26: Story “The Guitar/Parking Lot 3” 1968 Miami Pop Festival-Hallandale FL. Photo: Countrysides C.C., Naples. Song: “Brown Eyed Girl”.

A bus dropped me off in Ft Lauderdale on my way to the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, and as I started hitchhiking, got picked up by a man named Don in a black Mercedes. It had a sun-roof, and air-conditioning, and he introduced me to his 2 companions named Sunshine (and I innocently thought he said “Gazoo”). Only now, do I realize that he probably said “Giselle” (and I still have the same type life long hearing problem, as well as disability acquired from childhood). But, contrary to what my brother may continue to say about me, and may even believe, I’m NOT a threat to myself, or anybody. An hour or two later we arrived to where they happened to be staying in a stand-alone condo on a small parcel of land right off the highway. There were two similar condos on the property each nestled in the sand nearby a canal, and there were gorgeous age-old trees providing shade. I told them thanks for the ride, and started again on my way, but Mr. Don invited me inside, and while they unpacked, he suggested that Sunshine and I go on a walk over to the edge of the property where the road bridge went over the canal. We walked over to where there was a high cemented sidewalk/car bridge with steel safety girders we rested our elbows on while we watched a manatee who kept appearing, and reappearing, in the churning water made by manmade water pumps below the surface. It was fascinating to watch how that manatee looked so intelligent, just like the way that a human would play.

It had started getting dark really fast, and Don (he looked just like Neil Diamond) said that it would be too dangerous for me to keep hitchhiking at night, especially with my expensive 12 string Martin guitar for someone to steal. So, I stayed, played guitar, and sang with them all evening, and Don showed me on a map where the three day Miami Pop Festival was located. It was at the Gulfstream Park horse-racing track out in Hallandale, Fl. We spent the next morning at an amusement park, and came back to their condo for breakfast. Then, I profusely thanked them, said my farewells, walked out onto the road with my guitar, and stuck my thumb out to continue my adventure. But, because there had barely been any traffic for nearly an hour, it seemed like I would most likely be in the shade admiring those beautiful age-old pine trees forever. I soon saw from the road that they were packing their car to leave, and when they drove by me, and I waved an appreciative goodbye(?) smile, they pulled over, and picked me up again. It was another equally long ride to I-95 where they headed north, and I headed South knowing much better, where, and what direction I needed to go to get to wherever it was I was going with my 12 string Martin guitar.

I soon discovered that the Pop Festival was drawing people (and cars) by the thousands, and it wasn’t hard getting a ride with a guy in a Volkswagon bus who actually decided to go all of the way to the music festival, too. It was way out toward the very dead end of a very long two-lane highway with nothing but empty land on the left, and a canal with swampland on the right, and It was like another road to nowhere. I could imagine that the swamps beyond the canal had alligators, etc, and we finally got to see where there were entrances to three giant parking lots on our left which were about a thousand yards apart. The third (and last) parking lot was the closest lot to the entrance of the drag strip, and we could see that It was filling up fast with people who had tickets and were parking their cars. There were also people boarding buses whichI learned took them to the festival gate, and dropped them off where the tickets were sold next to the entrance. When we learned that it was a whopping $28.00 entry fee which was way too steep for either of us to pay, we were directed to drive clear back to the first parking lot which was parking lot three. It was the lot farthest away from the festival, and was the only place where we were technically allowed to park.

At parking lot 3, we quickly realized that there were a whole lot of other people just like us who had been sent there because they didn’t have the then-exorbitant $28.00 entry fee, and we drove over to the part of the lot where a lot of people were building what was already a huge circular mound of wood. We squeezed in to park the best we could, and that evening I started playing my 12 string guitar, harmonica, and singing around the huge bonfire after all of the confusion calmed down some. The lot three bonfire became peoples’ designated meeting place both night and day during the three day festival while several large air conditioned buses continued looping picking people up with or without tickets from all three lots (24/7). It was great riding buses for free, but unless you purchased a ticket at the main gate, all you could do was ride back through the parking lots.

