whether or not their ideas and protests stopped the Vietnam war or it just burned itself out, as wars always inevitably do until the next one comes along, the flower children in that garden that day were the real article. They lived up to their philosophies. For a few happy afternoons in one blessed summer, they made a little boy feel like a prince, like he mattered, like the world wasn't such a scary place after all. What greater thing can any of us really do?
In a list
- Prose Stories • next in list
- Beautiful Words by Beautiful People I Know • next in list
- Ultra-Personal (In Fact, Don't Read These.) • next in list
A contest entry
- prose ii. by dehydrated.
1750 points, ended June 27, 8 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 24 of 24
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I wish I could have been with you in 1972 in the flowers with the hippies, but I was just a few months old
This is the next best thing to being there, however, and I just want to say, thank you for bringing me a little magic 
Love, Lane
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Thanks, Lane. Since you read this story with such an open spirit, you WERE there with me! Glad you could make it.
Mark
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enjoyed story and comments. I hear you own a chocholate factory?
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lol - that's just my little homage to Willy Wonka (Wilder, not Depp), who remains one of my favorite movie characters of all time.
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Just like how I would tell a story!
Made me go back to my own childhood days which I no longer can find, and how coincidental! Just yesterday I wrote "Child Again" and I must tell you this! This has truly freaked me. I was downloading Puff the magic dragon by Peter Paul and Mary, as I wanted another song from them called all my trials Lord and just saw this one, so I said well, i havent heard it in a long while, let me download it. I like the reference you made about the garden and how it looked like the painting your mom hung on walls...How true this story is, I too have gone thru many of the joys and times u have made a reference of and I see how the times have changed for todays generation...and then the ending, fabulous, I did once wrote about how I was the prince and the neighbourhood kids drove me around on a push cart!!!!! I had seen it hung a few years ago in my grandma's store room until she moved away and nobody lived there anymore except the memories of these happy times. Thanks for sharing this, I felt as if I had written this, and was reading my work. But we've said this before, and so Im just thankful I came in here today.
Hope all is well with you, take care,
Love and light,
Lencio
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Hey Lencio,
Thanks a lot for the great response to this. I'm glad you enjoyed it and found your own writing style in it. That's a great compliment since I've always been a fan of your writing, and proud to be your friend. I hope all is well with you these days.
Mark
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wow very very well done. you really experienced it? if not... you are an amazing writer. i thought the beginning was slow [while i was reading it] but i got the pace as i moved on with the color pattern. extremely expressive narration. wonderful work. good luck. thanks for entering.
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Hey!
I somehow missed that this contest had ended and that I had won the silver. Thanks! (Sorry for the delay.) I'm glad you liked it. It was a hoot to write.
Mark
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Top Shelf
interesting fact, Columbus wasn't the first one to think that the world was round, in fact, at least most of the cartographers in the Portugese court thought so, they also knew that the world was a lot bigger than Columbus thought (he was off by about 1/4 of the globe). So sailing straight to China would be way too far, the ships would have to be huge to carry all the food, and it would be just plain silly, this is why he got sponsored by Spain...
Anyways, this is a very touching story, nicely flowered with flowing prose and vivid imagery. That makes sense because it was about some hippies, still, pretty dang good writing sir.
I remember that my obsession with girls came from a combo of a really cute babysitter (who was double my age) a profoundly attractive teacher (who was about four times my age) and a small group of girls (who were my age), and thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread and who would follow me around trying to kiss me.
Kissing was something that was forign to me, and which I was sure would result in my demise from a combination of a fear induced heart attack and the dreaded "cooties" (in retrospect, I REALLY miss those days). Unfortunately, by the time I came around to liking girls, they had all scattered, though I did manage to make out in an art closet with one in third grade(though at the time I had no idea what making out was, and I was thoroughly confused but still open minded. Think of a 3rd grade boy kissing a girl while raising his eyebrow as if to say "Huh, not bad, not bad at all" and I think you'll have the right image). Then in Fourth grade I had my first love, there was a beautiful little girl who I sang songs with on an occasional basis all the way through high school, we'd just occasionally break into song.
