KBLA – William F. Williams – June 16, 1967 – Rob Frankel Collection –
Look at these guys – to the untrained eye they seem like a motley bunch of kids – a couple look like trouble – a couple look like they spend their lives studying and a couple just look confused.
But you’ve known these guys since third grade – you live within a few blocks of each other. You spend most weekends together and every summer – not doing anything, just hanging around listening to records or going to the movies. You would take a bullet for these guys – and most of them would probably take a bullet for you too (although you don’t really want to find out). You’re convinced you’re going to know each for the long haul – be a bunch of old farts together. All get married – all have kids – all stay friends – all live a few blocks from each other. All take summer vacations together. That’s the plan.
Yeah. That can happen. You’re tight. Everybody knows what everybody else is up to – you’ve got no secrets. Nothing’s going to bust you up. Ever.
Well . . .two of you did get accepted to UCLA – the rest of you didn’t. One got accepted to UC Berkeley and one got accepted to Oberlin, and that’s a couple thousand miles away. You haven’t gotten accepted anyplace yet.
So, come January you’re all going to graduate and head off in different directions – but that’s next year. Next year is somewhere in a future you don’t know anything about. But you’ve got your pals now and you’ve got summer now and you’ve got the beach and parties and adventures starting tomorrow – that’s as close to the future as you want to care about.
You’re going to look pretty funny as old guys – but you don’t know that for sure – just a hunch. You can just imagine.
Good times – honest.
And for that last day of school in 1967 you were probably listening to KBLA and diving into some rather far-out music from William F. Williams.
As you know, we’ve suspended indefinitely our ads in order to make Past Daily a better experience for you without all the distractions and pop-ups. Because of that, we’re relying more on your support through Patreon to keep us up and running every day. For as little as $5.00 a month you can make a huge difference as well as be able to download all of our posts for free (news, history, music). You’ll see a banner just below. Click on that and become a subscriber – it’s easy, painless and does a world of good.
