Poser

This is about as hippie as I ever got. It was the spring of 1967. The Summer of Love was about to burst forth and those of us with our ear to the cultural ground knew it.

Two of my friends were making plans to leave Indiana for San Francisco and invited me to come along. I begged off because I had a good job with the largest evening daily newspaper in the state and was engaged to be married in a few weeks.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to dress the part. Here I am with my 1965 VW beetle in my blue denim shirt, USMC fatigue jacket and borrowed Mexican vest, standing in front of a house on Terre Haute’s northside where a couple of my fraternity brothers rented rooms.

I remember driving around Terre Haute, ripped on Romilar, when I first heard “A Day in the Life,” the last track on the just-released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. I don’t remember who was with me – probably Steve Power or Jim White – but we were stunned speechless.

It was probably the same day this photo was taken.

I’m still glad I didn’t chuck it all and go with them. Their lives were full of promise that, so far as I know, was never fulfilled. I’m pretty sure that things would have ended badly for me if I had gone.