Parking Lot 3 became very congested around where the bonfire was to be. So much so, that the cars with people hauling firewood couldn’t get close enough in anywhere around the bonfire wood anymore. Then, I noticed some of the bikers getting lady “wood collectors” to ride with them to help shuttling kindling wood between all of the parked cars, and bring more wood toward the bonfire-to- be. Parking Lot 3 seemed to be what would become the easiest place to find, meet, or visit, especially for the people who couldn’t get into the festival, and I thought I would be among the hundreds in Parking Lot 3 who wouldn’t get in…

Parking Lot 1 was the closest to the entrance of the festival, but Parking Lot 1 was just as far away from the entrance gate, as was the distance between each parking lot. And, you could only get into the festival from any of the 3 lots, by taking one of the ever revolving busses which went through each of the 3 lots, plus through three check-point police barricades along the main road to the festival. Across the road from these 3 lots, there was only an alligator infested canal and, therefore, sneaking in was NOT an option. As far as I knew, my festival experience was remaining stuck in Parking Lot 3 for the next 3three days, but I remember thinking this was way better than being stuck in a room in an empty rooming house somewhere.

For the first night, I tried my best to help organize by getting people together who had guitars, in order to have entertainment happen around the same area of the huge 360 degree bonfire. By late that first evening, everyone had either gone to sleep in their vehicles, or moseyed around the fire looking for a place to sit, and eventually lie down to sleep, but everything was difficult with such a packed throng. I was still walking around with my guitar when a group of people half standing, half sitting, flagged me down, and actually told me that they wanted to hear me play. What was for hours one huge bonfire, was now flameless, but still had plenty of embers. I took my 12 string out of my blue hard shelled case, and I fondly remember how the ones around the one who asked me to play, politely formed a kind of U-shaped circle around me which was vaguely like a human amphitheater, which I thought was totally cool… I was stoked. I played my heart out. I played my original song called The Purple Palisades, which in my opinion, would have been outstanding to play through the sound system at the festival, but of course I never even had the thought to ask anyone about doing that.

The Purple Palisades:

Conglomeration of molecules, absorbing brain-lit afterglows

Within our minds machinery, is life of thought, infinite galaxies, seas of words

Within your mind, do you have a place to go? A place far away from time, away from sorrow, a way to see our lives tomorrow?

The Purple Palisades… (long guitar riff)

verse; Do you have a place to go? A place of tranquility? Do you have a place to hide? Is there such a place in the Purple Palisa-ades of your mi-yind (guitar riff)

Focus your eyes. Focus your mind, to the changing of the ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-imes. Color it with the innocence of your mi-i-i-i-i-i-i-ind. /Ah Ah (drum round) Ah Ah(drum round) Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah, Ah Ah Ah…Ah…Ah (guitar riff to end)

After I played around the bonfire late at night when there was less movement and confusion, suddenly, right in the middle of one of my songs, three bikers walked over beside me. One of them stood way too close next to me crowding in front of me as if he was talking into a make believe microphone. I think he did that because he saw that some in the bonfire crowd had positioned themselves into even making little aisles in their attempt to make it a kind of human amphitheater to actually listen to me perform! This biker guy seized for himself the momentary limelight that I was delighted, and totally surprised to receive. He interrupted me in the middle of my song by loudly announcing, “We (he was speaking for himself, and his two motorcycle buddies standing next to him) have a plan to get everyone in parking lot three into the festival for FREE!” That got everyones attention.

The big biker signaled for everyone to gather around him, and his biker buddies used more than passive gestures for all the people to gather around to hear them after the small group in the throng around the fire had established new places for comfortable seating and listening positions to hear ME. Maybe some thought that I had come out of the festival just to play for them, and guess what, they would have been right! But, as suddenly as the bikers had realized that many had quieted down seemingly for listening to just me, the one who was the talkative biker made an very loud announcement that he was going to get everyone into the festival for free. That sounded, even to me, much more worth listening to than the “legend-in-his-own-mind-guy” with his 12 string guitar. So, the talkative one proceeded to announce that he, and his two buddies were going to walk to the road (and he pointed in that direction), climb up, and cross over, and down the other side, jump into and swim over the canal, then forge through the swamps beyond, pass the police barricades, sneak into the concert, AND FORCE THE FRONT GATE OPEN so that everyone could get in for free. And, many in the crowd in parking lot three let out a loud cheer exclaiming, “YEAH! The biker repeated loudly, “THAT’S how we’re gonna get everyone here into the festival free!”

