SUMMER OF LOVE

At six years old, I had yet to see the bigger picture,

as when President Kennedy was assassinated.

My only recollection of the event being

favorite cartoons preempted … on every channel,

by grownups discussing something

I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

I can still recall my parents trying to console me,

saying a great man had died. Great man? Death?

Concepts still unreachable to a child of 1963.

Four years later and four years older,

my innocence was still firmly intact.

Canada’s Centennial year,

and yet old enough to be caught up in the hoopla

of a nation’s one hundredth birthday,

I had still to grasp the bigger picture;

and though like many,

enjoying A Little Help From My Friends

on the radio, I was entirely unaware of the revolution

sweeping the world.

Sergeant Pepper? For all I knew, someone in the British army,

judging by the strangely accented news reports

out of a place called London, wherever that was.

“On the other side of the Atlantic,” my dad would say,

running his baby finger across a page in our atlas

from Newfoundland to England.

To a ten year old, there were more important things

in that summer of ‘67. My scrap books for example.

Two of them; one for the Centennial,

filled with all kinds of things clipped out of the newspaper;

parties at the Governor General’s mansion, which to me,

resembled a palace.

The Centennial train touring the country,

in fact a museum on wheels,

with its own audio visual show,

supposedly the wave of the future.

Celebrations, fireworks of all kinds across the nation,

and a place called Expo ’67.

Expo was so fascinating to me,

I devoted an entire scrapbook just to it,

and became an obsession. Built on ‘man made’ islands

in the middle of the St. Lawrence;

I knew every country’s pavilion by heart.

It also included Habitat; a futuristic apartment complex,

stacked in random order, hanging over one another.

A monorail, like at Disneyland, and hovercraft,

a new form of transportation,

resembling something out of a Johnny Quest cartoon.

There was also La Ronde; an amusement park,

complete with zoo, and five story space ride called the Gyrotron.

Unlike Disneyland however, Expo ’67 wasn’t that far away.

Montreal in fact, only a couple of hours drive to the east.

Mom and dad had already been there; brought back photos…

real pictures of what up ‘til then I had only seen

in newspapers. I’d examine them for hours,

especially the hovercrafts.

My parents promised my brother and me

they’d take us in July.

I could barely sleep the week before.

Finally, the fateful day arrived.

It was like a fairy tale come true;

the radio playing all the way down and back;

news reports of people called hippies, and smoking grass.

Grass? Were some so poor

they couldn’t buy tobacco cigarettes in a store?

Only one song from that trip still stands out in memory;

of a place called San Francisco, and if you should go there,

be sure to wear flowers in your hair.

Now, every time I hear that song, it reminds me of Expo ’67…

Habitat never did take off, and except in documentaries,

I’ve never seen a hovercraft again. As far as I know,

the pavilions and La Ronde are still there,

the latter turned into a permanent amusement park,

though long since losing its former grandeur.

Only years later would I see the bigger picture,

know the full meaning of that ‘summer of love.’

Not so innocent now, I realize

maybe some things are better left to the future…

and history.

© 2000 Chris Sorrenti