Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay
Fells Point, Baltimore, MD
Sometimes I dress my feelings into cliches, like, “time flies.” A friend and I were talking this morning about something in 1980, I said, “Whoa! That was forty-three years ago!” And she said the 80s seem like just yesterday. That got the Way Back Machine whirring again. But coincidentally, “On the Bay” was playing.
I graduated from High School in 1967, the same year Otis Redding released “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” A melancholy song with a great sound and beat but a lonely message, probably because of the War in Vietnam. Most males looked at going to war as inevitable unless you were wealthy and could buy 4-F status. The war had become a nightly news item and anyone with a TV could be transported to a combat scene every night…reality television at its goriest (so far)! We watched kids my age get stuffed into body bags and then brought home in flag draped caskets.
The flip side was that the hippie generation was also starting. Free love, LSD, marijuana, communes, long hair, opinions from the young, don’t trust anyone over 30, and more. Sadly, I did not get to be a hippie. I got to party with them. But didn’t want to risk my USAF scholarship by doing drugs. But after Kent State, I did demonstrate with them at football games and other places on campus. But that was later.
Before I graduated, my parents sent out engraved announcements. Engraved. I was embarrassed. But I guess that was a thing. They probably had a graduation party for me. I don’t remember. Truthfully, I wanted to just leave and go to university. I’m guessing that’s not too different from most kids…get away from the parents so you can really enjoy life.
The summer of 1967 is a blur…I’m sure I did something, probably played with the Bird Dogs. I may have had a day job, Armours? Coca-cola? I don’t remember. I didn’t have a car so I drove my parents 1957 Chrysler New Yorker, a turquoise and black land barge with large buttons on the dashboard to the left of the steering column.
When I left home that fall, I was fulfilled. I discovered life without guidance. But, alas, with no car. Consequently, that first semester of school was spent mostly in the dorm, playing Buck Euchre. I discovered beer. I stayed up late at night. I mistakenly took an early morning math class that met five days a week. I discovered Grade Point Average. And not a good one. My first semester was 1.5 but fortunately, I had gotten credit for some courses which brought me up to a 2.0. Just enough to escape institutional wrath. I also discovered Greyhound Bus Lines. My girlfriend still lived in Huron and it was an hour trip back home. But it wasn’t any worse than riding in Kup’s 1960 blue Ford Galaxy when I was on the road with the Bird Dogs.
I was never meant to be a hippie (or hippy). I don’t think I have the true communal spirit in me. I do believe in the humanity of caring for one another but I do like my “alone” time and space. If I were a writer, I would have enjoyed writing like Kerouac or Hunck, Ginsberg, etc. The Beat Generation. But, I’m neither hippie nor Beatnik, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay watchin’ time roll away.