CAREFUL WHAT YOU PLAN... PART II
- Elaine Lakeman
- Jan 7
- 7 min read
I often wonder how I ended up owning and running a heating and air conditioning business with my husband. My desire to entertain came to me naturally when I was little, and I longed to be a movie star like Ann Margret.
I was 13 when the Age of Aquarius arrived. Soon, my life was spiraling out of control.
I was 13 and life in general was getting crazier all the time.
We experienced the musical event of Woodstock via television. Watching film clips today you might get the feel of the times, but to watch it then on the evening news was beyond words.
To us, this had never happened before, this new age hippy thing.
It was really odd and scared the hell out of my parents and their friends. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I knew something was changing.
The first rock band I saw live was Three Dog Night. I was so excited!
During the show, one of the girls I went to school with suddenly appeared on the stage and started dancing in a really weird fashion She was obviously “lost” and was quickly escorted off.
Drugs had arrived big time.
Going to a concert at the Edmonton Gardens, as it was called then, meant you were going to a really big event/party. The music was so loud your chest pounded from the force of the speakers as you walked into the arena. The smell of pot and hashish permeated the air.
They were passed along to everyone, as was the smuggled-in cheap wine, like Apple Jack or Baby Duck, or the sweet and sickly liquor Southern Comfort (Janis Joplin’s favorite). The crowd dressed in wild, tie-dyed colours and wore beads and feathers in their hair, of which there was a lot! Many wore ultra-cool sheepskin and leather vests with fringes.
I wanted to experience it all, but was overwhelmed at the same time, with the sense of things being out of control. I was still very young and uncomfortable, but I tried to be “cool.”
The times now were a change from the norm I had grown up with, but that norm was not so normal either. If you really think about how things were back in the Sixties, I’m not sure normal really exists on this planet.
In Grade 2 we were trying to grasp the concept that huge bombs could obliterate us because Russia had gotten into bed with Cuba and planned on placing their rockets on Cuba’s soil, pointed right at our neighbours next door. Practising air raid protocol sent me into a worried frenzy. We lived by the airport, so in my naïveté, I imagined any plane flying over our house could be the enemy. I’d run home crying and hide under my bed.
During this time I came home from school to find my mother ironing in front of the TV with an odd expression on her face. President Kennedy had been assassinated. I thought we were all going to die! Next were Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
It was a very bad time in the world.
In October 1970, my favorite singer Janis Joplin died. Jimi Hendrix died a month before. They were young, only 27 and 28. I was in Grade 11 and walking up to the school entrance when I saw a big poster a student had put up on the window with the words, “Long live Jimi Hendrix.” It hurt. Everyone who was anyone in rock and roll seemed to be dying —
fun times were not so fun anymore.
I made it through high school, but it was not my favourite life experience. It was for some people, who did well with socializing and gaining lifelong friends and hold great memories of that time. I have heard it was a wonderful experience, but I can’t recall it that way. I went to three high schools and felt out of place. I wished there were somewhere else I could be. There was no prom for me. I was glad to get out of school early, since I had been on the accelerated program.
I got a job right away, paid my mother rent and wondered how to start working on being famous.
A girl I worked with and became close to suggested we take off to Hawaii. We had no real plan.
I was 19 and looking for adventure, so quitting my well-paying but dull job as a telephone operator was a no-brainer for me (although I’m sure my mom thought otherwise).
Shortly after our arrival in Lahaina, Maui, my girlfriend found herself a boyfriend. Within a week, at her suggestion, we dumped the apartment we were renting and moved in with him. Being younger and quite daft, I just followed along. They slept in his bedroom, generously giving me the old, dusty couch in the living room, which I shared with a giant black spider I called Fred, who sat on the wall and stared at me till I went to sleep.
Her boyfriend, Rusty, was an artist-rock concert promoter–bullshitter type guy (drug dealer?). His old, funky house was on a back street in old-town Lahina. This was 1974, and some construction was coming that would change the town forever, but at that time it was just an old whaling village, with a few nice shops and some hotels popping up here and there outside of town.
