1960’s

GIDGETING OF THE “ELDERLY”

Hey you guys

Remember Gidget?

Who was the actor?

Sally Field?

Karen Valentine?

Someone petite

Someone “cute’

Hate that word

Applied to me

Tired of being thought of

As another species

I mean, like Jim Morrison said

No one gets out of here alive

And although he left at age 27

Most of us get old

Battle the gravitational pull

So tired of seeing posts about the “elderly”

Holding gnarled hands

With the caption

“Awww, so cute!”

Cute? Why?

How cute can wrinkled gnomes be?

No matter the age, it is wonderful

To see couples holding each other

Looking at each other lovingly

So while I haven’t been holding hands with anyone lately

Maybe when I go to the Old Age Home I’ll meet someone there

Who will think I’m fabulous and want to hold my hand

(Imagine Beatles background music)

Hope I don’t become a post for some misguided youth

Although, ok, I confess

I was one of those that screamed

“Don’t trust anyone over 30!”

Paybacks, yeah…

In the meantime, Baby Boomers

We’re the ones who tried to bring peace on Earth

We’re the ones who tried to bring truth in politics

We’re the ones getting screwed, now

With impossible costs of medicines

Did you know they’d take our Social Security monthly

For Medicare that doesn’t pay for hardly anything?

So they need to extort more of our (in my case, paltry) money

And use it for “Supplemental Insurance”

I’m still raging against Big Pharma

But it’s easier to yell at you

Warning you not to tell us we can’t wear our hair long

Or wear dark makeup

Or hold hands with a lover

(Yes, we still love sex and rock and roll:

Drugs? Well, legal ones)

Above all, do not call us cute!

Do not Gidgetize the so-called “Elderly”

We’re forever young

And someday, we’ll be able to go to the moon

With zero gravity

And look lovely enough to be photographed

Then you’ll see who we really are

Just like you…

(Rock on)

IMAGE: Robert Indiana’s LOVE and Philadelphia City Hall

MANCHESTER SUNSHINE

(scroll down for YouTube video)

As we Baby Boomers begin our final journey

To who knows where

I wrestle with thoughts

Of how sure we were

That the sun would shine in

And all would be love, peace, music and poetry

Youth was a time

When even the place names

Far away

Magically wooed us

Manchester was one

Appearing in a song from “Hair”

Making no sense to me

Then or now

But a city I’d want to someday visit

Perhaps I’m so poor at Geography

Because some places exist

In realms uncharted

An alternate Geography

Living and breathing

In the mind

Now, Manchester has a new meaning

Sunshine, stardust, all the magic of youth

Blown apart…

IMAGE: Manchester Evening News

YouTube video (song begins at 2:49 https://youtu.be/fhNrqc6yvTU

Lyrics for Let the Sun Shine In http://www.songlyrics.com/hair/let-the-sunshine-in-lyrics/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAVI SHANKAR

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAVI SHANKAR: long video of him waking up the people at Monterey Pop (June 1967) Love the expressions on their faces. Love the music most of all..

FINALLY!

Congratulations to Bob Dylan for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature! I remember saying in an English class (1980s) that Bob Dylan was the greatest poet of our time. Not only the class, but also the instructor, laughed at me. I’ve never changed my opinion. He set my life path when I was 15 years old and I’ve never regretted it!

Many of his songs seem to have arisen from literature. I noticed that A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall is a lot like the old Irish The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel. There is the repetition of “what did you see” and other elements of heroic folklore and folk music.

Literature comes in many forms and nothing is greater than the traveling bard singing the poem…

ONE BABY BOOMER’S DATING MEMOIR

(Your terrorizing didn’t work, Mom, but thanks for trying )

**Scroll Down For YouTube Video**

Sweet Sixteen visit to an off-campus frat party

At the local Ivy League University

The time is before designer drugs

Hit the street

A time when date rape was mistaken

For love and lust instead of

An act of violence

And the worst thing we have to worry about

Is the dreaded

Yet oh-so-longed-for

“Spanish Fly”

A mystical

Maybe mythical

Potion

That makes nubile

Hormonal

Female teens

Panting for the

Testosterone-laden

Male teens

With no blame

If she “does it”

Because who could resist

This secret recipe

Slipped into…where?

