Ten (plus 30) Years After
A warm thank you for Ten Years After!

A few posts ago, I alluded to an article I had written on Woodstock 10 years after the fact, but couldn't find. Well, it just turned up and, as you will see, it wasn't just about Woodstock but about the year 1969 in general. So I should save it for December, which is when it ran in Boulder Monthly Magazine, but my suspicion is that I'd just lose it again. So here it is, with my 1979 analysis untouched and only one or two minor misprints corrected. And, as you see by the illustration, we had already begun to be snarky about the era well before the current 20-pluses came along and invented the idea.

We're all supposed to cast an eye backward at this time of year and think about the year that is just passing. Done it? Not much to get nostalgic about, was there? Now let's look at a decade-ending year that had some substance to it, 1969, that marvelous year in which the above words were spoken in a pasture outside of Bethel, New York. How much more do you remember about 1969?

1. The owner of the farm at which the Woodstock Festival took place was

a. Hugh Romney
b. George Romney
c. Max Yasgur
d. Peter Max.

2. 1969 saw the death of a charismatic Communist leader. Who was it?

a. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
b. Leon Trotsky
c. Ho Chi Minh
d. Patrice Lumumba.

3. Norman Mailer won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 book, Armies of the Night. In what city is the book set?

a. Washington
b. Saigon
c. Chicago
d. Miami.

4. Abbie Hoffman did not receive a Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 literary effort, perhaps because he wrote under the pseudonym "Free." Name the book.

a. Butterflies Are Free
b. We Are Everywhere
c. Revolution for the Hell of it.
d. The Whole World is Watching.

5. The Iseley Brothers released a record in 1969 that won them a Grammy. Complete this line: "It's your thing,do what you want to do, I can't tell you ... "

a. "When to sing the blues."
b. "How to tie your shoe."
c. "Who to sock it to."
d. "What you got to do."

6. Terry Southern's immortal masterpiece, Candy, became one of 1969's silliest and dirtiest movies. Who played the gardener who ended up on the pool table?

a. Ringo Starr
b. Paul Williams
c. Buck Henry
d. Art Gardener.

7. Heavy thinkers claim that the last line in 1969's classic road movie, Easy Rider, was "We blew it." Nonsense. The final line was

a. "Give me another hit, Billy."
b. "We better go back."
c. "Goodnight, man."
d. "Welcome to nowhere, Cap."

8. In 1969, Duke Wayne beat out Joe Buck and Butch Cassidy to win an Oscar for his role in True Grit. Who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1969?

a. Vanessa Redgrave for 'Loves of Isadora'
b. Ali McGraw for 'Goodbye Columbus'
c. Maggie Smith for 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'
d. Lena Nyman for 'I Am Curious (Yellow)'.

9. Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969, together with five other persons, in the famous "Helter Skelter" murders. Which of the following names never came up in subsequent investigations?

a. Doris Day
b. The Beach Boys
c. Robert Heinlein
d. Gertrude Ederle.

10. In 1969, President Nixon ordered the implementation of Operation Intercept. What was its target?

a. Draft dodgers
b. Grass smugglers
c. Dirty record lyrics
d. The Chicago Seven.

11. Which album was not released in 1969?

a. Abbey Road
b. Nashville Skyline
c. Strange Days
d. Crosby, Stills and Nash.

12. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969; Buzz Aldrin was the second man out of the lunar module. Who was piloting the command module during that famous small step?

a. Michael Collins
b. Deke Slayton
c. Chris Craft
d. Phil Ochs.

13. Which Apollo flight was that famous touchdown part of?

a. X
b. XI
c. XII
d. XIII.

14. On February 7, 1969, a tradition fell at Miami's Hialeah Park. What was the innovation?

a. First woman jockey
b. First entry by Communist China
c. First win by an unregistered quarterhorse
d. First time for legal off-track betting in the continental United States.

15. Four new major league baseball franchises got their start in 1969. Which of the following does not belong in that group?

a. Seattle
b. Kansas City
c. Toronto
d. Montreal.

16. A famous twenty-one year old spoke in the British Parliament on April 22, 1969. Who was it?

a. Bernadette Devlin
b. Prince Charles
c. John Lennon
d. David Eisenhower.

17. In a speech on Vietnam, President Nixon called for support from the "Silent Majority." What did he ask them to do to show their support for the war?

a. Write to Ho Chi Minh
b. Honk their car horns when passing the flag
c. Turn on their porch lights at night
d. Get a haircut.

18. Spiro Agnew also made a famous speech that year, in Des Moines, attacking the press. What did he call them?

a. An elite corps of impudent snobs
b. An effete corps of impudent snobs
c. An elite corps of imprudent snobs
d. A complete source of ebullient slobs.

19. Who of the following was not a member of the Chicago Seven?

a. Abbie Hoffman
b. Rennie Davis
c. Tom Hayden
d. Bobby Seale.

20. The Christmas card of the year was a full page ad in the New York Times that stated, simply, "War Is Over, If You Want It." Who sent that holiday greeting?

a. The Chicago Seven
b. John Lennon and Yoko Ono
c. Vanessa Redgrave
d. Phillip Berrigan.

