View From The Front Porch-Stan Hitchcock Early Monday Morning, July 25th 1967. Go back with me, and try to remember a time with no internet, no 24 hour news service, no XM Satellite radio…yeah, back in the Dark Ages of the 60’s. I had been on a two week concert tour of Canada, just traveling from show to show, all by myself on this tour, doing the shows and then driving on to the next one…no newspaper, no television,,,just living in a cocoon for the music. I had no idea what might or might not be happening back in the States. So, my last show was on Sunday, at an outdoor park outside of Toronto. I had loaded up my stuff and, tired as I was, headed South. I drove through the Border checkers at Windsor about 1AM Monday morning, and driving across the bridge into Detroit I noticed that it looked like a bad fire was burning in the City. In those years, before they got the Interstates built and the bypasses that took you around cities…you had to drive right through the Town. Then I was hearing Sirens…and what sounded like firecrackers going off…man, that almost sounded like rifle shots…what in the world…ing down the Main drag of Detroit, in the dead of the night, was an Army Tank…people were running by me like water over a broken dam…here come a whole squad of Soldiers in full battle dress…Oh My Gosh! While I been goofin’ off in Canada America has been Invaded by the Russians! We are at War! Bullets were whizzin’ by my car, a brick banged against my car door as I did a U Turn…the whole dang city was throbbin’ like a bad sore…I headed down side streets like I had the Devil after me…finally getting out of the worst of it…I pulled over into the drive of a closed up filling station and cranked the radio up…searching for something to tell me who had invaded us…finally getting a local Detroit all nighter who was warning people to stay the heck off of the streets in the worst Race Riot in American history. So, it wasn’t the Russians after all….it was local folks tearing up their own neighborhoods. That was one of the scariest moments of my life, I reckon. I mean you just come around a corner and almost get run over by a tank? And people you don’t even know are shooting at you? Man, luckily I did not have my huntin’ rifle or I probably would have been shooting back and not even knowing why or at who. So, ever since then, as I kept going and found my way out of the on-fire city of Detroit, I have had a real aversion to Riots of any kind…whether a bar room brawl while I was trying to sing my songs, or the one that we just missed as we left Saint Louis yesterday. Don’t like ‘em…don’t want ‘em…let me out of here, boys, let’s load up and head for the house. Seen a Union Riot in Hazard, Kentucky once, as we were playing an outdoor show in that fair city…coal miners and strike breakers just erupted right in front of the stage and the whole dang town went at it….we just barely got out of that one. So, I am real glad we missed the latest one in Saint Louis. It is scary times when you see the unrest and resentment and anger fermenting in some of our big cities, like Chicago, Saint Louis and others. And with the organized gangs that control parts of those cities when it does break out…it’s bad. So, I’ll be thankful to be a country boy, living in the sticks on the banks of Deshea Creek…where if you wanted to have a riot…you would have to bus in the participants from some other area…cause we be peaceful folks around here. stan
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 14:36:28 +0000
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