1970s REMINISCENCE

 

Cheese or chocolate fondue of 1970s gatherings

Nickel bag of Acapulco gold carelessly tossed on the table

Ersatz egos of young newlyweds bopping heads to

Morrison and The Doors’ poetry of electronic music

And strong bodies and minds ignorant of

Aging and weakness riding along on a blink

Of the blind eye of youth

 

But that was early decade days

Vietnam ended as did a president

Discovered sugar is bad so cut it ruthlessly

But oh, my drug of choice—Nicotine—didn’t end

Still, watched friends from way-back- when

Fade away with harder substances

Birthed two beautiful babies

Mothered dogs and cats along with them

Found my way back to community college

Somehow rescued my brains, worked hard

Learned how to work within the government system

By joining the League of Women Voters

And oh, yeah, feminism, like hail, angrily doused me

Recalling being fired from my job

When pregnant with my first child

And not saying a word

Anger understood from Steinem and Friedan*

Never taken seriously

By male teachers, political parties, friends

Knocking on doors to ratify the ERA*

Women saying they wouldn’t share a bathroom with men

Where’d they get that idea?

And yeah, my husband forgetting wedding vows

 

But the backdrop of music pounded its beat

From Folk Rock to Disco to wild guitars

Electrifying the passion for life

Losing my religion while writing but always reading

Virginia Woolf with Jimi and BeeGees blasting

James Joyce streaming his consciousness

His Irish Ulysses teaching me from printed words

And occasionally I’d look back

At Allen Ginsberg’s Howl

At Bob Dylan’s social commentary

All who shaped me in the 60s decade

But now I was morphing into someone new

A true-blue 1970s woman

Who began to find her voice…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: VW (thanks to my son Benj) & Ukulele

 

*Gloria Steinem & Betty Friedan (mothers of us fledgling feminists

**ERA: Equal Rights Amendment (most individual states passed a state version, but the national one never became an Amendment to the Constitution)