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President Kennedy's been shot. I was
fourteen in 1963, sitting in my ninth grade class in junior high school.
Being a young teenager, I was too busy living life for the moment to be
political, but that day was different. Even the veil of youthful naiveté
couldn't mask the gravity of what had just come to pass or shield us from
its repercussions. Everyone in the room felt a connection to what was going
on while intuitively sensing we were all somehow going to be deeply affected
by this sudden turn of event. As the school's principal announced the death
of the president over the inter-com, time suspended itself, as if pausing
to define a major turning point in our lives, followed by a mental shock
wave that resonated through everyone in the room like the rumbling of thunder
after the silent flash of a lightning bolt. Psychologically, as a country,
we seemed to have instantaneously experienced a simultaneous, unifying, collective shift of perceptions and beliefs about life
by millions of people, that was not only felt in America but worldwide,
the day Kennedy was killed. It was as if a cosmic telepathic warning sent
to the planet was signaling its inhabitants that things weren't what they
seemed to be in Camelot, or anywhere else for that matter, and this sudden
revelation rang true to the heart, arousing feelings of skepticism and unrest
in a generation destined to "hear" the message.
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Within a short span of time, the future quickly revealed
that the most immediate, influential, long lasting effects of Kennedy's death
being undeniably felt both nationally and internationally were that people's
trust in their leaders' moral wisdom had been badly shaken, and the sleeping
giant of the normally subdued masses began to stir, slowly awakening to become
a rising force that was more questioning and self-reliant in dealing
with matters of life and the search for its meaning than had been done in
the past. This global, synchronized change of attitude by a large portion
of humanity began to generate a “psychic energy” that had the power to open
the door and give momentum to a new way of thinking that captured the imaginations
of the youth and those with an open mind. As it evolved to the social level,
the force unleashed in society by the event of John Kennedy's assassination
solidified, which created a movement that had millions of people exploring
other possibilities and realities in their lives, hoping and striving to find
useful clues to a better understanding of the natural laws of life and a more
fruitful way to live it than were being taught and exemplified by the systems
and leadership of soul-less corporations in bed with self-serving politicians,
who allied themselves by word but not in deed to the equally hypocritical
lost heads of the different mainstream religions, all of which were herding
the country down a controlled, predetermined, narrow-minded path designed
to preserve a militaristic, religiously and politically conservative, selfishly
competitive social/economic order that at the expense of humanity, along with
the environment, was being abused by the rich, the military and
politically powerful.
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Then on an evening in 1964, without
a hint or clue to its arrival, came the sixties generation's call to assemble,
while also announcing that a decade of radical spiritual and social change
had officially begun. The message of our age came innocently enough over television
through the most popular and widely watched variety entertainment show in
the country. Ed Sullivan was known for his finding unusual and unique talents
from all over the world and bringing them to the U.S. through his primetime,
family oriented TV program, the Ed Sullivan Show.
For a year or so before that evening the American youth had
been hearing about and listening to the music of a young British band. Prior
to actually seeing the group, a lot of us weren't even sure we liked the music
they played or the weird looking Buster Brown style hair cuts seen on them
in pictures and posters before they arrived in this country. But there was
a certainty that could not be denied by people who either liked, disliked,
or weren't quite sure about the four musicians - that their music had
struck a chord in people which was creating a spontaneous reaction within,
so consequently nationwide and virtually overnight, a collective mind, body
and songs with soul-searching lyrics were suddenly forming in front
of the eyes of the world to express those feelings beginning to stir in the
young at the time. It started out a slow process in the beginning, but the
force for change had found and created its vehicle and spokespersons of the
social apocalypse about to come in four, young, unlikely, streetwise Englishmen
from Liverpool calling themselves the Beatles who had been chosen and positioned
to lead the way.
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There was no plan, and the youths' decade long intensive
zeal for the struggle against rampant materialism that was destroying the
world's ecology and humanity's quality of life, social injustices and religious
persecution wasn't inspired by a single authority of leadership or conformed
to an outdated, shortsighted code of ethics but was a spontaneous, internal
outpouring from within; a phenomenon born to our generation having to unfold
itself during that particular point in time, which no one person or physical
event could take credit or blame for. The genie was out of the bottle, and
life, as we all had previously known it, old and young alike, was about to
change forever.
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By 1966 change was in full bloom, and
we as the sixties generation were embodying and living our beliefs. People
were massively becoming concerned about the environment and raising issues
of its misuse and abuse. We became more in touch with our own bodies as vehicles,
or if you will, temples, that housed the universal energy that is in all life,
and because of this awareness, strived to take better care of ourselves by
becoming vegetarians and eating more natural foods. We also came to respect
animals as other conscious beings and did not want to unnecessarily take their
lives to sustain our own if at all possible. We were practicing meditation
and yoga to become more in touch with the internal energies of life and fused
Eastern religion and philosophy with our Western mind's intellect. Our hair
became longer and make-up was unimportant, not because of a fad statement,
but as a natural progression that came from a change of focus on priorities
that inspired new habits and routines in our daily lives. The youth of the
sixties were on a quest to transform and reshape our selves from the inside
out, and because of this, it was easy to connect with another person on the
same path no matter where you were. We were envisioning and trying to create
a common ground that all people could work towards, so we could live, understand,
and communicate with each other in a more positive and meaningful manner.
