The 21^st Century Magazine,
at South Florida's www.miami-dade-online.com.

Before The Road Ended

I was a singer on the road for twenty-two years, starting as a folksinger during the urban folk revival of the 1960s.  I chose the legendary road when I was eighteen, and my very first stop was Greenwich Village New York.  Hell, there were folksingers everywhere!  On every street corner, in every bar, even Grocery stores had them strumming and singing like Dylan! 

Washington Square Park was a place where artists, students, radicals and longhaired commie bastards could gather without hassle or hostility.  You should remember that most people detested longhairs then and considered them un-American.  You see, wanting America to be what she stood for, or what she claimed to stand for, was viewed by the majority to be un-American at the time.  Sounds crazy, right?  Well it really was.  It was crazy as hell.  Cities and towns everywhere had places longhairs couldn't enter.  Not without walking into trouble.  Mostly fists, a few queer jokes with some "commie pinko bastards" on the side.  After a few years had passed, these same places would be filled with longhairs having a good time.  Anyone who walked in with short hair would be considered a cop and ignored.  So obviously out of place, they'd soon leave.  Rude of us, wasn't it? 

Watching straight people you liked turn hip and cool was wonderful entertainment.  We'd help them out any way we could.  They'd want "in," after realizing how they really felt about the war, equality and injustice.  Now, as for finding a counterculture role model, if there was one there was a million.  Each so filled with indignant passion, their convictions spat flames like cannon barrels. 

I had loved the idea of the road since I was a kid, the real road that technology drove the final stake through.  I wound up living it, the one Guthrie and Big Bill Broonzy traveled, Washboard Sam and Cisco Houston, Fats Waller and many more before and after them.  I slept on subways and park benches, a flophouse when I could afford one.  With a bag over my shoulder and a guitar in my hand, all the money I ever had could be found in the right front pocket of my jeans.  I owned and owed nothing. 

If you didn't have any money then, you just said so.  There was no shame involved.  We were in the middle of a counterculture social revolution where money and material things didn't matter.  Far too much needed changing, so of course the hardest workers toward making that change couldn't hold down legitimate jobs.  The Police hated us, we didn't think or look the way they did.  We never would.  In Los Angeles the cops were brutal, but you'll be reading more about that in my columns to come.  In New York, however, they didn't care what we looked like or how we acted, as long as we weren't hurting anyone. 

In this column, "Before The Road Ended," I intend to explain the counterculture movement of the 60s in a way that should clear up many misconceptions that are still held to this day.  What we had to do to protect ourselves.  I'll try to explain the unwritten rules and the birth of the Black Panthers.  Angela Davis, Huey Newton, the Texas, Detroit, Philadelphia, New Haven and Los Angeles police departments.  How our parent's generation was shocked by the capture of Gary Powers by the Russians.  That's when the lid to the false jar began to loosen.  The rights of everyone in this country had been put on hold too long and no one was saying a word.  Is that progress?  We fought the good fight, and it worked to some extent.  Now the whole mess is worse than it's ever been.  Come on people, we have to realize what's leading us down this un-chosen road.  We have to find out how this happened to us.  Was anyone satisfied with our last election?  Does anyone think our major politicians are not bought and paid for by the time we're allowed our say?  We'll see what lessons we can pick up from history and how we might apply them now.  We'll use the real social history of the 1960's that's been so blatantly ignored, and see if we can't find a little something that could help us out.  Hell, it's worth a try. 

So wake up you young and old radicals of the heart, there's no way of knowing what we'll find.  Who knows, maybe we'll find nothing.  At least it will be a noble journey back.

I'll be talking to you soon.  Set your clocks, goodnight. 
                                                                                Randy Burns. ~ 
                                                                      


   

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