Gratitude Monday: Caravan to the past

Well, blow me—it’s the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love. And of peak intensity of the Vietnam War. Expect a lot of retrospectives in the media (but no recognition whatsoever from the Kleptocrat, who spent this period getting draft deferments and testing the limits of prophylactics) on every possible aspect of these phenomena. They’ll probably run longer than the real thing.

But on Saturday I was in an organic market in NoVa that gives out free cups of coffees and teas they’re featuring. I picked up a packet of one of the latter called “Russian Caravan”, and the instant I opened it and got a sniff, I was whisked back to…somewhere. At first, I couldn’t place where it was, but eventually I realized it was a Russian deli in Los Angeles. I’d read about it in the Times, and bugged my mom to take me over there one Saturday. The place had that same smoky, exotic aroma as the Russian Caravan tea bag. So there I was—in Herndon, in childhood LA and in a tea house in Moscow, where I’ve only been in my imagination—all at the same time.

I got to talking with the coffee-tea woman about the experience, and we agreed that scents and music seem to be the most powerful connectors to memory. (For Marcel Proust, it was famously taste. But a strong component of taste is actually smell.) Because you hear a song, and boom—you’re back wherever you were, doing whatever you were doing, when you first heard it. Ditto a sudden whiff of…something.

The smell of diesel exhaust over wet pavement always triggers my first experience in Paris, when I began my pilgrimage to Santiago.

Constant Comment tea is forever entwined with long conversations with my BFF in her cousin’s very old-fashioned kitchen.

Someone on Twitter said he was in a Bob Seger mood for the first time since he was 15, and “Fire Lake” flashed onto my cortex. I felt the uncontrollable urge to put on my gypsy leathers, and I was back at the Greek Theater for a summer concert.

But thinking about the Summer of Love, and Vietnam, man, what an embarrassment of riches—all of which spark technicolor memories. And, you know, I’m grateful for having made it through that time, and its aftermath.

Summer of Love—gotta include The Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”. The Airplane and Rabbit pretty much defined the San Francisco scene. (And you'll just have to go elsewhere if you want to hear "If You're Going to San Francisco". I can't even.)

You probably know Country Joe and The Fish from their iconic performance at Woodstock. Possibly it was the prelude to “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” that is most memorable, but the song itself dates from 1967, so it’s legit here.

Years after both the Summer of Love and Woodstock, I heard The Youngbloods perform this last piece at a free concert in Griffith Park. (It, too, was written in 1967.)

That’s the one I’m thinking about these days, when we the people are again taking to the streets to tell the anti-democracy crowd in government that we’re not going gentle into their black plutocratic night. Fifty years on, and we’ve got the same lessons to teach and to learn. It’s solidarity that will prevail, and I’m grateful for the reminder.

Because, man—we're gonna need a lotta tea and music to get us through the times ahead of us.