One day Rusty announced he was taking us to some big rock show in Honolulu he said he was part promoter of (drug dealing?). Next thing I knew I was flying around the islands of Molokai and Lanai on a tiny private plane, feeling all the bumps of the Pacific breezes, getting a bit woozy, yet enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the islands below.
We eventually landed on a small private air strip somewhere around Honolulu. We were picked up by a big black limo and driven inside the famous Diamond Head crater for a massive rock concert called the Sunshine Festival. We drove past the crowds right to the back stage, where we were given backstage passes. I began feeling terrified and euphorically starstruck all at once!
Were my eyes seeing this?
Was this real?
Big, bearded security guys sitting on bikes protected the acts and backstage area.
I wandered around and peeked into one VIP tent where there were drugs literally laid out on a long table, along with fancy desserts, exotic Hawaiian fruits, all kinds of food, tons of liquor and champagne. There were outrageously beautiful women everywhere. Famous acts like Doctor Hook, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Joe Walsh and others were there that day. I’m sure I was in shock!
I kept my head down and tried to be as invisible as I felt.
I remember the great blues performer Richie Havens, who had become famous performing at Woodstock in 1968, was there.
Looking around, staring at all the musicians and their gorgeous women, who had wild, flowing hair and wore really tiny bathing suit tops and bell bottom jeans, I found I had been abandoned by my lousy friend and her boyfriend.
I tried to find a spot to hide in when, for reasons I shall never know, Richie Havens took my hand and brought me on stage with him. He asked me to sit to the side on a speaker and watch him play.
Am I dreaming?
I looked out at the hundreds of people below inside this monstrous crater, grooving to his music in the bright, beautiful sunlight of Hawaii.
It was a moment I'll never forget.
He was very sweet and soulful, and it felt like he was singing just to me. Did he see how out of place I was and just want to get me away from the insanity? I’m left with that puzzle forever.
After his show, he gave me a big smile and was gone.
Later on with much panic, I finally found my girlfriend and Rusty, only to realize we were not going back to the Island of Maui that night. It would be a long night of heavy partying that I couldn’t escape from. I wasn’t comfortable, but my girlfriend was happy and that was all that mattered.
Back in Lahina, I couldn’t get along with my girlfriend’s new love, who thought that since I was living in his house (and sleeping with his goddamn spider), I should “entertain” his famous male musician guests, who seemed to keep showing up out of the woodwork.
I was naïve, but certainly not that stupid, and got really mad and stood my ground.
He showed me the door.
I walked out into the cool, tropical evening breeze with my old, beat-up suitcase (the one my mom came to Canada with).
I left with my dignity and wondered what to do next.
My girlfriend turned out to not be much of a friend. When I was told to leave, she looked the other way. I found myself wandering the small Hawaiian town looking for a place to live. I hung out for a while with some friends in their nice apartment and waitressed a bit at a burger joint to pay my way.
Realizing this was not going to go anywhere, as much as I loved the tropics, I got myself back to Canada.
There are many details I could get into about my experiences in those earlier times during and after high school until I went to university at the age of 20, but then I wouldn’t want this article released until I’m on the wrong side of the lawn.
I think it’s fair to say I experienced many things that I would change if I could, but that’s not how life is, is it?
I took many risks and experienced life as it came at me, thinking it wise at the time not to conform to what you think you’re supposed to do, or what others think you’re supposed to do. I got lost along the way a few times and got myself in and out of a lot of trouble.
But I learned a lot about people and my own strength.
Back home in Edmonton, I bravely decided to audition for the dance program at Grant MacEwan University.
I was accepted and stayed for three years, including one year in the musical theatre program they were just developing. It was a fabulous time in my life. I took three dance classes a day, choreography, acting lessons and singing lessons, although I would get all choked up, I was so nervous and insecure. (It’s one thing to sing into your hair brush, but completely different to perform live!) We put on a big show at the end of each year for the general public.
I discovered I loved performing more than anything in the world,
and at 23 it was time to get out of Edmonton again
and find my pot of gold.
...to be continued...
By Elaine Lakeman . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2011 . Volume 1 . Issue 3
