Reminisce About Gatherings You've Been To.....

First one I went to the vermont 91 national.

 

Yes, I was at the Missouri Gathering in 1985. Actually, it was F-4 Phantom jets that buzzed over the site during the Great Circle on July 4 and freaked everybody out -- I certainly was. Yes, it DID feel as though war had broken out. Remember that this was just over two years after ABC broadcast the World War III doomsday drama "The Day After" that depicted a Soviet nuclear missile attack on Kansas City. Those jets made me think immediately about that film. On my way home to San Francisco, I read an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the flyover.

I still remember the lead paragraph of that story: "SALEM, Mo. (AP) -- Thousands of second-generation hippies who had gathered for peace got an ear-splitting reminder of war yesterday when two F-4 Phantom jets roared over the site of the annual Rainbow Gathering in the Mark Twain National Forest."

I'll never forget that incident for as long as I live. On the more positive side, there's something else about the 1985 Gathering that I'll never forget, either: It was on July 5, 1985 when, in the Faerie Camp, I met Georges, a French-Canadian man from Montreal who would become the love of my life. Little did i realize it then that from that first meeting would begin a relationship that lasted 21 years. Although Georges and I ended our partnership 10 years ago, we remain good friends to this day.