Wild Blue Yonder: A Novel of the 1960s

Nate finally extricates himself from the grips of the Air Force, but in a parting shot is warned that he may not like the Real World; in fact, he’s told many troops re-up within a few months. Why is that? Nate wonders. He remembered seeing a wall plaque that read “If Man Has His Freedom, He Has Everything.” If that’s so, why would someone give up his freedom and having a life he can call his own, just to return to the confining aspects of military life? Nonetheless, Nate soon finds that his freedom is fleeting and conditional. Home Sweet Home? Right. What’s Uncle Ned, the philosophy professor, have to say about all this? Why are Chicagoans so cold? And who is that, standing quietly on the sidelines, three thousand miles away in the warm California sun, waiting for Nate’s homecoming drama to play out? Aw, you know who.

In which Nate discovers his…well, he discovers a great deal of what’s going on inside of him while attending the performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in Stuttgart with the grande dames, and even more with them afterwards. You know, about the children of the future and all that. He bids his fellow troops good-bye and boards the silver skybird for London to say adios to Tony, then to the U.S. and…freedom? We shall see.

Nate undergoes some radical personal changes after learning his story about the General was published without his attribution. His anger is tempered by throwing an I Ching, the fact that he’s FIGMO, the arrival of Tony with the new Beatles’ White Album, and an update on the children of the future discussion with the grande dames. A short chapter, but filled with portent, as you shall hear.

You may remember that Nate’s recruiter promised he’d become a jet aircraft pilot. This, of course, turned out to be nothing more than a ploy to get him to enlist, and he was disabused of this aspiration by the two instructors during Basic Training. Little did Nate know he’d end up the co-pilot in General Beauregard’s personal jet, as you will hear in this chapter. Nate’s terrified, and only doing it because he’s been ordered to; in fact, it’s his most important assignment as the base correspondent for the Stars and Stripes, and what looks like his best shot at seeing his byline in print.

It’s really such a great German tradition, Oktoberfest, a party to end all parties. Too bad Dylan spoils it for the troops. But then again, if he hadn’t, would they have met the three philosophy students from Heidelberg University? Would they have learned they were not the only children of the future? A lot of Truth gets discussed over one-liter beer steins, as Alan, Tim, Henry Harold Henry and Nate exchange points of view with Thomas, Dieter and Herman. What do you suppose they agree on?

Their last days on Socrates Island and dissent fills the air. Alan tries to talk the other troops into going AWOL and, well, you gotta listen to believe it. Yep, they go back, but not the same guys who’d left a month earlier. Especially not Nate. They march right into one political foray after another. What’s this with Lieutenant Antonucci offering Nate redemption? Redemption? And what has Milo learned about Nate’s enlistment from his astute review of the regs? If you haven’t heard “Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers, the song that gave this chapter its title, now is a good time to do so. It may help put the times into perspective so you can ponder what the comment Nate makes to Tony in a stoned, 3 o’clock in the morning conversation means: “the whole universe is watching us through the window, to see if we get it figured out.”

Sun-drenched beaches. Starry nights. Friendship, firelight, and philosophy. Idyllic Socrates Island continues to seduce the troops with its siren song.

After listening to this chapter, I know you’ll want to visit Socrates Island. Sorry, but it’s fictional, although there are many wonderful, obscure, charming, historically fascinating islands in the Adriatic Sea. You might even like Crete, which is a large but still exciting island. Maybe not as exciting as Socrates, which turns out to be a real hippie paradise for the guys and their various disenfranchised island-mates. These kinds of experiences are growing more rare as time passes; this may be your last chance to experience what it was like back in the 1960s.

This is just so unbelievable. Remember those two old ladies the guys met at the Ravi Shankar concert last chapter? Well, they’ve invited Nate and the gang to their house in downtown Stuttgart, for what they do not know. But ever game for new experiences, they knock on the door to find out what happens next. The Steve Miller Band might have been the first to sing the song of children of the future, but listen to this chapter to wrap your head around another perspective.

Liederhalle. In Deutsch, a place of song. A place to celebrate music of all kinds. This night the Mozart-Saal, one of the music halls within the beautiful Konzerthaus Liederhalle, is host to Ravi Shankar and his sitar. Yes, Nate has seen Ravi and Allah Rakha and Ali Akbar Khan before, at Monterey Pop, but his experiences tonight – both psychedelic and otherwise – will trump anything he, in his highest moments of imagination, might have dreamt could happen. It all began when a delicate hand with long painted nails, rings with large green and red and blue stones glistening on every finger, and a lace cuff at the wrist, touched Alan’s arm. But that was not the only event of note. Whatever happened to Nate’s entry in the USAFE Short Story Contest?