Summer of Love - Spoon River
March 20, 2018
This was written as part of an invitation to a planning event for the Spoon River district of the IGRC of the United Methodist Church. My wife thought it was more of an essay -- hence I posted it.
Why would I invite you to come to a planning session called the Summer of Love? We’re a church are we not? The Summer of Love is a reference to 1967 San Francisco hippie phenomenon, “dirty hippies” is the usual parlance, and marks the beginning of the cultural decline of America. At least that may be the prevalent viewpoint.
Janis Joplin's Porsche
I wanted to reflect on our passage after 1967. The year of the first
Super Bowl called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the top album. The musical
hits of that year still play on radio stations now called Classic
Rock. An Eureka College Alumnus and minor Hollywood celebrity became
Governor of California. The USS Liberty was attacked by Israel killing
34 and wounding 171 American sailors to prevent observation of the Six
Day War. The United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v Virginia
that any law prohibiting interracial marriage was unconstitutional. It
was the year a film shot in California captured “Bigfoot” starting
that whole nonsense. It was the year Lt. Commander John McCain was
shot down and captured in Vietnam. McDonald’s introduced the “Big
Mac.” In December the Beatles released a new album Magical Mystery
Tour with the hit “All You Need Is Love.”
All You Need is Love outakes
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