< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
It came as a surprise last week to read that the Rainbow Family proposes a 20-year reunion this summer to celebrate the Strawberry Lake Festival in 1972.
Although the original festival was to bring thousands of
people to Colorado, Lt. Gov. John Vanderhoof did not
welcome these shaggy tourists in their old school buses.
The highways are full of the sons of bitches,
he
complained, and when I saw Vanderhoof at a ground-breaking
with shovel in hand, he said Maybe I'll bury a
hippie.
I attended the ground-breaking because I had cut my shoulder-length hair to join the real world as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Longmont whose management believed that if we ran a picture of six prominent people holding gilded shovels, then the new Gibson's would advertise.
The job was a culture shock. I had just assumed that all newspapers ran like the college paper -- a pleasant workplace environment with the Rolling Stones blasting through the office stereo while fumes from the combustion of controlled substances wafted out of the darkroom.
Thus professional journalism was a disappointment. But one morning, the general manager -- something of a lecher -- was riveted by Denver's morning tabloid: page after page of naked young women cavorting through meadows at the Strawberry Lake Festival, organized by the Rainbow Family of Living Light and the Universal Life Church.
Quillen, that's in the next county,
he said,
after he got his panting and drooling under control. Why
don't you drive over and take some pictures?
When I got near Granby, I had to display my press credentials through a gauntlet of law-enforcement roadblocks: state patrol, town cops, game wardens, sheriff's deputies, maybe even the Coast Guard. Then came the festival site with its own checkpoint; to pass, I flashed my Universal Life Church mail-order ordained-minister card.
I shot about a dozen rolls of R-rated film. Not one of these pictures was ever published, but my boss enjoyed leering at them. Producing soft-core porn was the highlight of my three months as a cub reporter.
Two years later, I landed at the weekly newspaper in Kremmling on the west end of Grand County, which was still recovering from Strawberry Lake. Long-hairs weren't exactly welcome and most people had no use for Paul Geisendorfer, upon whose land the festival was held.
When news was slow, I'd run some story like Rainbow
Family denies plans for another Strawberry Lake.
Angry
residents would appear at meetings to demand stronger laws
to prevent any more festivals; reporting the news in small
towns is often a creative endeavor.
In the past 20 years, Colorado sure has changed. The last time I talked to Johnny Van, he didn't threaten me with sheep shears; he was, in fact, quite cordial and treated me like a fellow good ol' boy. Paul Geisendorfer took a run at the Democratic nomination for governor two years ago, and he had Grand County support. And rather than set up roadblocks enforced with ax handles and deer rifles, mountain towns now compete for an influx of tourist dollars from the Rainbow Family reunion.
Maybe we've lost our traditional Colorado values. Perhaps President Bush has made us kinder and gentler. Or could it be that the Rainbow Family actually succeeded at spreading some peace and harmony?
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >