Yellow Springs in the '60s and '70s:

Medicine Ball Caravan, Part Two

by Chris Till

(This is a follow-up to my November 7, 2011 Yellow Springs Blog article on an August 1970 outdoor festival in Yellow Springs featuring Van Morrison. Medicine Ball Caravan, a 1971 Hollywood film, includes some of that day's events.)

At least two current Yellow Springers have fond memories of that warm summer night in 1970. As he sold his wonderful t-shirts and bags this past Saturday on Xenia Avenue, local artist (and Yellow Springs unofficial poet laureate) Robert Paschell fondly recalled many details of the festival.

According to Robert, it was an idyllic summer day, but the concert was at night. It occurred on the Glen Helen side of Kelly Hall, not on the golf course, as previously stated. Besides Van Morrison, Robert Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band and at least one other band played. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band had an almost Top Ten hit that year with the funky and oh-so-catchy "Express Yourself" (later covered by NWA).

Robert particularly recalls Wavy Gravy and the psychedelic Hog Farm buses. As they had at Woodstock the previous summer, the Hog Farm, a travelling bus commune, made free food for the people. They also handed out peyote popsicles (!) and foam "boffing" swords for folks to duel with in a friendly manner.

When the concert started, the Hog Farm produced huge hot tub-sized bowls of raspberry Jello for concert goers to play in. Robert was the second in the audience to jump in. Later, he had a quite difficult time getting the dried raspberry Jello off. "It dried in a crust on my skin."

Wavy Gravy, the Hog Farm's toothless leader, wore a full body cast that day. He carried a ceramic piggy bank shaped like the Earth, collecting donations for a commune called Earth Peoples Park in Norton, Vermont.

Wavy Gravy's story about Earth Peoples Park touched Robert. Soon after the festival left Yellow Springs, he found himself hitchhiking to Norton, Vermont to investigate Earth Peoples Park. As he got closer and closer to the location of the commune, the area grew more desolate and poverty-stricken. Finally, he arrived at a run-down house at the end of the road: Earth Peoples Park, located right on the Vermont/Quebec border. There, two literally starving hippies shocked Robert. Overcome with hunger, they were cooking, with its needles still on, a porcupine that they hand just caught.

Robert walked back to town and brought back some cereal and other food for the starving hippies. (Decades later, the federal government apparently seized Earth Peoples Park because a cannabis sale occurred there.)

Popular local DJ Gene "Clean Gene" Lohman also spent the day at the festival. Having attended the infamous Altamont festival eight months before, Clean Gene was no stranger to hippie music festivals. In his opinion, Van Morrison put on a disappointing show in Yellow Springs. "It's like he was stoned or something."

However, according to Clean Gene, Robert Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band stole the show with a hot-hot-hot performance. He can't quite remember who the other band or bands were, but one of them may have been Stoneground (featuring future members of late-70s popsters, Pablo Cruise).

Several people have asked me to loan them my DVD of the Medicine Ball Caravan, which I am gladly doing. Please note this tragic factoid as one watches the Boulder, Colorado section of the film. The cute, but inarticulate, teenage STP Family fellow with the eye patch is apparently Mr. Guy "Deputy Dawg" Gaughnor, who was murdered in cold blood eleven months later by a local police officer. See http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/10/us/confession-to-71-killing-revives-memories.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

Coming soon: The day in 1969 that Abbie Hoffman visited Yellow Springs.

Chris Till is a Yellow Springs attorney and amateur historian, focused in mid-20th century American counterculture.