Then, the whole throng seemed to come alive, and as many more stood up from their temporary slumber, someone from the crowd asked,“What about the three police barricades?” The biker that was talking the talk kept talking saying, “That’s why we need EVERYONE TO VOLUNTEER. Then, he asked loudly, “WHO WILL VOLUNTEER?”, and no-one was in the slightest bit interested in being alligator bait, so the crowd’s attention temporarily died down significantly. However, everyone still seemed to be fully interested in seeing a show of people jumping into a canal which definitely had alligators. Would we all be entertained like the gladiators in ancient Rome? Would the crowd see people being eaten alive? When the talkative biker realized that they had gotten NO response for volunteers, he began taunting the crowd by calling everyone “cowards” and “chickens”, and he shouted again, “Who will volunteer?”. The three of them scanned a 360 degree sweep of the swollen crowd all of which were now standing, and listening attentively. The three bikers asked again for volunteers to join them in their stunt to jump in, and swim over the canal. And, all three bikers, together in sync, swept the crowd circularly for a second, and final time, ending with all three of those bikers stopping, and looking directly at ME!

The loud one was smiling smugly into my face proudly exemplifying that it was HE who took the parking lot three crowd experience to a whole new level, and the other two bikers joined in with his same type of stare-down on me using the same raised eyebrows like Jack Nicholson’s supposed “doctors” who were really escaped mental patents on the stolen boat in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” used when Nicholson introduced the “doctors” who had, supposedly, commissioned the boat. The three bikers were obviously, very satisfied with themselves, too, and as the talkative one then stared triumphantly at me while I was almost on the verge to say that I’d volunteer to go with them, one of the other two bikers gave me a serious warning expression which communicated “I really wouldn’t go if I were you”. There I was with a whole crowd listening attentively as if all of them were waiting for ME to respond. I knew at that point that another song was out of the question, and NOT an option. Even singing as loudly “The House of the Rising Sun” wouldn’t have cut it, when out of the crowd, my friend who had given me the ride to the festival appeared. He walked through the ten foot “safe buffer zone” naturally established around us between the crowd, and the menacing-looking bikers. My friend reached for my guitar, and promised me that he would hold on to it, and keep it safe, if I was going with them. This put me in a real spot, and either the impulsive head injury part of me, or the undeveloped adolescent portion of my brain took control, because I auto-like handed my guitar to my new friend and yelled, “I’LL GO WITH THEM”! That caused another rousing cheer from the packed throng from parking lot three.

As a throng of over a thousand ran toward the lights from the main road, those streetlights in the distance which were only around the entrance to lot three, would come in and out of sight due to deep or high mounds of motor bike type terrain, but the continued pitter-patter of hundreds of running feet meant that the huge mob remained enthusiastic about supporting the bikers and one volunteer who they were going to watch swim faster than alligators to find the back way in order to storm the race track gates, and somehow, get everyone into the concert for free. There had to have been over a thousand kids running blindly into the blackness toward the road to the canal on the other side where they enthusiastically anticipated seeing a spectacular show of four idiots jumping into the canal and swimming over, or being eaten gruesomely and disappearing.

First, everyone was running fast, but as it became pitch black, the dirt started having dirt bomb like bumps in it, and when there were rocks in the pitch blackness, you could hear that a few had turned back. But, it then became a nice grassy field, and you could continue while keeping the road lights more in view in order to guide us. Although it sounded like many had either gone back, or were just lagging behind in the darkness, I could still hear hundreds of fast paced walkers all trying to keep up in the effort toward reaching the road as if in order to “storm the gate”, somehow. I could see that I had made my way to where the few dimly lit road lights had grown steadily nearer. However, it became painfully obvious as we finally got close to the actual highway, that all of the paths had dropped in elevation where the road was higher above us. Everyone who had reached all of the way to the bottom of the road’s dirt embankment, stopped all scattered below the road, and gathered in groups somewhere between the few evenly spaced street lights which were high above. The road lights put into perspective just how far we each were in relation to the road, as well as how high we needed to climb up in order to reach the road. Many were still making their way to all of these close-by high dirt mounds by the road, and many had already climbed up on them, and gathered on the tops of hard packed dirt mounds which were probably made by, and/or for dirt bikes. From atop on those dirt mounds we could see much easier up to the street lights hovering on the road above. Some may have felt foolish for coming this far, while others may have felt a sense of duty, somehow, as if participating in some kind of invasion, war, revolution, or even some kind of game. Everyone who had the determination to make the whole trip, and who had climbed up on those dirt hills stopped, and gathered the best they could in groups out of breath in hushed excitement anticipating seeing the swim the canal show, as if It was all really a secret mission which may well result in all of us getting in for free. The reality was that everyone was just trying to have fun pretending to be on some kind of mission, some were just being juvenile, while even some of the most adult among us all, were still giggling themselves nearly silly.

