Rocket Norton Lost In Space. Rocket Norton

welfare. After a full day of standing in lines, filling out forms and submitting to endless, embarrassing interrogations, they each received a small cheque. As self-respecting drug addicts (a definite oxymoron) they probably should have bought as much heroin as possible and got wiped for a few days but they didn’t. In a selfless act of charity, they took the whole lot of us to the supermarket and blew the wad on food. There was Donna, looking more like Cinderwench-Cinderella than delectable Barbarella, pushing a buggy up and down the aisles wearing a tattered pink dressing gown. But she did it with such 'attitude' that even the Princess Cinderella herself never looked more beautiful. It’s possible that a few beef roasts and hams found their way under that dressing gown and into the folds of several of our jackets as well. I know we ate like pigs for a week. We even picked up a case of Baby Duck sparkling wine to wash it down.

      On November 16th a quarter of a million people staged an anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC. Arlo Guthrie and Peter Paul & Mary spoke to the crowd. Since the death of President Kennedy, President Johnson seemed unwilling or unable to slow the escalation of the war in Viet Nam. Maybe the country hoped that newly elected President Nixon would do a better job.

      In the midst of all this confusion and frustration The Beatles released what I believe is their true masterpiece, Abbey Road.The song writing collaboration of John Lennon and Paul McCartney continued to produce classic after classic as they had done since the day they met. Come Together and the entire Side Two of the album were sheer genius. But it was George Harrison who shone the brightest with Something and Here Comes the Sun.

      Even though Abbey Road wasn’t the last Beatles album released, it was the last album they recorded. Their last recorded words to us were:

      And in the end, the love you take

      is equal to the love you make

      They made a lot of love!

      Nobody really knows for sure who came up with the phrase, 'Make Love Not War'. Some think it was the poet Allen Ginsberg while others claim it was first uttered by scholar and student of dirty jokes, Gershorn Legman at the University of Ohio in 1963 but many of us want to pretend that it was John Lennon. Even if it wasn't, nobody believed it more than him.

      Jeff loved to play the piano. He couldn’t play anything by ear but he had been taught to read. He had a pop songbook and would sit at the piano in our dining room, playing for hours. I joined in on guitar and stood beside him struggling to read the chord charts and remember how to play my augmented and major fifth cords. We called ourselves, The Norton Kids.

      Luckily for us, Bill returned. Whatever the reason for his sudden departure, it must have been resolved because he just walked in the kitchen door and resumed his place as benefactor of the house.

      We had never needed him more. We were so broke, sometimes, when my housemates returned from the store, they were surprised to find merchandise they had not paid for in their pockets.

      One afternoon, Steve, Donna, Trisha and I were at the Hudson's Bay store on Kingsway. Steve and I rushed off to find the hardware department. Donna and Trisha, who didn't care for each other, found themselves wandering aimlessly together around the women's fashions floor. Donna stopped to admire a long pink wool coat.

      “Ewww,” she cooed. “That's fucking gorgeous.”

      “It's lovely,” Trisha agreed halfheartedly.

      Donna smiled and whispered to Trisha, “I'm gonna lift it.”

      “Oh no,” said Trisha and quickly left the building. When Steve and I arrived back at the car, Trisha was sitting on the hood alone.

      “Where's Donna?” Steve asked.

      “Oh boys!” a voice sang from behind. Donna came strutting across the parking lot towards us like a runway model wearing the coat. She looked fabulous. Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy was back.

      Steve took one adoring look at her and laughed, “I think our work here is done.”

      But, the larceny really shook Trisha. She said to me later, “it's not that it's immoral ... It's just wrong.”

      We were playing a gig at the University of British Columbia. UBC was all the way across the city from our house in Burnaby but easy routing directly along Marine Drive. As would happen frequently during the gig someone would yell out for “Story Time”. Fans of The Seeds of Time knew that Geoff could, and would, stop the music at any time and embark on a story created on the spot usually starring a promiscuous female character and a licentious adventure involving a lot of “thrusting”, “throbbing”, “probing” and “penetrating” and interspersed with as many repetitions of the word, “dewy” as he could integrate into the mix.

      Unfortunately, on this night, he stepped over the gross line when he wove “Doo-Doo” and “Caw-Caw” into the disgusting mess. As revolting as the tale had become, it was still amazing that Geoff was able to weave songs - that he was composing as he went - into the story while accompanying himself on guitar. The rest of us just stood back in repulsed admiration and respect. The audience however, was sickened. Some were booing. Others were angry. Many just left.

      A few had come up to the front of the stage and were now imploring Geoff to stop. He continued. They were screaming at him. He continued. Someone threw a hat at him. Finally, he relented. He engaged the angry mob in a debate about whether our performance had been worth the price of admission. To ensure their complete satisfaction, he invited the entire audience to our house for a party. There were as many as four hundred people remaining in the hall but he insisted. Geoff was hard to resist so most of them actually showed up at our house.

      Bill bought jugs of cheap red wine and filled the bathtub with gallons of the stuff. The party ended at about four o’clock in the morning when Geoff caught someone urinating into the bath. The Burnaby RCMP had put up road blocks on Marine Drive about half a block on each side so that they could bust any drunk drivers leaving the party. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

      In December The Rolling Stones staged an outdoor concert at the Altamont Raceway just outside of San Francisco to celebrate the end of their North American Tour. They got the idea to engage members of the Hell’s Angels to provide security. Security for who has never really been clear. All throughout the day the Angels were in the middle of skirmishes with the audience. During The Stones’ set the violence escalated and a young black man was stabbed to death. Altamont was the end of the Summer of Love.