Three Young Guys in a Bar

 I have just finished the book Fire and Rain. It was a look back at the year 1970 and what was happening in music and culture. Many things were beginning to change that year after the 1960's had marched through. I have been fascinated by this time period as well....have written some about that period. So many things were quickly passing , so much building. Unless you were there or sort of there it is hard to explain what currents were weaving through society at that moment. So I present this story as a micro look at that time , about midway through that year. One cannot be sure but I think it has the sort of  personal history that may reflect the developing mood across a nation which was quite weary at that moment.  It begins ....there are three young guys in a bar. They are at best nominal of  any faith. But as many jokes go a Catholic a Jew and a Protestant. the bar is Garafalo's Bar in Castleton N.Y. 12033. Long now closed. It is mid July. They sit in a booth nursing their Budweiser beers. The door to the bar is open as it is humid. Something not allowed anymore because of health laws.  A 1966 Ford Falcon with a loud exhaust  passes by and then burns rubber at the stop light. These guys have known each other since early elementary school.. They are unusually quiet. The afterglow of High School Graduation has passed , all the graduation parties done  , gifts received and congratulations given. Summer jobs are here. One remarks that after waiting for so long to graduate the feeling goes so quickly. We will not be going back....which we all agreed was a very good thing. I remarked that the past year was the only year  I actually enjoyed for yrs. As a matter of fact I had returned home from another school and to be honest come back from a sort of private edge , my past year with a little help from  my friends turned out to keep me focused and I was indeed changing toward a more adult outlook. Though I would not admit it at the time. College beckoned us all. We planned some adventures but we were indeed going to new places. Then one of us said........I am sick of the sixties.....the arguing .......the war.......protests .....riots........Jesus  will things ever quiet down. We were quiet for a moment ,  Then we all agreed. We seemed to feel fatigue , a situational fatigue. We did not know it of course but people like Morrison would be dead within a couple of years. Hendrix had only a couple of more months on this earth. Our high school era was really ending.. The Beatles had split in the spring. What had anchored us was leaving. We didn't say that of course more of a gut feeling. Society was turning , Kent State shootings were a watershed for many of us. We did not realize it but we were responding to our young national cultural mood. So were it seems many young people. College campus's were becoming rapidly more quiet , The Nixon Administration was in charge ,  Woodstock seemed a long ago event that night though it was less than a year before. It is not that we suddenly lost our wise ass adolescent  edge but we were somehow looking at a bottom line. We were going to be something else. That night we began to talk about some of what we wanted to accomplish. College and careers. One of us was within two years of meeting his future wife which would have shook  us to the core if we knew something like that. I bought a round ,  and we talked some more. A discussion of  the future , the kind of discussion America was having it appears. By the next New Years  we looked alot different from say the recent ball busting American year of 1968. I think our quiet thoughtful talk that night was happening all over.....reevaluation ........all most in a semi conscious way. America of that present  a few short months after a new decade was rung in was moving as perhaps America does best quickly. We don't have as a people alot of patience. Not then and not now. This conversation stayed with me all these years. At Garaflo's that night we  may have put a foot into our next life. As our society was as well. It was nice to do it with my friends.