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POWDER RIDGE DAY 2: part 2 FRIDAY JULY 31 DRAFT copyright 2002-2006 Rockfest1970@msn.com At Powder Ridge there was an almost comic deprivation for all but drugs. We took it in stride. A core value in the counter culture was we were all brothers and sisters in the face of a society gone insane. As such we had to stick together and look out for each other. Just as readily as someone would share a joint, they'd share their food. Add to this catching all these good vibes while on acid and it was easy to believe the gathering was the best days of your lives. Well maybe I should speak for myself. While Bill was giving lip service to this ideal, privately he wanted to leave. I kept trying to convince him to stay. Part of that was self-interest. I had no intention of leaving and though it wouldn't be a major problem thumbing home, I preferred not dealing with the hassle. I must have returned home sometime early or mid-afternoon. I rolled up my sleeping bag for a backrest and sat by the glowing embers of the fire. I was hungry but too wasted to find something to eat. The view of the festival site from Home was beautiful. Off in the distance were the Apple Baron's orchards. An occasional helicopter buzzed in the distance. At times they were making emergency pickups at the First Aid tent. Probably an OD on drugs. As we were to learn later, the lack of music was turning Powder Ridge into a drug fest... make that an all-electric drug fest. It was not that easy to escape the fact that acid and pot were everywhere. If you didn't seek it out... it might seek you out. As I played with the embers a deranged Freak on a mission stumbled up offering everyone hits of electric water. Somewhere in the white froth he said there were some 40 hits of blotter acid and a roach or two. I declined. There were rumors that one of the Free Kitchens was serving electric food. Another rumor was that two Greeks were peddling electric Italian Ice. Early in the fest the common question was "is that electric water"? By late Saturday, when most of us were burnt out, straight water was more in demand. As for pot... no matter where one went, there always seemed to be a joint or two being passed around nearby. Some got careless Unfortunately not all the drugs going around were pure. Absent a public address system, warnings were by word of mouth. One rumor being passed up the slopes involved an OD. Some rowdies putting 4 tabs of Orange Sunshine... massive tabs... into a bottle of soda. A general rule of thumb for acid was the smaller the tab, the less chance of it being spiked with strychnine. Not yet ever having heard of window pane, we considered blotter to be safest. Any way, supposedly an unsuspecting person drank the soda and later died of strychnine poisoning. Man, if we couldn't trust the acid... that was really bad news. Later that afternoon there was a rare stage announcement. Everyone should stay away from the orange acid. Fortunately there was no mention of a death. While cooling off in Powder Puddle was out of the question, there were reports that there was a large lake nearby. A passer-by with long, wet hair confirmed there had to be a swimming hole nearby. The question was, was it close enough to bother. Lake Besek was about a mile away as the crow flew... but that didn't include wandering in circles, stumbling though the underbrush. With the only directions being "go that way"... I stayed home and made a disgusting chicken spread sandwich. About 5:30 I found a second wind and headed back to the main gate. Figures, just as I got there I heard what sounded like live music coming from the main stage. The power must have been turned back on to the site. The sound was like the horn of Gabriel... and we all turned to listen. Many, including myself, dropped everything and headed back towards the music. Down in the City the music was quite loud. It wasn't coming from the main stage at all but a slope above the ski lodge. It seemed some industrious folks had built a small stage there by the base station for one of the chair lifts. I worked my way though the crowd to get a better look. A bushy haired guitarist stood in silhouette. It could have been Jimi Hendrix for all we cared. Whoever it was, whoever the band was... they sounded fantastic... and it was only a jam. As the crowd grew and got more tightly packed, good places to watch the show were getting harder to find. Some enterprising souls took to the chairlifts. One overly ambitious Freak tried to shimmy some 40' on the cable from one chair to the next. With 20' to go and 25' up, he picked a bad time to realize he might not make it. Soon the entire crowd seemed aware of his predicament. As he struggled those last few feet we held our collective breath. When he finally made it, the crowd erupted in cheers. The crowd that had parted in case he fell soon reclaimed the territory.
Bill and Lee might have already been in the crowd I guessed numbered about 10,000 but I decided to head Home to make sure. As I trudged up the slopes, winding my way though the tents and blankets, the music wafted though the hot evening air. It was perhaps the most perfect memory of that day. The Festival was never dead but now, truly, it was alive. I could only that the sound could carry past all the Staties, the Apple Barron and his fascist thugs, all the way to the judge's chambers in Hartford. Powder Ridge was giving the world the finger in the best way it knew how. Soon after I returned to our camp the music stopped. I was sure it would resume later. Bill soon wandered back Home too. We pooled our food with Tracy and his friends including the woman with the kitten who lived in a shoebox. I have no recollection of what we had to eat for it did not stand out as much as desert. As we started rolling joints Tracy brought out a new device he called a steamboat. It was nothing but a wine bottle in which two small holes had been carefully chipped. In the center hole went the joint... pushed in to form a tight seal. The other larger hole was to be covered with one's finger. The idea was to create a vacuum while toking... then as the bottle filled with smoke... and while you were still inhaling... to take your finger off the back hole. A huge amount of smoke was forced into your lungs in the blink of an eye. The steamboat was absolutely devastating and most hits were immediately coughed back up. This pipe deserved respect. I was in awe. I felt like a Neanderthal who had just been shown fire. I had to learn how to make one and bring the secret back to the Circus. Our prime rule was never carry more than you can eat... and never carry pipes we could be busted for. But perhaps it's because we never found a pipe worth taking that risk for. The only downside was that steamboats consumed a lot of dope... and if one wasn't careful.... one might have a burning roach shotgunned down their throat. <<< BACK BACK TO POWDER RIDGE INDEX
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