ANSWERS (no peeking)

1. c. Max Yasgur, who claimed that he didn't know how to speak to a half a dozen people, let alone a crowd like this. Hugh Romney, a.k.a. Wavy Gravy, was there with the Hog Farm. George Romney and Peter Max weren't.

2. c. Che had been dead for a couple of years, although the movie of his life that came out in 1969, with Jack Palance as Fidel Castro and Omar Sharif as Dr. Guevara, would probably have killed him if the CIA and Bolivian Army hadn't gotten to him first. It was Ho Chi Minh who died on September 3 at the age of 79.

3. a. Mailer's book on the march on the Pentagon in 1967 was a good look at what had happened for anyone who couldn't be there. For those who had been there, it was less impressive.

4. c. Another reason Hoffman didn't win a prize was that, unlike Mailer, he didn't claim to know what was going on or to speak for an entire generation.

5. c. Not to be confused with the other deep, meaningful lyric, "Sock it to me, baby, sock it to the Judge."

6. a. Ringo found love on the pool table. Swedish star Ewa Aulin also attracted the lascivious attentions of Richard Burton, Marion Brando, James Coburn, and the bulk of the male audience. At the time, the movie was deliberate bad taste and was condemned for using sex to make money, which may have given some television executives big ideas.

7. b. The redneck says it after they shoot Billy. There may be arguments that Captain America does some incoherent blubbering over Billy's body, but that hardly counts. "We blew it" may have been the last line before Columbia made Fonda and Hopper reshoot the ending, but such is the price of glory when you play with the big boys.

8. c. Ali McGraw made her screen debut to yawns and suppressed giggles in Goodbye Columbus. Vanessa Redgrave gave a sterling performance for much of The Loves of Isadora, and might have won the Oscar, but most critics agreed that she choked at the end.

9. d. Miss Ederle swam the English Channel long before 1969. Doris Day's son, Terry Melcher, was an acquaintance of Charles Manson, and had lived in the house where the murders took place. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was also a Manson acquaintance and had put him up for a time at his house. Robert Heinlein wrote the pretentious and naive but essentially innocuous Stranger in a Strange Land, which Manson used as a guide for setting up his "family."

10. b. Operation Intercept cut off the supply of street grass, putting the casual collegiate smuggler out of business and turning the job over to the Mafia, who were better equipped to deal with such things. It made for an upsurge in heroin, "bad" acid, cocaine, and other harder drugs, as well as swelling the coffers of organized crime.

11. c. Strange Days was an established classic by 1969. All four albums are still good listening, though not suitable for disco dancing. Pity.

12. a. Michael Collins will never forget the experience of standing on the deck of the carrier while Armstrong and Aldrin haggled over who should tip the driver.

13. b. Apollo XIII, incidentally, was the one which blew off a panel in deep space and had to return, which may interest any treskadecaphobes who didn't pass over this question automatically. It is also interesting to note that President Nixon had the landing of Apollo XI's lunar module shifted to a weekend and the first step delayed until the end of prime time. Abbie Hoffman wasn't the only person in 1969 who knew how to use the media.

14. a. Diane Crump was the first woman jockey, and she brought home her first winner in her seventh race.

15. c. Tricky question. Seattle was awarded a franchise that folded almost immediately to become the Toronto Blue Jays, but not in 1969. Kansas City had long been the site of major league baseball, but the A's moved to Oakland and the Royals were a new franchise in 1969. Montreal is the home of the Expos, a team made up of ex-Denver Bears. Denver, you may note, still does not have a franchise. (Editor's note: All true in 1979)

16. a. Bernadette Devlin made her maiden speech after being the youngest person ever elected to Parliament. She attended sessions in blue jeans, entertained Jerry Rubin and friends in the private members-and-guests cocktail lounge and ended up serving a term in prison for inciting a riot, after which she went back to Northern Ireland and gave birth to an illegitimate baby. Not your typical British MP.

17. c. A lot of pacificists ended up falling down the stairs at night. In a countermove, a Yippie leader urged motorists to drive with their headlights on at night if they supported the legalization of marijuana.

18. b. A lot of people thought "effete" had something to do with being a sissy, but it actually means unable to bear offspring, which came as a great relief to many of the free spirits to whom it was applied.

19. d. Bobby Seale was a member of the Chicago Eight, but insisted on having his own lawyer, Charles Carry. Denied this right, he proceeded to become abusive and was bound and gagged. When he continued to mumble what might have been obscenities through his gag, he was found in contempt and sentenced to four years by Judge Julius Hoffman and ordered to stand trial separately. The remaining defendants, then, became the Chicago Seven. Name them without counting on your fingers.

20. b. John and Yoko ended the year with a touch of taste. After 1969, the war was basically over and it only remained to stop the killing, which no longer had any support from the people of the United States, most of whom had given up on ever hearing the "Secret Plan" that President Nixon had promised to reveal after his inauguration in January of 1969.

HOW TO SCORE: Where were you then? Where are you now? Give yourself the score you think you deserve.