| Name: | MichaeL Andrus |
| City/State: | Clearwater Fla |
| Date: | Tue Aug 17 2004 |
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Wrote...
uly 1st, 1970... I was 15 years old... we left Pier 60 on Clearwter beach in Ted Jenson's van around 9 at night. My sister, Sue, 16 years old, Ted, John-John and his girlfriend Karen all piled in and off we went. Ted was a friend from Bradenton and John-John and Karen were friends of his from that area. John was a serious guitarist and though only 17 her looked much older with a long full beard... Karen was very short, long dark hair and looked like an indian, always wearing her dark blue knitted stocking cap. I remember that John and Karen did not get high, but my sister, ted and I smoked killer all the way there, arriving sometime in the early morning before dawn... we set up camp and both Sue and I went exploring, going our separate ways. Sue had been a groupie since she was 13 or so and as such, happened to know several of the people putting the festival on and so was on her way to find them... I grabbed a loaf of bread and set out to simply check out the already-packed-with people pecan groves in which we were camped. The loaf of bread was simply a way to feel part of the magic of the surroundings and I intended on handing out pieces of it as I went. Little did I know what I would end up with in return. After spending several hours roaming a wide area, checking things out and handing out the entire loaf of bread, I had accumulated 5 or 6 hits of orange barrel sunshine ( so fresh that the orange came off on my fingertips and stayed there for days... ), several hits of mescaline, a few yellow jackets and at least 1/4 ounce of assorted and varied types of pot... all unsolicited and all given in trade for the pieces of bread... such was the culture of the rapidly-coming-to-an-end "60's"... when I arrived back at our camp, I was tripping pretty heavily, having done a half hit of the ornage sunshine. I remember this so clearly, sitting byt the van watching this huge influx of freaks appearing from everywhere, setting up camps, playing guitars, singing, chopping wood, pitching tents... the strains of music seemed to float down to my ears from the treetops... it was everywhere... and the festival was two days from starting. As I was sitting there following the trails left by passersby and getting into the intense colors emanating from my acid-addled eyes, I noticed a Triumph motorcycle come roaring up to camp with my sister on the back. The person on the front had very long blonde hair, a huge fu-manchu and aviator shades on... he looked awfully familiar evedn in my dazed state... my sister hopped off, ran to the van, grabbed a shirt, stopped where I was sitting and said, hey... this is Duane, Duane this is my brother... he stuck his hand out and I shook it in the "bro" handshake, saying to him, are you from Clearwater... he just smiled and shook his head... then he said take it easy, and they both got back on the Trumpet and roared off... later that nigth I asked Sue who he was and she just laughed at me, making me feel stupid, saying Duane Allman, dumbfuck... I was like... cool... Sue had met him a few years before at the Electric Zoo in St Pete when his band at the time, the Allman Joys, had palyed there... Sue had been hitching a ride on the side of a road near where the stage was being finished and he had recognised her and stopped... she spent most of the next 2 days with him. After a while lazing around the camp, I ventured out once again into the great multi-colored beyond and it wasn't long til I ran into people I knew... I was told that the "Clearwater" was on the other side of the festival near the free stage close to a swimming pool... I found it without a lot of trouble and I ran into my sister's ex-boyfriend who was a fairly big-time pot dealer at the time and he gave me about 50 huge bags of excellent Jamican pot ( this was some 3 months before the first Colombian pot hit town... it was so good that we all were convinced it was opiated and it became, for years after, known simply as "the big O"
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