Sunday, November 20, 2005

IF YOU WENT TO OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO WENT TO
THE ERIE CANAL SODA POP FESTIVAL;AKA BUL ISLAND
PLEASE CONTACT ME. I'D LIKE YOUR STORIES AND
PICTURES IF WOULD LIKE TOO SHARE THEM

Hi all,

I found a great place to look for hippies that may have went to Bull Island. It's a chat room in the Hippland web page. It's pretty cool cause there are a lot of like minded people there. So that is what I've been doing. I plan on going the the central library in Indianapolis and pulling up the newspaper about the concert. It's no all that informative but I would be remiss if I didn't included it. I believe there are some old grainy black and white pictures that is included in the article.

I wonder if veep Chenny will go the way on Agnuew if this leak business comes to a head, huh. I believe the Bush presidency will go down in history as a complete failure. What has he done that will stand out 20, 50, or 100 years from now? At least Clinton had a budget surplus during his stent in the White House. That's historical.

I be back with more.
[pause]

4 comments:

Mikal said...

I was at the ECSPF back in 72. We drove from mansfield Ohio to the site, leaving on Friday (i think) morning. There were six of us who went all having purchased legal tickets, We parked in the middle of Interstae 64 and walked miles until we got to a flattened chain link fence. We couldn't figure out why nobody was taking tickets then found out the security couldn't hold the crowd back and they just walked over the fence. It was HOT walking there, carrying a 10 man tent plus all our camping gear. Three of us went ahead to get the tent set up and the others would come later with the coolers. Since they had moved the site from place to place, when we finally got into the concert arena we were dying for some water since all of our stuff was in the coolers. No drinking fountains or toilets were avaiable either. There was some guy there selling pop for 3 bucks a can. Remember this was in 1972. We got the tent set up and I laid down in it to wait for the water. I remember falling asleep and dreaming someone was shoving cotton balls down in my throat. I really don't remember anyone who played except for Black Oak. We were all doing a lot of drugs that weekend and only drinking water and pop. I don't think I ate at all. When we left on Sunday, 5 of us headed back to the car and the 6th guy started hitchhiking down to Texas. He was going to college down there and school was to start in a couple weeks. That was the last time I saw him alive. He was hit by a car and killed before he ever got to Texas. Thats my memory of the ECSPF. I would love to get more information on all the bands that played and such. I was very young then, only 22 years old. It seems like a different lifetime.

Anonymous said...

Some bands that played I haven't seen mentioned...
Rory Gallagher
Fanny (all girl rock band)
Doobie Brothers (sun. night)

JCL said...

Having missed a couple of the local festivals our group was determined to attend Bull Highland Festival. 7 of us got in my Ford Fairlane station wagon and we had to park about 3 miles from the festival. We have been to other festivals where the food ran out early so before we left my car and we fired up our lil Hibachi Grill and stuffed ourselves good before we went to the concert. This turned out to be a good idea . I was sure my car will be gone on the back of a tow truck before we got back to it, but in those days I was 22 and Bulletproof and my major concern was fun. We got a ride to the last mile or so and onto the island itself by jumping on the back of a vendor's truck, against his protest I might add.
I did see some the things that people say was awful and the last day of the concert when we left it was descending into Anarchy. But we were able to walk about & freely participate in the activities we wanted to. Our group consumed both cases of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill that we took with us along with all the food we got and what food we had begged. None of us saw any violence or the turning over of vehicles or fire so it must have happened after we left on Sunday afternoon. I do remember being disappointed that some of the people you wanted to hear did not show up but there was solid music nearly 24 hours a day all the way through Friday Saturday and Sunday when we left. All of us had a terrific time and no real troubles whatsoever. All of us had a great time, except one of my friends had taken some bad acid and it made him sick but he recovered by the time we got home. As far as the "Hippie Business District" was concerned we did spend a fair amount of time and money there. All I can really say about this is that we must have left before the really terrible stuff that happened had occurred because we saw no violence, no fights and no riotous behavior aside from the the drinking and smoking and generally good times partying that people of that day were prone to. After walking what seem to miles along the highway I came along a state highway truck that was picking up trash. I asked him if he could drive me up the road a ways to see if we can find a car and just leave me with it and I would come back and get everybody. About two or three hours after we left the island we were all in my car headed north. It appeared that by late Sunday afternoon about one-third or more of the cars were gone from the highway. Evidently quite a few people had left. It was dark by the time we got to Indy and everybody crashed at my buddy's apartment. We heard later, but we didn't see any, that dozens of tow trucks had been put to use to tow cars away. And we heard later that somebody had drowned and that they were people stabbed and such but we never saw any of that and believed at the time that that these stories were cooked-up by Joe Strait and his propaganda machine, along with all the other things like going blind if you smoke marijuana or that doing acid would turn you into a psychotic murderer. Back then we did not trust The Man very much.
So ... while all that we experienced cannot be repeated or even admitted to in this forum, I will say that our experience was a good one and we left there well satisfied that we had attended. And even now I still have a fond remembrance of it.

Matt said...

I only recently heard about this event, and it was a little before my time (I was born in 1971). I'm totally fascinated, and can't wait to dive into these first person accounts!