So was anybody else at the First Rainbow Gathering in '72?

Hello out there,
I've posted on some other forums and no responses from anybody else who climbed that mountain and walked about those meadows... A fellow named Nathan brought an 8mm camera on the trek-even went to the tabletop ceremony which I was too wasted to do... At any rate he and his wife digitalized the old footage (MAC is a wonderfull tool and can make anybody a Cecil B. DeMille-I have been imovie-ying old family photos, old VHS tapes, and even some of my friend Jack's music tapes from the seventies, for a couple of years now) and it is now available on DVD; http://www.woodstockmuseum.com/1st_rainbow.html
I believe Nathan's wife said they used Final Cut 3 to bring the old footage to life... but anyhow... to life it is and they really do impart something of the incredible vibe that was there.
Tundrahopper4

 

Hi, tundrahopper! Where'd you post? I don't get onto discussion boards too much any more but every now and then. but hey, yeah - i did go to the first gathering! i remember the announcement in the Oracle. beautiful. i used to live in the mountains by nederland but at the time i was just leaving california. it's a sad memory. we pulled in in my old 53 chevy panel truck, named "Quack", found a spot for her and had just started walkin' down this big dirt path filled with kin walkin' back and forth and tables lined up along the side and i was soooooooooooo happy and excited! when, wouldn't you know it, i ran into my ex who had my dearest sister-friend from back home with him as a surprise for me. unfortunately, she was really really sick and guess who got to leave with her to take her back to minnesota . . . ? yeah, me. so you can imagine how much i would love to see footage of my/our/the very first gathering! thanks so much for posting this website!

 

River,
Sorry you didn't make it up the mountain-I still rank it as the second most unbelievable revelationary experience of my life. When I called about the DVD Nathan's wife seemed to know right away that I had been there and yeah... there is something special I carry with me from all that unto this day. I posted about it in the Rainbow Forum a coupla weeks back and nothing yet-though I will go check now. We go out West once or twice a year and will have to get up to Grandby again this next time... believe it or not there are still echoes of the old days up in those mountain towns. I even think I spotted a familiar face in Breckenridge a few years ago-though his long hair was a lot greyer and he was in a three piece suit. Ah well-I guess we weren't all fated to do the "mystic traveller" thing forever.
Tundrahopper
PS. Katie and I are still in Minnesota though everybody else worth a tinker's damn has left.

 

Oh, tundra - i can so believe that - it would be with you forever. and be part of you always. yes.
where in minnesota are katie and you?? i'm in new mexico now - left minnesota a long time ago. yeah, i'm one of those who left!

 

Riversong,
We're in Saint Paul MN-neat city but like I have been saying about MN for a while now "all the good ones have left." Including both of our kids and most of our friends. Ah well-we have some GREAT vacation destinations(Southern Arizona, Albuquerque, the Sierra Nevadas, the CO Rockies, San Diego, the CA Central Coast)-and generally fly into one area and out another so as to get to visit more friends and relatives (they call it "open mouthed flying" and the only hook in the plan is that we get to pay "drop fees" on the rental cars).
You are in Santa Fe now? Great town if overpriced. Our son says that when a town starts popping out Starbucks it is time to move on. My first visit to NM was in '72 and it was pure magic. Last time through was in '03 and it has not faded.
TH4

 

tundrahopper - I used to live in Mankato (some years in the late sixties and also in '70) and later in Minneapolis. it was definitely time to leave! and Seattle was wonderful until too many people discovered it. and yes, there was a starbucks on every corner! santa fe was an accident. well, not really - i should say, i was guided here and here i am - not by my design. if that makes any sense? it's all right. but it's not my dream. it is, however, quite beautiful around here! i have no idea where i'll go next, i just know i will. i keep feeling pulled to oregon or maybe somewhere around tennessee/north carolina/virginia.
yeah, you gotta get out of a place where it's so cold you gotta plug in your car!!
may all your dreams come true . . .

 

River,
Our daughter is moving to Oregon and I hope it works out for her and her husband. Santa Fe and NM in general is a pretty special place. Does Dennis Hopper still have that place up in Taos? Too bad the millionaires and billionaires discovered the North and turned it into their private park.
Mankato is a neat town and my friend Mario ate at a Kentucky Fried there in 1971 when we were hitchhiking out to Denver. It was really pretty and the rides were coming one after another and friendly, and Mankato was layed out like a jewell in the March snows when we got into town. I should really post some of the writings I did in the eighties about all that. We went to the KFC and there were these nasty old ladies sitting a few booths down gossipping loudly about us hissing stuff about "they should GET JAWBS...bzzzzbzzzzbzzzz..." and the like. Ah well-tightassed chickenpecking homebodies are a problem in Minnesota generally and the place gets me claustrophobic. If I couldn't take a run to the sun once or twice a year I would go quite beserk. At any rate about a decade after that I had occaission to do some business in Mankato and had some grand old times partying with the college kids and locals in that historical old river town.
Tundrahopper

 

Drummin,
Oh don't I know that COLO is now the playground of the rich and superrich? You can drive by estates in the mountains that are only occuppied for a few weeks of the year. We are headed out that way in about 7 weeks and will have to get up into Rocky Mountain National Forest area again. It will be going on June and the way should be open-still you never know. The Rainbows did do some more gatherings in CO then? Where?
Tundrahopper