1968

A memorable year. A sitting President decides not to run for another term and a potential President is killed in Los Angeles. A memorable year. A watershed year. A year marked by death. Young Americans dying in southeast Asia. The murder of Martin Luther King. The murder of Robert Francis Kennedy. Violence and death in our urban centers as people take to the streets in anger and frustration. Violence in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.

I have been thinking a lot about 1968 lately. As I posted earlier, my friend Steve is celebrating his 60th birthday with concert of family and friends. The friends include me.

Steve and I are referring to our part as Happy Folk Redux. In 1968, Steve and I along with Rosemary Doran were the Happy Folk, a trio bound for fame, fortune and success in the music business in Los Angeles. Preparing for the concert and rehearsing the songs is conjuring up many memories of that year and that trip.

1968.

We actually left Colorado in June of 1968, right after Bobby was assassinated. As I noted earlier, it was a bittersweet time. We were full of hope for our future but bereft of hope for the future of our country. We could not know that the events of March and June of that year were just the start of what would be a terrible year in our country.

The California primary was on June 4th that year. Bobby won and everyone was poised to, as Bobby said that fateful night, go ‘on to Chicago and lets win in November’.

Shortly after midnight, now June 5th, Bobby was shot.

Interestingly, Steve’s birthday is on June 4th. That will be the night of our concert. It will be celebratory, it will be fun; it will be full of hope. But for me, and I think Steve too, it will be bittersweet again. It will be hard not to think of that time, that year and that trip for us.

The music thing didn’t really work out for us, but we both gave our shot at ‘the big time’ in L.A. in the entertainment business. We both had some success, but perhaps not enough. We both waited for that ‘someday’ when the big break would come. We are both back here now.

Our concert closes, appropriately, with a song Steve wrote: "What If Someday Never Comes?"