Peoples' Park - 1969: Thirty years ago, in August of 1969, Tet 1968 was still being taunted by the media as a sure sign of total military defeat of US forces, the Democrat Party Convention was pending in what would become known as a 'Police Riot', and the Vietnam War had six years more to go.

In 1969, I was DEROS-plus two years from Đà Nẵng Air Base, Vietnam , and discharge from the Air Force. Nationally, student campus protests were in the news daily, but not at LBSC (today, California State University Long Beach) with the nation's largest veteran population. Instigators of whatever cause, politics or race, were never successful in inciting problems at the college.
            On one Saturday, a crowd of students numbering 3,000 plus had gathered at Federation Park for a promoted but unofficial Love-In. About 50 LBPD officers were in the park to keep the peace, and an eye on several long-hair frizzed out Harpo Marx characters wandered through the crowd trying to gather support to protest the war. They met with little success, as most gatherers were simply flower children, and bubble-blowing hippy types, enjoying a pleasant day at the park, in weather Southern California is renown for.
            The smell of marijuana drifted on the wind as an anorexic long hair approached the police line and asked the time. When an officer told him the time, he replied, "Thanks pig ... now F---off," and then sauntered over to the reflecting pool.  A couple of hundred hippies were wading in the shallow reflective pond with their small children.  It was known that the pool used toxic chemicals to retard algae growth, hence the posted sign "No Wadding".  But it would probably be a long time until this group of Fonda-lovers took another communal bath--after all, hippie-larva needs an annual bath too. I watched a no-shirt individual floating on his back paddling along, playing Moby Dick and spouting greenish water like a whale.
            The earlier anorexic glazed-eyed hippie returned for round two at discovering the time and hopefully prompt a police-reaction to his linguistic skills. He complained loudly in a very animated manner concerning police presence in the "People's Park."  A couple of his buddies were working the small crowd which gathered to see what was going down. Suddenly, someone on the crowd's fringe redefined in-coming by lobbing a beer bottle in a high arc toward the police.  Failing to allow for windage, the round fell short and BA-ZONKED the ranting hair-ball right in the old melon (heh-heh).  His eyes crossed and he sank to his knees trying to understand what had happened.  The beer bottle had entangled in his large afro-style hair and was pouring a cold pony-tail of beer down his back.  His eyes focused on the bottle when it dropped to the grass in front of him.  "Officer ... OFFICER! Did you see who threw that at me?" Ah ... threw what?
            I wondered if Friendly-puke-Fire was a crime. A scalp wound can bleed profusely, and as blood began trickling down his face, he smeared it with his hands, wiping blood on his arms and tank-top hole-infested T-shirt.  He then began yelling, "The F'n PIGS hit me for no reason," and screaming for "People's Justice."  His cronies took up the call for Justice, which included a half-hearted, "Hell No We Won't Go ... Hey, Hey, LBJ ... How many Kids did you Kill Today."
           Surprisingly, a Hayden-hair-ball yelled for the main player to shut up--no one had hit him, and to stop trying to be trouble makers. As the crowd focused on the peacemaker, an officer snatched the instigator into police ranks (after all, he reaked of beer which indicated he might be drunk in a public park) and he was whisked away.  His pals, turned to seek guidance from their now missing-in-action leader--then wondered off aimlessly with no purpose in life other than lice-collecting.
            Failing to garnish anti-war support from the stereo typical hippie crowd, the small gathering stood aside, sulking.  Later, they managed to gather some rock and bottle throwers, and the park was closed. 

Moby Dick was on his umpteenth lap, still spouting bug-water, and oblivious to the world outside People's Park, or the war that would drag on for several more years.