In 1971 I worked stage security for the Free John Sinclair Now concert at Crisler Arena. Having worked the summer concerts as a “Psychedelic Ranger” we were enlisted for the concert and enjoyed the experience. John and Yoko were friendly but keeping folks away from them was a challenge. People were captivated by the Beatle persona and tried to reach out and touch them. The concert included many great performers and was a highlight of my short lived career in crowds and stage management!

Yes, I was at the Free John Sinclair Concert! Although John Lennon had the biggest star power, what I remember most clearly about all the music is Stevie Wonder. Probably because musically it was the best!

Of course I remember the Free John Sinclair concert. When John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band arrived on stage, everyone stood up and cheered. Lennon was taller than I expected and utterly cool. Yoko Ono was shorter than expected and her voice singing “Sisters, oh sisters” was high, thin and resembled chalk scraping a blackboard. But the surprise of Stevie Wonder made up for that.

I was at the Free John Sinclair concert at Crisler. Though my memory of those days are fogged. But, I do remember John singing “It Ain’t Fair, John Sinclair, In the stir for breathing air…”

Still crazy after all these years

I was in that crowd at the Free John Sinclair concert, a psychology major trembling with fear and feeling that the most important event of my life was happening just then. I was there to care for fallen comrades — working as a drug crisis intervener/counselor with an organization I helped found in Ann Arbor called Drug Help — there to provide medical intervention, reassurance, understanding, and reality-testing to those whose use of “street pharmaceuticals” had led them into terrifying encounters with the dark side, even as they celebrated a revolutionary vision of freedom and unity.
Somehow, we knew that John Sinclair’s arrest and incarceration (not to mention John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s coming to our town to protest it) were proof-positive that the revolution was right around the corner. We knew it and we thought that everyone else knew it too. To be a small part of this exhilarating display of power and transformation was overwhelmingly thrilling. It set in place an image of the mountains we could move if only we held to our faith and our creative ambitions. Art would save us and free the world.
I recall that my “red cross” armband comforted me in distinguishing “me from them” — the ones who fell off the edge in this rush off the cliff. I wanted to nurse the wounded but not be completely swept out to sea. John Lennon too was evidently wept out to sea and John Sinclair still walks amongst us, singing his songs and smoking his sacraments.

I was at the Free John Sinclair concert, but went home at midnight because that is when I promised my parents I’d be home. I was a senior at Pioneer High.
I remember Yoko passing out “love notes,” thousands of them, to the crowd. They got passed up from row to row. She got there a few hours earlier then John. They said that his plane was late as I recall. I just remember her as kind of a loose cannon. She kept blowing kisses and saying “I love you,” “I love you.” Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airman: They were the best! They sang songs like, “You’ll drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin that hot…. rod…. Lincoln!”; “the lines on the road just looked dots.”

Re: What are your memories of the Free John Sinclair Concert?
A: None

The concert and events surrounding the Free John Sinclair rally (June, 2006) were much as the author described. There wasn’t much interest in the event until the rumor spread that John Lennon was going to be there. We didn’t believe it, and only slowly as it sunk in, did we think, we can’t miss this. And it was a truly magical night. Two other things about that night that struck me then, that the author did not cover, was the fact that a phalanx of black Panthers spread out through the aisles, passing buckets up and down each row to collect money for their group. And secondly, at some point, John Sinclair was piped in to the audience over a phone line from prison. I’m not sure if he sobbed a bit or not, but it sounded like it; perhaps he was overcome by the emotion of where he was and where we all were.

I can’t remember not knowing about the University of Michigan. Bo and Woody may have held the first door of awareness open, but it was Professor Kathleen Faller and her academic expertise which drew me to Ann Arbor academically. And it was a NIMH fellowship which made it financially possible for me to matriculate in 1988.

(1985-1988) I had been working in Colorado Springs, CO at the Dale House Project, a residential home for 16 adolescents. Together with six others, I had agreed to commit to 18 months of service.

I’m still chewing on the fact that we were responsible for raising our own salaries – $250 a month. Our parent organization, Young Life, was open to “hearing us out” as we worked together to say, “we need $350 a month” and voila! My first experience of negotiating “one for all and all for one” was a success.

My time in Colorado Springs put me right at the center of Reagan’s star wars and so much more – ask me about my NORAD moments, Focus on the Family, the Challenger Disaster, 100 mile bicycle rides, Wild Women on the Water, and … the profound – no, profane – numbers of youth in care who have been impacted by childhood sexual abuse.

One of our residents worked for a nearby pizza franchise. She became the best “pizza twirler in Colorado” and qualified for the national championship – held in Ann Arbor, MI. Thus my introduction to Domino’s Pizza.

Academically, the MSW program was made for me. I loved it. Professors Churchill and Sarri were passionate, accomplished, and welcoming.

My practicum at Detroit’s Children’s Center afforded significant opportunities and directly led to my first professional job in Foster Care.

Driving to Mississippi, together with two classmates over Spring break led me to the best “sweet tea” in the Delta and the opportunity for in-depth discussions on what I now call, “the intersections of race, faith, and sexual orientation.”

Interactions with administrators were limited, unless we count the time, I, on my bicycle, pedaling as fast as I could, turned a blind corner by the Frieze Building and ….ran smack dab into the Dean. The timing didn’t seem quite right to introduce myself by name!

My last semester, Professor Sarri and her family kindly shared their home with me. This time was profoundly important to me.

I had not experienced the scope of possibility – international perspective, feminism, informed intellectual thoughtful conversation, to these heights before.

Rom Sarri’s death was a great loss to me; I reacted by cutting off contact with the living. The folks who teach grief and loss know that “cut-offs” have their consequences – I concur.

Coming Out, embracing my same gender orientation began for me at U-M. For it was in Professor Follie’s class where I first built up my courage to stand on the line, marking the space called simply “same gendered”. Imagine my surprise, when almost a third of the class stood with me!

Coming Out, living authentically, weaving maize and blue through so many aspects of my life are additional stories for another time.

“Remarkable” does not even begin to describe…stay tuned!