Everyone who reached near the bottom of the main road was waiting to hear some kind of directive, but could only mimic the ones who had climbed down the last dirt mounds, and follow the ones who were climbing up the road embankment toward the main road with a guard rail on top. Then, they signaled that the coast was clear, and hundreds more excitedly made their way up the dirt embankment, and waged war over the difficult to climb road’s side rails, then silently crossed the road in stealth with their heads bent low as if they could be discovered. They climbed over the other side’s railing quickly, but then navigated gingerly because on the other side it was very steep, too. Because of how the street lights were positioned, It was, thankfully, much easier to see the steep drop on the canal side of the road which went straight down into the the alligator infested canal. While I could see that the three bikers picked a spot where they were going to jump into the canal, I joined them as hundreds quickly, and delicately, tip-toed down the steep, and slippery wet side of the road embankment in order to carefully pick their own spots where they would each witness the spectacle. Everyone was planting themselves in the safest spaces, where they, hopefully, could all stand comfortably, and stay balanced without slipping, because they could easily end up landing in the canal themselves if they slipped, but they all wanted the closest, and very best places to watch. The four of us climbed up to where we could stand on a concrete platform that had just enough space for us to jump from while the crowd continued to scramble getting the best possible “seating” places to view the event which was, apparently, about to happen any second. Soon, there weren’t many other places left to see the “dive into the canal show” except from the road. People claimed the best spots as hundreds more arrived. Quickly, the best spots were taken up, and the rest of the mob could only fit sitting on the insides of the guard rail much higher above, while others stood behind them layers deep in rows, all vying for a glimpse to see this ridiculously stupid stunt. As everyone secured their own spot, I’m sure that many of them standing on the very steep embankment realized that they could slip from any insecure footing, and slide down the very steep embankment, or even be accidentally dragged down by others into the canal, with NO CHANCE of getting back out anywhere even close to any of those places where they would have fallen in. Needless to say, everyone became very anxious to see the “show”.

Most of the crowd watching could obviously see the danger involved with what the four of us were about to do, and while the ones who were standing so close to the canal on the steep slippery dirt embankment were being extra quiet (probably because they may have feared feared waking up the sleeping(?) alligators while they stood close to the water. Then, I heard someone whisper loudly, “Good luck”, but It got so crowded that it wasn’t a “secret mission” at all anymore. Then, when I heard a few more laughing out loud saying sarcastically, “Ya RIGHT” and more laughing “Good Luck like goodbyes”, I found myself thinking, “This has got to be the stupidest thing that I could have ever thought about doing”. Then, seconds before we actually jumped in from where we stood, one of the bikers (probably the SMARTEST one), opted out, and climbed back over the guardrail. That inflamed the crowd, who quickly reacted by taunting him saying, “cheater”, and “chicken”, and “Go on and jump, JUMP!”. Perhaps he saw something that moved? Or, did he actually see an alligator? Did someone throw in some actual food bait? Whatever the case, it was just the three of us now, and we were being rooted on even more by the throngs of people who were all expecting for this to be their show.

Three splashes, and a loud long applause were heard, and fearing for my life I swam lightning fast. All three of us reached the other side of the canal without being attacked by alligators, and without slipping right back in. The show was over, and everyone began their way back through the darkness in reverse, or walked around the long way to the entrance to parking lot three to finish their evening around the embers of the bonfire. But, for me, the night was far from over.