Chanco, for me, was a time of awakening in many ways. I was a teenager, and just beginning to feel the unique connection between music and hope for a better future. I felt the vibe in the air, the sense that we were the first generation that was cool about music, free expression, questioning authority, questioning the way things had always been done, and we wanted to change. Change things in general. Change the world in particular, and particularly the war. Make music, peace, love.

Well, to be honest, not the first generation. Or, at the start of that generation. I always had this feeling that I was too late for the great upheaval and explosiveness of the 60s. Born too late.

Looking back, I see an interesting dynamic in play along the James. On the one hand, we had many very well-behaved and responsibleteenagers in charge, to some extent. Counselors. Waterfront people. Staff, etc. At the same time, many were in sync with Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, CSNY, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and all the voices of protest and affirmation of new youth. Many were in sync with the new narratives being air lifted into our world. I felt at one with those new narratives and admired the young people I met at Chanco who got there a little bit before I did. Figuratively and literally. Getting there, meaning, moving through the fog of plastic people, of authorities who had not earned their spots, the folks Dustin Hoffman dealt with in The Graduate. The people all of us encountered in our various suburbias and beyond. Getting there by seeing with the shock of revelation how we keep getting fooled by new bosses, same as the old bosses.

Music was like a surfboard around and past them. And singing around the campfire was like a secret meeting of people who didn't always know they were surfing their own way, together and alone, looking up into the night.

Today? I think the surfboard is all but gone, and contemporary music has lost its ability to carry people into peace. It's as if the progress I saw and felt, the joyous hope for the future, the near giddiness of camaraderie mixing with sparks in the night and songs and, yes, Kumbaya . . . . never happened. It's as if the logic of that path was never followed.

In the past six years, I've never seen my country so lost, so without true music, so lacking in strength of character--the kind of character that compels us to question authority, all of it, to rally against injustice, fight bullies, and speak truth to power. I've never seen my country so willing to be led by dangerous authoritarians who lack all decency.

What was it that I saw and felt and merged with each summer in the early 70s? What was that spirit that was a part of Chanco, the river, the trees, the music? Where did it go? Is it absurd to wonder if I would have felt it again, in some sense, at Fall Festival? What paths have my friends from those days taken? Are they still fighting the good fight? Are they looking for Joe DiMaggio in Ohio? For Martin? For John? For Aung Sun Suu Kyi?

Beauty, truth and idealism battle for a place in the sky along side my old friend, Cynicism. To be continued . . . .