The 60’s: Chapter 16

Victoria Easterday
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

April 5, 1968

On the night of April 4th, my friends and I sat by my squaw fire well into the night.

We were smoking doobies and taking sips from a pint bottle of Southern Comfort. We got so stupid that night I am sure our IQ” s plummeted by ten points and we did not give a hairy rats ass. We were in the zone!

Around the fire we sang songs that were very loud and completely out of tune.

The night devolved into uncontrolled mirth. We became the court jesters in our very own, court of fools.

My friend Lee (a budding actor) started doing this bit, “Jolly Wolly’s romper womb.” He did this riff because another guy was smoking Raleigh cigarettes.

As you can see it didn’t take much to get us going.

Lee said something, that was so hilarious, I blew Southern Comfort straight outta my nose. God Lord! That shit burned so bad I saw stars, and then I fell off the stump I was sitting on. There I was flailing around on the ground coughing like mad. My distress brought on even louder howls of laughter. They hooted and hollered as I struggled to catch my breath through hiccups, snorts and coughs not to mention the loud gulping’s of my gay, girlish laughter.

The night was a total rout.

Finally people started to straggle home and I was left alone and barfing in a nearby bush. Southern Comfort man, that shit will kill ya!

In the late morning of the next day I was awakened by some scratching on the outside of my tent. I was so hungover and deathly ill I did not respond to their intrusion. I simply pulled the blankets over my head and prayed that aliens would suck them off the planet and by doing so get them away from my fucking tent.

Their became entrities became more insistent and I heard Paul’s voice saying “Vic, get up, somethings happened.”

I opened the fly and crawled out of the tent. The sun was blinding! I had the twirler’s so bad that I had to lay down in front of him, half in and half out of the tent. I squeezed one eye shut and said in a whisper “Jesus God Paul, what is it?”

And then he told me through his tears, “Martin Luther King was assassinated last night. He’s dead Vic, he’s dead!”

I heaved up the last cruel bit of bile. a remnant of the night before.

I started crying uncontrollably. My heart was shattered.

I looked at Paul and said through my copious tears I said “This is the beginning of the end, for all of us.”

And it was.

)

Victoria Easterday

Written by

The Scheherazade of the Appalachians. Notes from the air around the donut hole.

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