The Free Spirit

A Growing Spirit, 1968 (Part One)

"Who's tripping down the streets of the city smilin' at everybody she sees..."

The year 1968 started out rather calm for my family. We were home in California for a little while in early January and Don stayed a little longer even after Elton and Stacey went back to school. Maggie enjoyed being the only child in the house because it meant that she got all of Mummy's and Daddy's attention, until Stacey and Elton came back. While the older kids were at school, Don helped me with some chores, and while I cleaned the kitchen, Don washed and folded laundry in the living room. We had music playing and over the tune, I heard Don call to me, "Cath, c'mere a minute!" Curious to see what he needed, I went into the living room and saw Maggie standing there wearing my bra.

"What on earth is going on?" I asked my husband, who couldn't stop laughing.

"Watch this," he said, and he turned to Maggie. "Mags, what's that you've got?"

"They're my boobies!" she said, and Don let out a loud laugh. Even I couldn't hold back a laugh as I watched my youngest daughter play with my bra. Our children, especially Maggie, were something else and they always kept us on our toes.

I enjoyed Don while I had him, which wasn't for too much longer after the New Year. Unfortunately, he had to go out on the road again, but he promised he'd be back by his birthday. "You'd better, I've got to tease you for being thirty-one," I told him, and he chuckled.

"Now that I ain't considered 'young' no more, you ain't never gonna let it go, are ya?" he asked me rather lovingly, smiling at me from his seated position on the couch.

"We're still considered 'young'! What's known as an elderly primigravida, or a pregnant mother on the older side, isn't even so until she hits thirty-five, so you've got four more years before I really start calling you old," I told him, taking his hand as he raised it over his head to touch me.

"Then I don't wanna hear ya ever call me old again until then, ya got that?" he asked.

"Absolutely not," I told him, giving his hand a squeeze and leaning down to kiss him. He left for a two-week tour of nightclubs in San Francisco after that, so not too far away, but far enough away from me where he'd have to sleep there. While my children were in school, I became involved in an local tribe of hippies that spawned in Los Angeles that organised peaceful demonstrations around the town. Their leaders were a young couple, two dropouts from the University of Southern California called Sheila Roe and George Watson, and they housed their tribe in an abandoned factory that they had renovated and turned into their home base. The tribe was made up of young outcasts, high school dropouts, believers in the cause of all ages and so on - there was even an older woman, the daughter of an American suffragette called Gertrude Foster Brown, and her name was Allison Brown.

"We're glad someone as influential as you wants to join our cause, Catherine Cromwell!" Sheila said to me when I expressed interest in joining their group. "We fight so hard, but we've lost some of our family to the draft and they were too scared to burn their cards. It's really bringing the rest of the tribe's spirits down."

"I can imagine. Losing those you love most can make things seem so bleak, but I'm a proud of you lot for getting back up," I told her. I wouldn't have the chance to actively engage in a protest with them until early spring, shortly before Ginger and I decided that we would join the original Broadway cast of Hair. Don talked me into it, insisting that I need to do it in place of him because he couldn't be in the show, and I was shocked to be given the role of Sheila, one of the leads, when I was expecting a background role.

"You're a protesting icon and very well known among the people who have been seeing this show, so we want you for our big break on Broadway," said the casting director. Unfortunately, that meant having to ask Jackie to watch my kids again while I could spend a few weeks rehearsing in New York City, and on the twenty-ninth of April, 1968, Hair made its Broadway debut. I suppose the big question is, did I partake in the nudity that the musical is famous for? As a matter of fact, yes, I did, unless I was menstruating. I portrayed the role of Sheila for two weeks on Broadway, and Ginger was among the ensemble, before I gave the role to someone else, and went back home to my family in the middle of May.