Posted on by Phil Strawn

Dispatches From The Cactus Patch March 14th 2024. Remembering The 1960s


A shot of the crowd at Texas International Pop Festival, August 1969. The promoter, Angus Wynn, thought it would be a great idea to have a Yogi or a Swami to lead the crowd of zonked-out teenagers in an hour of Transcendental Meditation since it was the most recent in-crowd thing to do thanks to the Beatles and the Beach Boys who hung out in India with the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Jr. He got a discount on a guy out of Deli, India, who was working in a sub sandwich shop in Brisbane, Australia, but was once a revered holy man in his home country. After a crazy hot night of music that lasted until after midnight, the Maharishi O Mah-ha-Ah-ha took the stage with a sitar player and three nude women beating on tablas and tambourines, all sitting crossed-legged on a rented Persian rug from AAA Furniture Rentals. The crowd, still suffering from the after-effects of too much pot and the brown acid that Wavey Gravy warned them about, eventually got into the groove. After an hour of chanting mantras, swooning and swaying, and all that middle eastern crap, the Maharishi passed hand-woven Indian baskets through the crowd asking for donations. What the good Ah-ha didn’t realize was that even though the young folks were long-haired, dope-smoking teens, they were Texans, and most of them owned shotguns and rifles and drove pickup trucks. Tithing was meant for Sunday church only, not some dude in a robe with a red dot on his forehead. The poor Maharishi was last seen tied to the front fender of a GMC pickup loaded with long-haired hippy Texans shooting their shotguns into the air while speeding down I-35. Best not to “Mess With Texas,” which is where that famous saying was born.

My late cousin, Velveteen, and her late husband, Zig Zag, came up with this idea for a hippy-only tea bag while living in a commune in the mountains of New Mexico. Since they enjoyed sitting around all day doing nothing, they figured why not let the rest of the regular folks enjoy their lifestyle, too. The tea, with its mystery ingredients, was a hot seller for a while until Lipton caught wind of it and sued them into the next galaxy.

My late cousin, Alice, was the only waitress at Woodstock in 1969. She and Wavey Gravy came up with the idea to serve all the attendees breakfast in bed, but she was the only member of the Hog Farm lucid enough to work. When asked how the gig went, she said, ” I didn’t make a cent in tips, damn Hippies don’t have no money anyway.” She met Arlo Guthrie backstage and married him the next day during a Joe Cocker set. They later opened a famous restaurant in upstate New York, where you could get anything you wanted at Alice’s restaurant.

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8 Replies to “Dispatches From The Cactus Patch March 14th 2024. Remembering The 1960s”

  2. Wasn’t aware I35 was complete in 1969. Certainly not through the Arbuckles. Then, I was so excited about a return to civilian life and a brief return to Yankee Union Land I was off my feed. Sure enough, absent good Texas weather, Jackrabbits, Lone Star, and real country music, hardly a year passed before I was back in [a different] uniform and entertaining myself shepherding flower children busy snarling traffic in and around Goose Lake’s International Music Festival. International. Indeed. Like Wiley post is an “International” Airport. Until I’m called to the Great BBQ in the Sky, I’ll remember a cool summer evening, when dispatched to investigate “raucous music coming from a gravel pit,” I met a hippy chick, naked as Eve when Eve chatted briefly with the serpent after dinner in Eden (Texas) who forever defined to me the ideal female form. My badge melted when she, fully at ease, approached me, flawlessly nekkid [she, not me], to ask, “Is there something wrong, officer?” My partner that night, who for years could not resist sharing details of the episode with everyone in the squad room has long since began his shift in the Great Hereafter Patrol, so the story is not often told anymore of my inability speak. It was three days before my eyes returned to normal and I lost pay, unable to pull a shift and nothing like sick leave back then, so added to the cost of paying for a new badge I was financially wounded for a while. Still wonder whatever happened to that vision of a woman.

    Allus wondered the origin of “Alice’s Restaurant.” Thanks.

    Some times, then, eh?

    From Texas, you do know the difference between “naked” and “nekkid” right?

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    1. I’ve pondered on how a police officer handles a naked flower child without staring. There were plenty of them gals at the Pop Festival, all “nekkid” swimming in Lake Dallas. I know all the differences in Texas speak. Did you know that Coldbeer is one word and so it Fixento. Rest assured, those young gals are now grandmothers with saggy boobs and using a walker.

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      1. Saggy? Not them ones!. Them was so pert, Idda [happily] mistkenly bumped one of’m, ida been skewered and out of commission for months. Why them’n’s coulda served as pilings for a Rio Natchez bridge abutment. For shame, you should ruin a long held vision of perfection.

        Speakin local tongue, you know peenchers is used to cut barbed waar, right? Ceptin up here barbed waar is knowed as bobbed waar. Looks alike the same, but parently ain’t.

        Bud, I gotta run. Remeasure the new garden plot, and figgrer up how big a loan I gotta get before I head to Lowe’s for fencing.

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  4. (1) So the Texas International Pop Festival didn’t feature Coke bottles from around the world?
    (2) I drink tea. I may embark on a galaxy quest to get a hold of those hippy-only teabags. I just need a hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy…
    (3) I went to Upstate New York, and was told, “Alice doesn’t live here anymore.”

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