Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was a good boy throughout high school and college in Oregon, a good, clean-cut wrestler and football player. He married his sweetheart and bought a ranch. This ranch was in Oregon, and not the more famous place in the mountains at La Honda, just south of Redwood City and west of San Jose.
During his time as a wrestling jock at Oregon, he was invited to partake in experiments of a new wonder drug in the psychology department. He would take his dose, and then chill out in a hospital room alone with a tape recorder. Occasionally he would get interviewed while experiencing the effects of the drug. The drug: lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD.
Later on, still able to keep his access to LSD pretty much intact, Kesey formed a group of playful artsy types who also like to "expand their minds" using the new wonder drug. This was his band of Merry Pranksters. On his place in La Honda they would party and paint and write and bond. They decided in 1963 to paint an old school bus they'd salvaged and drive to the World's Fair in Queens.
Here's where I hadn't realized certain things: when the Pranksters and Ken started driving that colorful bus, with pretty much everybody high on acid, that still almost nobody had any idea what LSD was, what it did to people, or that there was such a thing as hippies. The guys and gals on the bus would probably be considered hippies by today's standards, but in 1963, there might have been one of the half dozen guys with long hair, and nobody knew what being a hippie was, like, there wasn't even such a thing.
So, at one point in the deep south, when the bus got stuck in some mud, and while they waited for the fuzz and tower to show up, they all drank some laced orange juice. By the time help got there, everybody was out of their heads on acid, playing in the mud, staring at tall grass and giggling like crazy, playing guitar, swimming in the nearby shallow water, and generally running around like little kids. One guy had a camera and filmed the puzzled looks on the local sheriff and townsfolk that came out to try and help.
Now today, if local officials showed up to help a crazy painted bus out of the mud, and everybody who'd been on the bus was giggling, dancing without clothes, playing in the mud, and staring at the grass, they'd just assume everybody was high on drugs. Back then, though, especially in the rural south, they had absolutely no idea what was going on. And that still cracks me up.
On their trip, they made it to Tim Leary's house in upstate New York, where the East Coast acid heads hung out. Another look at the east/west dichotomy. The east coasters were more intellectual, and spent their time high talking about the future of the world, or the importance of symbolism, or whatever thinky-dudes and -dudettes talk about when they're high on acid. While the west coasters were more giggles and music and frolicking.
When the bus came onto the property, and then the west coast heads emerged, the groups were introduced, and that was about all the mingling that really occurred. It was bound to be like that.
So, with enough experience with LSD or with those who regularly partake, you might be able to guess how the trip might turn out when finally making it to Queens for the World's Fair. If you said, "The experience must have been quietly terrifying and a huge downer," then you know what's up with California acid heads.
They looked around, didn't feel right about anything, and eventually left.
One of the best stories I heard during their trip was when they made it to New Orleans. In the blazing heat and humidity they drove to a beach. High on drugs, the guys and girls stream out of the bus, run down to the water and jump in. After a few minutes they noticed that there were more than a few black folks at this beach. Then they noticed that everybody was black, and they quickly realized that in this heavily segregated city that they had streamed out and onto a black beach.
The didn't stay very long.
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