Naked Hippies

Wednesday, on my way home from Mom's house, I hit Lake Shore Drive and came to a complete stop. Snarled traffic from the Stevenson Exit as far as I could see. When I finally creeped around the bend by Soldier Field I realized what the problem was. Lollapalooza. The big music festival held every summer in Grant Park was being set up. All the left turns through the park had been closed off, confusing all the tourists whose GPS devices were telling them to turn left.

Lollapalooza, festival of heat, dirt, sometimes mud, and music. Usually music by bands I have never heard of. Not that I wouldn't go to a music festival. I have, a couple of times. Only not in the last fifty years. Seriously, it was fifty years ago in August that I and a friend, feeling left out because we had missed Woodstock, decided to drive down to another hippie music festival in Louisiana. It was just like Woodstock, but without the free part and with about half a million fewer people. I didn't care. The music was good and I was surrounded by fifty thousand other hippies, many of them naked. Also, there were plenty of drugs. And yes, eventually I did find myself stoned and naked. I remember a river that ran past the event, a very muddy river. In that river were many naked, swimming hippies, boobs a bouncing and wieners flapping. Of course I joined them. There was one local there who did not go in the water. I don't remember how I got to talking to him, but I remember what he said.

"Y'all know there's water moccasins in that river."

"Um... no. Didn't know that."

"Yep, alligators too."

"Alligators?"

"Aw, don't worry. They're probably scared off by all those people splashing around in there......   Probably."