In the wake of Woodstock Cincinnati had a Rock Festival. Mott the Hoople, Grand Funk Railroad, Ten Years After, Iggy and the Stooges and Traffic all came to town, along with hordes of hippies looking for peace, love and clean acid. City fathers said they could camp in Clifton (where lots of the local hippies already were) in a lovely park by the U.C. campus called Burnet Woods. Sounded like a scene to make, so my girlfriend (first wife to be) and I and another couple split two windowpanes and headed to town. We got there at dusk, and along with hundreds of friends we’d never met, were blown away by bugs. Countless stroboscopic fireflies lit people’s smiles, and seventeen-year cicadas jammed all night long. That was my second spin with brood x, and tonight at the same park on my fifth go-round, a sweet soul singer, invisible behind her full-face cicada mask, turned up her amp.

some of the things
I remember best
actually happened