January 26, 2005
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Today is the last page of this chapter. Thanks for listening and making it safe. Roger over and out until the next one.
Chapter 8 – Flower Children (cont.)
By December we had moved into a small apartment on the third floor of an old building on the other side of the panhandle. It was during this winter that I decided to make a great effort to move out of the city. Over the next several months I ran an ad looking for someone to help me move to Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge where I felt life would be safer. I found a young woman with a two-year-old boy and in April we moved to a big house in San Anselmo. For $225/month it had a converted garage which I chose as my space because of sliding glass doors that looked out on a small back yard. There was a large main floor with three bedrooms, living room, and kitchen, and a fourth large bedroom up a few stairs from the main floor. Before much time had passed we rented out the other bedrooms to members of a local rock band. They were a couple who had two young children and an interracial couple who were expecting a baby. And it was in the living room of this house that we all gathered on July 20, 1969, four days before I turned 30, to watch Neil Armstrong, having floated through the deep blue sky for a quarter of a million miles, step delicately onto the fine-grained soil of the moon.
Thirding my life, two births to the wind, the jib rolled in to keep the sails from flogging, the horizon still looks far enough away to put off landfall.
Deep Thought: “When I heard that trees grow a new “ring” for each year they live, I thought, we humans are kind of like that: we grow a new layer of skin each year, and after many years we are thick and unwieldy from all our skin layers. “
Today I am grateful for: Half-and-half
Guess the Movie: “I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?” Answer: About A Boy, 2002.
Winner: here_at_home.
Things to Celebrate
by Joseph Miller
We need things to celebrate. A President and administration have been returned to office that are incredibly skillful in using spin, diversion, secrecy, intimidation, and dirty tricks to get what they want. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:37 pm
+ = So glad to be done with Chapter 8.
- = It turned out to be 10 pages instead of the standard 5!
Comments (21)
Judging from its reference to the show “Countdown,” I’d guess that it’s a recent British movie. I’m not sure which though…I haven’t seen this one…
Countdown though, is a GREAT show, if you ever have occasion to watch it. If you like Scrabble, you’ll love Countdown.
Good detective work. Think Hugh.
Such a rich & varied life. I would have such a hard time, living with strangers, especially with little children about. You are a trusting and gentle soul.
Ah!! I just watched this movie last night, and loved it. “About a Boy”. Have so enjoyed your chronicle. Thanks.
No guesses on the movie, but I’ve read the comments and I can say that as a Scrabble maven, I definitely love Countdown, which I’ve only seen while visiting in the U.K. Especially I love Countdown if Carol Vorderman (I think that’s the right spelling) is still on the show. Brilliance turns me on, which of course is why I visit here often (not that you could tell, because of the infrequency of my comments; life’s too busy these days, and I only discovered you after you subscribed to my blog). My favorite stuff is Things (and People) That Turn Me On. I’ve only had time to read A-E of each, so far, but those mini-essays never fail to edify and delight me.
About a Boy is the winner! I’ve never heard of Countdown before actually. I better look it up.
I should have said “Refresh My Soul” and “Knock Me Out,” respectively, but was too lazy to back up my screen to remember the titles.
I was sitting in the living room of a boyfriend’s parents, on a break from my summer job, watching Neil and the guys make history. It was quite the moment.
I don’t know what I was doing at the moment of the moon landing (though I vaguely recall the event). I was probably stoned. LOL. Excellent read, Lionne.
Sounds like your son’s birth, this new home and the moon landing were all past of a tide turning for the better.
Reading this I feel like you’re looking back almost through glass at a time so fragile and far.
The winds blew–it was time for a change. I have found it hard to be a roommate with some people–lack of privacy, etc., but ya gotta do what you gotta do. I was 16, and in the backroom of a building that my boyfriend’s band practiced–used to be a beauty salon-narrow and small–lol. The backroom had a couch and a few chairs and the tv. The images delighted me–felt enthralled and in awe of what my eyes took in. In years since, I’ve wondered if it was real, or just a set-up–funny how rumors might change one’s point-of-view.
Wow! I remember July 20, 1969. It was 3 days before my 15th birthday.
I was so annoyed…my mom made me come inside to watch.
Just found your site yesterday and it’s distracting me–I want to read it all!
we’re forcing you to expand, so I think that’s good.
and what a perfect place to break. Amidst all the disasters of those times the Moon Landing still seems (at least to me) to symbolize all that human potential is capable of. In less than ten years we created space flight and left the planet and moved across the lunar surface (and funny, it was “a government project” that did that). Why can’t we seem to do great things, solve great problems today? Why have we become so relentlessly pessimistic?
I marvel at the ease with which you moved from place to place, especially with young ones. I’m also impressed by the almost carefree-sounding living arrangements with total strangers. You are a trusting soul with good intuition it sounds like.
Politically we disagree but you remind me so much of my oldest sister. She had just moved to your area (Oakland) about the time of this last post. She was part of an inner-racial couple and the midwest was just too “small” in those days. I wanted to be just like her (and you) when I grew up, a carefree flowerchild. Didn’t turn out that way but I fondly remember the days. July 20, 1969 was a few weeks before my 4th birthday, pretty good summer.
You realize that you’ve just dated yourself… Anyway, I’d really like to read an episode or two–or three–of your days around Golden Gate Park. I hear so much aout SF in the late 60s–I was in my early teens in LA–but I’d LOVE to hear it from a person who was actually there. You entitle your piece “Flower Children” but were you really part of the hippie scene? Were there really naked people listening to concerts in Golden Gate Park? Please share? Pretty please?
I was told I watched the Lunar Landing on TV when it was broadcasted, I remember the bit when he came off the stairs and landed on the moon…later when I was round 8 I wondered about this, if it was one of my many strange dreams that I often had…..it was surreal to be sure…great post, you write so flowingly and it captures the attention…..great history….’til the next
The moon landing was a few months before my time, but I remember seeing the last landing on a green tinted old TV in the play room of my moms friend while we were visiting. I was almost 2 but for some reason I remember being told to watch the TV and I stood there to watch it. I think it was a few years later that I understood what I had watched, but strangely I still remember the moment.
Chapter 8 has been fascinating, thank you for sharing it all with us!
You sound like such a ‘love child’ a ‘hippy’ and how easy you make finding accomodation seem! When I know it’s not easy at all. And finding other mothers, people to live with, share with, such a rich beginning for your children. This is the world so many earlier feminists have written about… Life was an open exploration. The options seems limitless. I was probably just finishing high school, and just missed it by, what 5, perhaps 10 years? One of my regrets, actually, not being born earlier- it was such an amazing time.