BACK TO PAGE EIGHT
COFFEEHOUSE CULTURE -- Issue 2

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD -- PART ONE

Like a line of dirty washing, stained and discoloured, mottled and holey, grotesque in both shape and colour, the history of the world is a gruesome sight to behold. But at least it is the same the whole world over. None are sparkling clean; all bear the stain of history’s guilt. In every society, every culture, every nation, there have been times when the gutters have run with blood and carrion crows have hung above fields waiting to peck at the bodies below. The sound of history is an ululating wail lamenting man’s inhumanity to man that comes keening down on us borne on the winds of time. And it is heard by all.
...Although there is some justification in history, there is no absolution.There are always reasons. For everything under the sun there is a reason. But reasons do not provide justification, merely explanation. It is, however, impossible to turn back the hands of time, to remake our present by reshaping the past. History, well, you know how it is? You’re stuck with it.
...If, dear reader, you are an American, take what heart you can from these words. They are there so that you know that you are not being picked on without just cause. It just happens that it is your history that is about to come in for close inspection. And if the truth hurts, forgive us. Or, better yet, forgive yourselves.
...This is a history of recent events and we do not need to look far into our past to find its genesis. We have only to cast our minds back seventy years, not even a single human life time, to the 1930s, to discern the first flutterings of its existence. Although these give little indication of the immense changes that will come to pass -- no less than the assumption and transformation of one culture by another -- they do define the nature of the beast. In a blaze of colour, WASPs will become insects of a different ilk. For, while this is a history of a white cultural phenomenon, the influence of other races, colours and cultures has had more than a little impact.
...So let us drift back into the monochrome past. It is the 1930s. This is the decade of the Hobo. America’s dream has already been shattered and the country is in a state of economic decline or even dissolution. Poverty is the order of the day. But already the legions are on the march towards a better future. They are an army of ragged wanderers, a new and different army, linked by one thing and one thing alone -- their poverty. Victims, one and all, they are the new poor. They are the dispossessed; they are destitute and desperate. The White Anglo Saxon Poverty-Stricken. And they are on the road creating the myths and legends that will provide a wellspring of inspiration in the years to come.
...But that was a beginning and not the start. It goes back further than that. This is, as I said, a monochromatic tale and it is towards America’s black sub-culture that we must look for the roots of the story.
...In the sixty or so years since the Civil War, little progress had been made towards the emancipation of the negro in American society. Although the Union of Northern States had decisively beaten the Confederation of Southern ones, ole Dixie was only down but by no means out. In the South things went on pretty much the same as before. Integration was not even on the agenda and as for equality . . . . Elsewhere things were little better. In the north, negro society also remained separate from white society. There were enough negroes making that long journey northwards but they were, to a man, erstwhile slaves without education or the social mores to function in white society. With few skills, little money and no jobs, they poured into the cities looking for a roof, a bed and something to eat. United by their poverty, they gathered in the areas where the housing was cheapest, in the areas where the buildings were crumbling and the streets were desolate. In such areas, too rundown even for the poorest whites, the black ghettos that would for decades epitomise the divisions between the two highly polarised social groups started to appear.
...The die was cast. As ever, the blacks were on one side of the tracks and the whites were on the other. And so it would remain for longer than anyone cared to contemplate. In the end, as in the beginning, the universal bridging factor, if there was one, was the music. Within a few decades the influence of black music on popular American culture would be so extreme that it would all but take over.
...But it would take decades. Already, though, the music of the negro was having an impact. The white intelligentsia -- in the North certainly -- had already fallen for the syncopated rhythms and cunning back beat of jazz. Soon they would be followed by the socialites and then the masses as Hollywood picked up the beat and transformed it into a cultural event. But, although the music of the times defines the phenomenon and provides it with a soundtrack to die for, it is only one aspect of a multi-faceted social event that has another, more significant, precursor -- cannabis.
...How that made the cultural crossover is another story. For, although black culture was starting to influence the whites, the two societies remained essentially separate. There must have been isolated incidents when blacks and whites mixed socially, particularly those involved in the performing arts, ever a haven of open mindedness and understanding. But ‘isolated’ is the word. There was, however, another forum in which blacks and whites met on reasonably equal terms -- the hobo camps where the poverty of one and all was the leveller that none could resist. Here, too, music had a significant part to play but we’ll be coming to that.
...When slavery was abolished, there were few options available to the ex-slaves -- stay on the land and work for ‘the Massa,’ head for the cities to live in the rat infested slums or to just head out into the great blue yonder. With such enticing alternatives, it is hardly surprising that many chose the last option. They were the first true hobos -- the itinerant musicians, the farm workers, the turpentine camp travellers and the for-hire handy-men -- who were waiting by the fires brewing molasses-thick coffee in blackened enamel pots when the first of the po’ whites started arriving.
...For both the negroes and the whites the meeting was a new experience. This was the first time the whites had come into contact with the rich afro-based culture of the blacks. It was a culture radically different from anything they had previously encountered. If anything it was a more honest culture than the whites had experienced. To the anally-retentive whites, negro society seemed to be abandoned and streetwise. From its syncopated rhythms and wildly suggestive dances to its mojo magic and honey tongued lover men, it proclaimed its sensuality and its alluring wickedness in so many exotic ways.
