A love-Haight relationship: San Francisco's Haight Ashbury

Hey, can I have some of your purple berries: a shop window displays Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, back when their teeth were white and their hair was brown...

Forty-four years ago, as many as 100,000 young people crammed into San Francisco to make the scene, blow their minds and have an otherwise outta sight time in the world's grooviest neighborhood, Haight Ashbury. Popular as a hippie enclave because of its plentiful cheap rents in devalued Victorian houses, "The Haight" reached its pinnacle as the counterculture epicenter during 1967's "Summer of Love". Bohemia, free love and all the mind-altering substances one could consume were the order of the day, and the artists-in-residence included Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Haight Ashbury gained national attention, with busloads of Middle Americans being guided through the circus-like atmosphere of the feared and misunderstood hippie. The downside of Haight Ashbury's notoriety were runaways, overcrowding, homelessness, drug problems and crime. By October of '67, many of the Summer of Love's participants left to resume their studies or "normal" lives and the local hippies sensed what a long, strange trip it had been and that their movement had played out. They staged a mock funeral for the "Death of the Hippie," telling would-be visitors to stay where they live and bring the revolution there. Haight Ashbury never did regain its counter-culture high, but it did remain a funky locale for artists and nonconformists, and today it still has the far-out flavor of the do-your-own-thing '60s, with some modern-day gentrification thrown in. There are lots of independently owned boutiques, smoke shops, curio emporiums and restaurants with psychedelically-festooned signs inviting you to come on in and let your freak flag fly. In an odd way, it's reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg... an authentic recreation of an historically significant American village. Perhaps they need some hippie reenactors to explain the deeper meanings of "In-a Gadda-da-Vida" and point out proper hookah technique at Ye Olde Head Shoppe.

And one more thing: after you're done grazin' in the grass and before you feed your head on incense and peppermints and let the sunshine in, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

Cows to the left of me, clover to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you

Right of center

Left of center

Center

There's Middle America, and then there's Lebanon, Kansas. Lebanon is at the exact geographical center of the 48 continental United States and they have the latitude (38,50) and longitude (98,35) to prove it. And, while the north central Kansas town gets its fame from being in the middle, it has more of an edge-of-nowhere feel to it, as long as the edge-of-nowhere is a pretty, pastoral place. Gently rolling hills, dirt roads, the occasional horse running wild...that's about it. But that's okay. The middle of America should be a place for calm, peaceful reflection, far from the frantic coasts to the east and west and international borders north and south. There's a pyramid-like marker with a plaque from 1940 when an L.T. Hagadorn and an L.A. Beardslee literally put Lebanon on the places-in-the-middle-of-other-places map. Sticklers will tell you that the actual really, really, middle point is about a half a mile away on a private farm and this is as close as the marker builders could get. Apparently, the farm's owner didn't want middle-seeking tourists trudging on his land. There's also a trailer with some nice artifacts in it, or so we were told. Unfortunately, in order to unlock the door, you have to call a phone number for an access code and, alas, we were not getting any service on our Motorola. I guess there's just never a phone booth when you really need one. For quiet meditation, there is what has to be one of the nation's smallest chapels, with room for four or less parishioners, depending on girth, built in honor of Elmer and Zeta Stump. But mostly this is just beautiful country, where the middle of nowhere is actually the middle of somewhere, and that somewhere is pretty awesome.

Girl, we couldn't get much Ohio-er: Scenes from the Buck-eye State

World's biggest cuckoo clock, left.

You can park your heini anywhere.

Autographed hot dog buns at Tony Packo's in Toledo.

What's all the hubbub at the Hub of Hubbard, Bub?

The Longaberger Basket Company's picnic basket shaped building.

I remember Maumee.

Birthplace of "third-rate non-entity" President Rutherford B. Hayes.

WHIZ, southeastern Ohio's news leader.

Zippy the Roo, mascot of the University of Akron.

No basses, in fact: Tuba City, Arizona

My old tuba teacher Tucker has this outside his office door at the University of Akron. I always thought God played the bass clarinet.

You can order this fine framed print from Cafe Press. Makes a great present for friends and loved-ones.

As a former tuba player (1972-1988), I took great interest in the fact that if we planned it just right, we could pass through the town of Tuba City, Arizona on our way from the Grand Canyon to Four Corners on our last trip. Would there be tuba concertos blasting from the taverns and concert halls? Would there be statues on the town green of Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Carl Moritz, who, in 1835, were granted a patent for their Berlinpumpen tuba? Would the gift shops be bursting with chocolate tubas, nerf tubas and tuba toothpaste?

Well, no.

It seems Tuba City gets its name from Tuuvi, the great Hopi leader from Oraibi in today's Arizona. Seems Tuuvi City was too much of a mouthful so it became Tuba City when it was named by the Mormons in 1872. Kinda like Paul McCartney making "Hey Jules" into "Hey Jude". So, while there is an abundant amount of Hopi art and artifacts, there's nary a brass bass horn in sight. Not even a fiberglass Sousaphone.

And if all this is putting you in the mood to hear a little tuba music, and who needs an excuse for that, then check out this link from the International Tuba Day people. If you ask me, every day is Tuba Day.

Ain't that America

Here's hoping everyone has a safe, happy and eccentric Fourth of July.