Boomers’ War – A Novel by Vidda Crochetta

PROLOGUE

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Village was considered the northern extreme of the city. By the time of the Civil War, stables on Christopher Street rented horse carriages for city folk to get away from it all, driving into the countryside above 11th Street. Free from the constraints of city life, Villagers thrived on their rural feeling of independence. Thomas Paine chose to live in a wood frame ‘country house’ at Bleecker and Christopher Streets rather than the congested lower Manhattan.

In 1810, when architect John Randel was assigned to lay out the expanding city streets in grid formation, Villagers resisted his gridiron plans in favor of the quaint, narrow, odd and disjointed layout of streets that infused this colorful neighborhood so unique to the city.

By the end of the nineteen sixties, hippies, gays, black power and feminism from Los Angeles to New York City were the new counterculture, stepping into the public eye as the nation’s most noteworthy nonconformists. No other place epitomized the heartbeat of social discontent than Greenwich Village. The bohemian community contiguous to Christopher Street provided a reasonably safe haven for the rebellious and young-eyed. Here was the place to rub shoulders with people attracted to the socially unacceptable behavior pervasive throughout the dim, narrow, crowded streets. Accounts of the so-called moral and immoral have long kept the Village in a fishbowl where all manner of lively activities were open to public view.

The sixties was the decade of liberation. More than any other result, the shedding of inhibitions towards lawful, peaceful protest propelled the frontlines of the baby boomers forward with spasms of social change, by reasoning where possible, with kicking and screaming if necessary. Rebellions against the prohibitions of sex and drugs swirled around in a melting pot of black power, feminine mystique, religious laxity, student unrest, unisex mores, gay rights, paisley bellbottoms and super long hair, all of which was bubbling into a strange and wondrous brew by the end of the decade.

Boomers’ War is a must read novel about the last three years of the Sixties. Free love, long hair, illicit drug use, unisex fashions, war protests, sexual rebellion, assassinations and a quest for love and peace that continues to this day.

C o n t e n t s

PART I: “ALL ACROSS THE NATION”
Chapter 1: California Dreaming
Chapter 2: Take it to the Streets
Chapter 3: The Summer of Love.
Chapter 4: Make Love, Not War
Chapter 5: Love Is All You Need
Chapter 6: Summer’s End

PART II: “A COMING OF AGE”
Chapter 7: No Place to Call Home
Chapter 8: New York City and Everything
Chapter 9: The Center of the World
Chapter 10: The Boy Is Legal
Chapter 11: The Real Place for Real People

PART III: “A CRACK IN TIME”
Chapter 12: In the Belly of the Beast
Chapter 13: Tunnel Rats
Chapter 14: Fragments of Disillusionment
Chapter 15: The Whole World Is Watching
Chapter 16: Getting On With Life

PART IV: “THE WAR AT HOME”
Chapter 17: Domestic Joys
Chapter 18: Spring Fever
Chapter 19: The Calm Before The Storm
Chapter 20: The Carnivorous Lilies
Chapter 21: Patient Zero

Translations

iUniverse, Inc.
New York Lincoln Shanghai

Copyright © 2005 by Vidda Crochetta
ISBN-10: 0-595-37004-7 (pbk)