It's never, ever, ever TOO LATE!

Flirtatious: You don't look a day over 39.

Real Mood: Overloaded

Prediction: Inspired by this BLOG entry, the prices on tie dye tee shirts, and levis with holes in the knees, will come way down in the coming year.

That's Tom Livingston in the picture being honored on his 40th birthday. Tom is an ex-student who came back to school because he'd finally decided he really did want to be a TV anchor. And now he is one in Wyoming.

Well Peggy and I responded to the directions on the invitation to dress in the fashion of 1965. As often happens at "dress like this" events, we were one of just two couples to comply.

The other couple clearly had to do some research.  I'm guessing they were both a little under 40. One of the other guests commented he went into shock when he saw a store nearby was selling tie dye tee shirts for 60 dollars.  Peggy and I just had to go to the back of the closet. There were a ton of memories hiding back there and they were free.

The 60's and 70's were terrible, yet wonderful decades to be sauntering into adult hood. Vietnam made it terrible. Everything was being challenged, everything was being experimented with. No one was being trusted.  I don't think most of us really cared where it would all end. We were just along for the ride in the middle of the confusion. Unlike the lives of our parents and their parents before them, there didn't seem to be any solid guidelines.

 I still remember being on campus at Long Beach State when about ten students were staging a sit-in at the administration building. Me and about 500 other students had stopped to watch and  be amused. On the news that night me and the other 500 were counted among the one thousand students reported to have stormed the adminstration building.

(I get a kick out of people telling me News ought to be reported like it used to be. IT IS!)

Incredible transitions were taking place in music. Protest brought Folk music to the fore front.  Little coffee houses (small nightclubs) were popping up. I remember two of them in Manhattan Beach, one of which is where I first heard Joe and Eddie. There was the Hungry Eye up in San Francisco where the Limelighters were often the headliners, and the New Christie Minstrals at Disney Land. Everyone owned a guitar and knew the 'c', 'f', 'g', 'g-7', 'd', 'a', 'e' and 'e minor' chords.

There were totally new sounds like the Righteous Brothers, The Carpenters, and The Association.

At the same time Jazz was coming out of the closet. It was 'hip' to know about Louis Armstrong,  Lionel Hampton and that new guy B.B. King.  My old friend Larry Ramos with "The Association" remembers the day when B.B. King was the opening act for them at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Rock was jumping all over the place, including the Gospel Rock of Joe and Eddie. (One of them died in a car accident ending their run and their special sound) 

According to our parents, the 'dress' of the day had pretty much gone to "HECK!" Surfers put us all in tee shirts and cutoffs. Hippie's got rid of bras and gave us tie dye shirts and blouses and ragged jeans with flowers sewn all over them. They also gave us long hair (male and female) and head bands. Vietnam vets would often come home, let their hair grow, and sew flowers on to their camouflage gear. In case you are called upon to dress up for the 60's, I'll let you in on  a secret. Tie dying is cheap and easy to do. Old 60's jeans can be had by letting your new ones get old. You can give them character by climbing over a few barbed wire fences, and painting a few walls while wearing them.  

 I think I'm getting into this because I've just had a double shot  of "Remember the 60's." My old college room mate Rich Case called out of the blue. Rich was the guy who was supposed to take his engineering degree and go out and build highways. Instead life's circumstances took him to Europe where he became a ski instructor. He did some of that instructin' back here in the U.S. in New Mexico and Oregon. Then out of the blue circumstances bite Rich in the derrier and he takes a left turn.  Rich gets hold of the "Whole Earth Catalog." It was the epitome statement of the anti-establishment way to live.  Part of it taught you how to build your own home out of logs after you'd dropped out of society.  Most of us  just owned a copy to be cool.  We never really read it. Rich did.  He moved up into the middle of a forest in British Columbia and built that home, and taught himself to live off the land. I knew all that because I was working in radio in the 70's and got a call in the news room. I hear this very soft voice saying, "I'm a voice out of your past."

I might have recognized it right away had he employed his vocal chords to say it. But the whisper had me a little tense. We all have a little bit of our pasts we don't want to catch up with us. Well once the mystery is solved I invite Rich up to the newsroom where he begins to behave very strange.  He is looking around like a trapped animal.  It finally dawned on me. Here is a guy who had been living alone in a forest for some number of years standing in the middle of a newsroom with wire machine clanging, police scanners blaring, music pounding out of studio speakers. Whoa! Stop and think about it.

We head out to what I believe is a quiet little bar south of town to share a drink and some memories.  It was a quiet place to me but I don't think Rich ever agreed with the assessment.

We've since caught up with each other at a class re-union about 15 years ago, and then this recent phone call. He still has the log cabin which is still a 13 mile trip in a canoe to reach. But he came back to the U.S. for a while to get an Oregon State Master's degree in Ecology.  Now he's back up in Canada but has another place with some acreage near a town of about 1,000 people. And guess what he's doing?  He's up there working for "The Man," AKA "The Establishment,"  building roads and managing forests as a consultant. Rich  are you using "The Whole Earth Catalog" again.

It's kinda funny. I've had quite a few people lately express fear they aren't far enough along in their careers yet at let's see, ages 21, 26, 30, 35...and yes,  now Tom at 40. I know ironically our generation now often says to youth. "Make up your mind. You need to decide what you're going to do with your life and stick to it. "

Well now Tom and Michelle can join me and Rich in a chorus of "NO YOU DON"T."  It's never too late to do anything. You just need to care and try. Try it ALL if it feels right. That's what we learned but sometimes forget from growing up in the 60's and 70's.  Happy Birthday Tom.