I REALLY miss that, it never turned into anything and we drifted apart, but I still miss it. I really want someone to randomly sing songs with in the middle of crowded rooms, or on the streets, or anywhere else where it would be socially foux pa, and to feel like it's totally ok.
See, those last couple paragraphs are a sign that you wrote a top shelf story. When your work inspires people who guard their past like they would guard a tin of chewing tobacco at a tractor pull to open up and share some fond memories, then you wrote a dang good story.
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Hey Steve,
That is one of the most entertaining comments I've ever received on this site. Thanks for the info on Columbus, and the snapshots of your childhood. You're right - the image of a 3rd grade boy lifting his eyebrow while kissing the girl and thinking "not bad at all" was perfect and very vivid. Though Linda Coss, the girl in this story, kissed me on the cheek once, my first real kiss was in 6th grade. Her name was Susan Sujata, which is an East Indian name, but she was a fair-skinned blondie. I was expecting a little peck but she gave me a massive french kiss and practically swallowed my face. I too felt the cootie factor but mostly, I thought, "Wow, I want some more of that!" She and I used to hide in a bush between the sidewalk and the side of somebody's house and kiss for hours. It was near our school so we could see all our friends walking by on the sidewalk but they couldn't see us. She and I also got separated on a bus during a field trip because we kept getting our faces stuck together. Of course, I crawled under the seats back to her so I wouldn't be seen in the aisle, and got suspended for it later. But it was worth it. All in the name of love. The last time I saw her, we were both about 15 and she was working in a western wear store. I have tried to find Susan Sujata a few times in the decades since then. I even called her parents once years ago, who still live on the same street, and told them I was an old friend of hers just wanting to say hello, but they denied her existence. She was either being stalked by someone and they were trying to protect her, or she died and they didn't want to think about her. It's one of the great mysteries of my life.
Anyway, thanks again for the great stories and the laughs. You shouldn't be so secretive about your past. You have a flair for storytelling I'm sure others would enjoy, as I did.
Mark
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Hey Mark,
Thanks for the reply, I really hope that you eventually find Susan Sujata.
It's funny how both of our first loves were little blondes. They have an unmistakable siren-like allure
Have a great day,
Steve -
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I'm married to a gorgeous latina now so I won't be looking for Susan Sujata anymore. I probably wouldn't wonder about her if I just knew she was okay, but her parents acting like they didn't know who she was when I called about ten years ago made me wonder if something bad happened to her. Nobody likes to think of their childhood sweetheart meeting with some terrible fate. I guess it will forever remain a mystery.
Thanks again, buddy.
Mark
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Forgot the applause as usual. Wish i could give more than 3 for this one!!
However I would like to say, that I started reading this one before I went to bed last night, but was too tired to concentrate so gave it up for today, I could swear last night it said 1971 and I'd just turned 8!!
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Ha - you busted me! lol I realized I was a year older that summer so I moved it up a little.
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Mark you might just want to change the intro too then as it still says 1971 and 8. :-)
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I was halfway through reading your story and thought I have to engage quick comments for this one, so i can comment as i read
Boy, he sure hated glue.
Love it!!!! The innocence of children not understanding the perils and other things that lay ahead. I remember as a child looking at a cartoon someone had drawn for my mum and dad at their wedding, both in wedding garb and dad asking the porter to send up a quart of black coffee as they were both a little tired after their journey, when I asked him to explain he fobbed me off. I remember years later in my teens at Sunday lunch, the penny dropped when someone mentioned how coffee keeps you awake, I started laughing and when dad asked why I told him that I'd realized what the cartoon meant, he went very red! I loved that I hadn't understood as a child.
"I looked behind me but no one was there."
