Saratoga Springs

Oh, we were pissed. Never mind that we were going to see a show in what is arguably the best and most iconic outdoor performance space in the country. This was the annual mid-summer concert outing for Camp Da-Ro. I have written about Da-Ro before. It is one of the many summer camps I spent eight weeks in during my summers growing up in New York. The fact that I was the only Gentile in the place makes for a great story but that is not what this is about.

This is about 12 and 13 year old boys who had been wronged; we were filled with righteous contempt for the system that had raised our hopes before dashing them on the rocks.

Word had gotten around that the act we were going to see was Joe Cocker. In 1970, for pre-teen boys who thought they were cool, Cocker was the ultimate stamp of legitimacy. We talked about it for the weeks leading up to the road trip, the counselors right there with us, egging on our vibe.

We loaded into the buses, boys and girls intermixed… All the boys ready to show off our coolness to our imagined, adoring 12 year old princesses.

Along the way we pulled into a MacDonalds and the counselors brought aboard an alarming amount of pre-ordered McDonald’s cheeseburgers for our pre-show meal. Do not turn up your nose at the McDonalds cheeseburger. Few admit it, but all know deep in their hearts that there are times when that cheeseburger is sublime. Let me tell you, when you are on your way to see Joe Cocker, just about anything will taste sublime.

As we began seeing signs for Saratoga Springs and the performing arts center our excitement began to build. The inside of the bus was a frenzy of adolescent anticipation and not a few hormones running wild. Finally we pulled into the huge parking lot and the busses starting falling in line, slowing down and lining up at the curb to disgorge their now frantic human cargo.

We saw the first sign, the back-lit signs with posters announcing the act. But wait…what was this? Where the hell was Joe Cocker? One of the older boys, a leader by dint of his being the biggest, shouted “Don’t worry. That’s for coming attractions!”

A sigh of relief ran through the bus, and we began disembarking and gathering with our own cliques. As we filed through the ticket lines and found places on the grass, we noticed the vibe was really chill. Plenty of weed mind you, and the usually anti-war shirts and signs, but not quite as rowdy as we expected. Well, of course not. Chill in this case was cool, and cool was Joe Cocker.

Soon the final mic checks began, the instruments warming up… Tuning. But where were the raucous guitars and drums? We were hearing hints of acoustic guitar music, piano music and so help me a bass fiddle. Our delusional state was beginning to fray at the edges, and suddenly it was ripped to shreds. We could deny it no longer. Over the PA, drilling into our brains it came:

“Please welcome, Peter, Paul and Mary!”

One of my nearby compatriots said way too loud: “Peter Fucking Paul and Mary? What is this shit?”

This shit is what it was.

We idolized our counselors. They were older kids, 17,18,19 and 20. We thought they were the coolest men on the face of the earth. We cold-shouldered them for days. They were in on this. They let us twist in the wind, enjoying the looks on our faces when we realized we had been scammed.

Of our counselors, Jan was considered the coolest. He was a tall blond god of a man with a mustache and hair that was emblematic of the times. He was a god-damned walking album cover. Even Jan came in for vitriol. During one post lights-out commiseration session, someone opined that his girlfriend, a college girl from Vassar or some other precious place, wasn’t all that good looking. This was like going to the thermonuclear option: too much. He was quickly shouted down, but then a slow murmur of dissent turned into a general chorus, assuring ourselves that any one of us could do better.

How quickly they turn.

Things between Jan and his erstwhile admirers was never the same. We never quite trusted him again. We thought he was in league with us, but he had gone in with his fellow counselors to have a laugh at our expense. He never quite forgave us either after one of my cabin-mates informed him that we had decided his girlfriend wasn’t all that.

All of that, not because we were forced to watch Peter, Paul and Mary, but because we had been hoodwinked and had our over-inflated egos turned against us.

In retrospect though, how many people can say they saw Peter, Paul and Mary perform live at Saratoga Springs. A vanishing few I would think.

I’m still hearing Mary’s voice lilting softly, “If you miss the train I’m on…”.

And just for the record, Jan’s girlfriend was gorgeous.

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