...Not least of these, was its use of marijuana. In many of the African cultures from which the slaves had been so heartlessly plucked the smoking of cannabis -- known as dagga -- was an accepted custom. It would hardly be surprising be surprising if some of the slaves brought the practice with them. Cannabis is a prolific and easy to grow weed. Maybe they brought seeds with them. Maybe they found plants growing in the green land to which they had been transported. Maybe, even, the plantation on which they laboured sported a hemp plot; hemp was, after all, one of America’s biggest cash crops right up to its maniacal repression in the 50s. Who knows? What we do know is that when you are far from home, alone and unloved, working like a dog for no money and little food and sleeping on a wooden pallet covered only by a cheap blanket, a joint offers some sweet solace.
...And, indeed, it was not as if smoking dope was a new phenomenon in the Americas. South of the border, down Mexico way, there was already a flourishing industry based on the growing of smokable hemp. The Stateside negro population constituted a major new market for the Mexican grass growers and clearly they took advantage of it. Indeed the influence of the Mexican connection was significant enough that, for ever after, smokable hemp would be known by its Mexican name, marijuana.
...It is here, if anywhere, in the roots of the slave trade, that we find the seeds of the culture with which this history deals. It is impossible to pin it to dates. For we are talking centuries not decades or even years here. This goes back to the very start of the country and beyond, to a time when the land was no more than a fringe of provinces, each owned by a different old world country, strung out along the eastern seaboard. If it hadn’t been for the slaves and their distinctly ethnic culture, maybe none of our tale would have happened. Who knows?
...And the slaves, of course, defined poverty in the coalescing but still disunited states of America. They had nothing. No home, no money, no belongings, no education. Why, they did not even have their own selves. They were as poor as they could be.
...And that is how it stayed right up to the Civil War. And beyond. The abolition of slavery brought freedom but it was only in name. They were still the poorest of the poor. And there is little freedom in poverty. Under such circumstances, the only thing to do is make the best of it, find one’s pleasures where one can and keep striving for something better.
...For many negroes freed for the first time from the shackles of slavery, the prospect of self-imposed bondage that represented their freedom was more than they could take. For them, there was little choice. Better the open road, the sky and the hills and an unknown future, than a life lived in the same old cage. They were there living off the land or following the work, riding the rails and staying alive -- sometimes only barely -- long before the poor whites appeared on the scene. They were experienced in living the hard life of the open road and had many tricks to teach.
...It would, indeed, be surprising if the hobos’ newly found mentors of the open road did not share the pleasures of marijuana with their pupils. In fact, it must be the case. For, somehow or other, the smoking of cannabis made the transition from being an essentially ethnic pastime to one that encompassed the whole of society. That is some transition. Big time, baby, big time. Whilst, in the urban centres, there must have been some blacks introducing whites to new levels of decadence, the social divisions were still so strong that this cannot have been a major factor.
...For those sitting around a multi-racial campfire, on the other hand, drinking coffee from the same pot, swapping tales of their travels and the open road, sharing the same poverty and harbouring the same dreams, what could be more natural than to assuage their dissatisfactions with a joint. It is surely one hell of an effective way to soften the harsh edges of reality. It can, as we all know, help you find beauty in the mundane, wisdom in the trees and meaning in the sky. Anything that can transform driving rain into a shower of gemstones has got to be a good thing. Hasn’t it?
...So, this is the backdrop against which our production will be staged.
...Cue the harmonica . . . .
...Follow that wail of the lonely bluebird through the driving rain, the mud slicks and wallowing puddles, past tents and tarpaulins and shadowy, huddled figures gazing out from and into the darkness. Past the bundles of ratty rags and torn and tattered clothing that denote the sleeping, the dreaming and the dead. Through the thick miasmatic air, damp and clinging with the sticky odours of grits and pork fat and cheap burnt coffee. The surrounding hissing blanket of rain is penetrated by the hacking cough of TB, the whimpering cry of a baby, the clang, clang, clang of a distant freight train ploughing through the deep dark night towards some unknown destination. And behind it all is that damned harmonica. But, in the distance, a fire burns, its bright welcoming warmth is hardly restrained by the damp wood that causes it to splutter, crackle and spit. There is the dull clang of enamel mugs on the lip of a coffeepot. The quiet hum of conversation, an exclamation, laughter and then more conversation. As we draw close the flames light the faces of those sitting under the dripping tarpaulin. There are gaunt faces, deeply etched and weather stained, grey skinned and thin lipped, hardened by hunger and a hard life. And as we approach closer, other faces appear out of the shadows. It is the teeth and the whites of the eyes that we notice first, only then do the flattened noses, the wide foreheads and the cheeks like shiny roasted coffee beans come into view. A match flares and someone lights a big old reefer. There is a murmur of conversation, a quiet chorus of assent and some smiles are exchanged.
...“Hey, stranger,” says an old timer with a battered sweatstained stetson pulled down hard onto the wiry hair that sprouts from his head and extends over most of his face, “don’t stand there in the rain. Shake the mud off your heels and com’en join us.”
...In the bell shaped cone of warmth with a mug of hot coffee defrosting our fingers and a reefer making its way towards us, the world looks and feels a brighter place. As the conversation rises and falls, there is that sad, lonesome harmonica sound. It is more distinct, defined and poignant, more profound than the thoughts of an eagle.
...And on the fringes of the fire light, way in the back of the tarpaulin, there is the lone harmonica player. Sitting next to him is a white boy with a cheap guitar on his lap. As the black harp player leans back into a wailing seventh, eyes closed and brow furrowed with the intensity of the sound, the guitarist plucks a chord. And suddenly they are making music.
...The conversation around the fire hums along.
...The old timer by whose side we sit, turns and says: “You look like you’ve been doin’ some hard travellin’, stranger.” Silence falls and all eyes turn towards us. Suddenly it is our turn to tell our story and share our knowledge. Hard travellin’, indeed.