I can't tell you why I love this line... I just do
Mark this is such a beautiful story. One of the reasons I 'surf the net' is discover about other peoples lives and what they do that may seem mundane to them, but is incredibly fascinating to me. I was only one in 1972 and obviously just a baby, to know exactly what one person was doing the other side of the world while I was just starting on my life's journey , well I can't explain how amazing that feels to me.
I love your writing, it delights me on so many levels.
What else can I say.
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WOW!!! I'm assuming this is taken from reality? Well done, Mark! the only changes I would make would be in some of the punctuation. Outside of that, this is superb!! Makes me want to write about my childhood but I don't want to make people cry! Ha! Well done! - ocerus
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Thanks, Oce. Feel free to point out the punctuation suggestions. And go ahead and write about your childhood. I'm sure it wasn't all bad. Besides, the painful stuff is what we need to get out of our systems the most.
Hope you're having a good weekend.
Mark
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This is probably precisely why you grew up into being a chocolate factory owner, Marky L.
What a great storyteller you are, my Friend. I was only 14 in 1973 (& the 60's didn't "hit" Kansas until the 70's...pun intended). I encountered all sorts of colorful souls...& I envied their apparent freedom. I always hung out with older people, even as a kid. People my age were always too...childlike. Go figure. Fabulous penning, Sweetie...& I'm sure glad you didn't take the "candy". Coulda been some of that brown acid they were warnin' people at Woodstock about. I was too young to have been a hippie, but I sure was close...I just always claimed to be a gypsy. One reason I love Van Morrison's song, "Caravan". Good luck in the contest, Scribe of all eras, bleak & mild. 
Wanda
P.S. If I have to leave, I won't be gone long. Trust me. I'll find a way to come visit my Friends as often as I can. When I had computer issues before, I went to the library after work. Didn't get home until after 11 pm, but it kept me from missin' out on so many wondrous pieces such as this.
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Delightful, insightful
What can I say? You have written a wonderfully enchanting, deeply felt and honest piece (that made me laugh out loud a few places!). I simply love your writing and way of expressing your experiences. Like we have talked about on many an occasion, you need to compile all these wonderful memoirs of your childhood. Thank you for sharing this...xxoo suzy
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I had an adventurous and wandering spirit when I was little, but my mom, being divorced and alone, had a much more regimental control over my brother and me. We didn't venture away from home alone--at least not after I was about two and a half. My brother (who is 11 months older) and I crossed the switch yards near the railroad station in Pendleton, OR. After that, Mom tied me to the clothes line!
There were very few hippies in the small town where we lived, but I did see a turquoise Volkswagen, once, painted all over with yellow and pink flowers when I was in the 7th grade.
This was so endearing to read, despite imagining the horror of being ambushed by that grumpy, paranoid, old man. How could any child not be enticed by the colors and eccentricities of a flower garden like that, and pretty young women so happy to adore a child and make him welcome? They melted your heart and your fear!
What a world we live in as children. The 'hippy' phenomenon of the 60's seems mild and theatrical compared to the mess the world is in now, although I'm sure my mom would have agreed with your dad. You tell a wonderful story with as much magic as you must have felt being there. I can almost smell the food and perfume, too, as well as feel the dismay when they vanished................marvelous writing!
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Excellent
Mark
I do wish I could write with the heartfelt emotions you always bring pen to paper. The debth of your passionate experience and the wonder of its exploration is so great to read. I loved so many parts of this and it reminded me of a situation in my own life, when I was in 3rd grade. But, respectfully for such a great write I would not even attempt to write about it. I need to learn your way of communication. With deep respect my fellow poet.
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A wonderful heart warming story Mark, I loved it! There is an expression that states "if you remember the sixties, you weren't there", well I was there and do remember some of it...and yes I was a hippy in full bloom, so your story resonated with me.
Did hippies create lasting change? There are probably many different responses to that questions, but for me it was a very formative and awakening stage of my life. Good and bad I say it was all worth it.
Thanks for sharing this little insight into the life of young Mark Rickerby.
Cheers,
Henri
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Lovely to see ya again, Ferg. Hope all is well in your corner of the world, Poet. Wanda
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