One’s drink

Or throbbing parts

Nice girls are not allowed to know about

Any excuse

To strip off one’s clothes

And finally feel

What the characters of Harold Robbins,

Henry Miller, Grace Metalious

And all those others do

In books stolen

From parents’ bedrooms

To be hidden under the lining of

The bedside chair

Reserved for reading by moonlight

On lonely, virginal nights…
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Blurry Me At Sixteen

YOUTUBE VIDEO: Ringo, You’re 16 https://youtu.be/4x19vy_9aFc

MEMOIR AS ART FORM: DRIVE-IN MOVIES

Sea of cars

Like a humpback whale convention

Row after row

Speakers dangling off windows

Rolled up, fighting the city mosquitoes

Flinging their bodies against the glass

Humidity glazing the outside windshield

Passion steaming the insides of those big-fin cars

Monsters larger than life stomping across the screen

In black and white

Teen girls

Soon to be called women

When the feminist movement

Roars through the states

Pick their way

To the bathrooms

Why is there always a line for females

But never for males

Are they using the bushes

Behind the stands

“Go on out to the lobby”

Sing the dancing refreshments

Time to wade through mass mayhem

To buy salty, oily popcorn

And sugary colas

Rumored to make girls sexy

If taken with aspirin

The boys stuff dollars

Into the hands of the girls

Who are willing to stand in line

For this treat divine

No escape from the pandemonium

Pushing, laughing

And talk-talk-talking

Most of all

Now back to the car

When the movie continues

What a wondrous place for teens

What a wondrous place for

Pajama-clad babies

Those babies conceived in liberty

At the drive-in movie

So long ago…

IMAGE: Solano drive-in

APPLAUSE

Clap if you believe in peace…

Like clapping for light and love

Flowers wilting in my gray hair

Discordant voice hoarsely flying through the air

Eyes closed against the news, I see me

Flag bearer in green uniform

Girl Scout 1950s Memorial Day parade

Dad earlier pointing out the remnants

Of Spanish American War survivors

There goes Mr. Gerwitz,

Smelly old man in Edwardian suit and tie

Now wearing a moth-eaten uniform

For a moment, I see him at eighteen

Striding along in the tropical heat

Determined to beat

The enemy

And end all war

Within six years

I will march again

Despite loved ones dying in Vietnam

I will scream against the war

My screams will join others

And we will save the world

I so believe

I clap because I believe in peace

And flying fairies

And Giant Killers

Who slayed the ogres

Ring Wraiths

Bad guys

To begin our Utopia

Clap if you, too, believe in peace

SACRED SIXTIES SONG: Phil Ochs’ “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”

(Another poem in celebration of Phil Ochs’ 75th birthday)

Phil’s voice echoing in my mind

As I learn to play

My new ukulele

Here are the chords

No riff, but couldn’t do justice

To the memorable, musical phrase

That always gave me chills when a teen

Listening to him on late-night weekend FM

No commercials in the sixties

Bought the album

Saw him countless times at folk festivals

And Philly coffee houses

Spoke to him twice

Well, in my ultra-shy way

Went through a period of

Perverting his song

As I tired from marching

Although it was to prevent the type of marching

Phil Ochs meant

Anti-war but also voting rights, Women’s Lib

War just kept coming

Voters got rights but stopped voting

Women didn’t want equality if it meant

Sharing a bathroom with men

In frustration I invoked the words of

Phil Ochs

Silently shouting:

“I Ain’t Marching Anymore”!

But got through that phase

An activist works for the common good

Not for the individuals who may pervert the act

So here I am

Almost a quarter of the way into

The twenty-first century

Voice scratchy

The pressing of frets slow

Giggling attitude toward my ineptitude

But playing and singing

Phil Ochs’ call to war

Against war

So here I am

Daring to replicate the sacred chords

Of I Ain’t Marching Anymore

What a high…

Here’s a Youtube link to the song: https://youtu.be/gv1KEF8Uw2k

MY FAMILY

Gypsies, Jews, Africans too

Vietnamese, Philippine, and Protestant (a few)

Catholics and even a Muslim or two

Hispanics and Atheists add to the brew

Also Gays and Lesbians of every hue

I feel so proud that my 60’s dream came true

This is my family as the genes pass through

New blood that brings to life a modern view

Tolerance in families is not new

A practice our whirling planet must pursue

It is something we all can do

Spreading DNA from me to you

Eventually, the world will be a stew

Realizing this is déjà vu

Unhealthy war, we can start anew

My flower power wish, love is the glue…

(Image: Some of my 60’s peace jewelry)

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