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That was the goal we firmly believed in and were dedicated
to accomplishing. The general feeling among the young was that neither violence
nor control were viable means to what we were trying to help bring about.
The kind of inner self-realization idealized had to come voluntarily
through people's personal enlightenment and free will. Like no other time
recently experienced, people seemed eagerly determined to make the effort
of conscientiously altering their minds and hearts spiritually and not just
go blindly through the motions for
mere social acceptance and appearance's sake. So, instinctively we tuned in
to the movement happening and were there ready to help anyone willing to make
the progression from preoccupation with the physical aspect of life to awareness
of its metaphysical source. It was our mission with no real plan, that was
somehow being guided by a hand that knew exactly what it was doing, even if
at times we weren't quite sure ourselves.
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When the van drove up to the prison entrance, it was quite a bit
different looking than what I had imagined. The looks and sounds of
the old penitentiary gave the feeling of being arrested in the past
and thrown into a medieval dungeon. Even the guards seemed like outdated
relics, not of the medieval era, but from times during World War II.
They had on cloth hats with shiny patent leather brims, black boots,
and long trench coats like the Nazi soldiers wore in the old black
and white World War ll films. It was the weirdest contrasts of feeling
like being in a medieval dungeon during the dark ages, while guarded
by the feared Gestapo of WW II and arrested by a modem day German
special task force in the present.
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163
These guys were wild.
The truck was going close to sixty as it approached the dock, and
then came to a screeching, sliding stop in front of the boat. The
doors flew open, the Federales in the back jumped out, and they began
cautiously walking towards us with pistolas drawn and automatic weapons
ready like we had the word "SMUGGLERS" stamped across our
foreheads. They closed in on us and asked if there were any weapons
on the boat, and when we answered "no" one of them started
to board us, looking like they were preparing for a full-on search.
But little did they know there was a secret weapon hidden below deck
that changed the course of things dramatically.
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177
The night was a long
one of constant vigil, no sleep, no food, and our bodies ached from
being constantly thrown around by the mountainous swells. When morning
finally came, we witnessed for the first time the magnitude and ferocity
of the storm and its effect on the ocean surface for as far as could
be seen, and that view only came periodically. By now at the storm's
height the wind gusts were anywhere from one hundred to a hundred
and fifteen m.p.h., and the waves were peaking at thirty-five to forty
feet. The swells would pick the boat up, and we'd be on top of a forty-foot
mountain of water with a view of sets looking like they were being
made from a giant wave machine coming at us from as far as the eye
could see. Then with the diesel engine constantly running, Bligh "surfed"
the boat down the face of the wave at an angle to keep from burying
the bow into the water, and when reaching bottom, we were surrounded
by nothing but giant, massive, forty-foot walls of standing water
that seemed like they were about to come crashing down on and engulf
the boat. Then we would climb up the forty-foot front side of the
swell and surf down the backside into valley, after valley, after
valley.
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320
We would often
go out with our friends to their local haunts, places the average
tourist probably shouldn't visit. One night a few of the Colombians
and myself were sitting around a table in one of the bars in town
waiting for a meeting when two locals sitting at a table across from
us started arguing with each other in Spanish. I couldn't pick it
all up, but before we could react, one of them stood up with a gun
in his hand as the guy he was arguing with kicked the table over and
pulled out his piece. They both began firing point blank at each other
but were either really drunk or bad aims because it was obvious they
were missing each other. Quite a few shots were exchanged before one
finally dropped and the other took off running. While all of this
was going on, the Colombians and I had knocked our table over and
hit the deck behind it, waiting for the shooting to stop so we could
make our escape. In any other place it would have been surprising
to be caught up in a barroom shoot·out, but when in Buenaventura,
the potential for danger lurked everywhere.
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Truckloads of hash leaving the
Beqa’a Valley for Tripoli were usually escorted by heavily armed family
members, soldiers of the Lebanese Army, and at least one high ranking
Syrian army official to handle Syria's peacekeeping forces, road blocks,
or any other political security matters that might be encountered
along the way. The trucks were driven to docks in the harbor where
boats owned by family members or friends of theirs were loaded for
the run out to the mother ship. From there, the paid Syrian army turns
a blind eye towards the transactions happening just offshore from
Lebanon's coastline, while the transfer of thousands of pounds of
hashish between boats is taking place.
