THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 2, 1994 TAG: 9409010276
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
I began the summer of 1965 by taking Carol Garrett to see the Beach Boys in concert at the Dome. We were members of the last racially segregated class at Great Bridge High School, weeks from graduation.
A capacity crowd of 1,500 mostly white, middle-class, apolitical and care-free kids crammed the resort concert hall, built in 1958 as the first geodesic dome in the continental United States. I think I paid about $4 or $5 for the tickets, maybe less. We drove to the Dome via Virginia Beach Boulevard and Laskin Road. The toll road didn't exist.
Only 2 years old, the city had a population of about 110,000. The day after Labor Day, you could have landed a plane on Atlantic Avenue. Everyone went home until next Memorial Day.
The Beach Boys reflected the times. They wore tan chinos and striped sport shirts. They sang about cars, surfing and girls on the beach. They came from a magical land called Southern California.
The band consisted of the Wilson brothers: songwriter/founder Brian; drummer Dennis; guitarist Carl; their first cousin, nasal lead singer Mike Love, group emcee and wit; and Brian's high-school classmate Al Jardine. They sang Brian Wilson's compositions in their pristine high harmonies.
Innocence would soon be lost to the cultural upheaval of the late '60s, including drug use and the Vietnam War. About a dozen boys in our class would make the one-way trip to southeast Asia.
Beer was still the only consciousness-altering substance available in Great Bridge in 1965. I had never seen a joint. I had a few Buds before and after the show.
Carol and I sat on folding chairs about five rows from the stage. I had been a Beach Boys fan from the first time I heard their songs on the radio in the early '60s. I spent $2.98 each for the first three or four albums.
Mike Love, already balding at 24, jumped from the stage and sang to girls in the audience. He and Dennis, the group sex symbol, made a point of acknowledging several female attendees. Carol thought ``Denny'' was ``real cute.''
We talked about college, California, the future and bade each other a typical goodbye for a 1965 Great Bridge date with a kiss at her front door.
I stood 6-foot-2 and weighed about 160 and was mostly shy and sensitive about being skinny. I envied the lives that guys like Dennis Wilson and Mike Love led.
Many of us gathered there, both on and off the stage, would have been surprised that night to know the twists and turns our lives would take.
I married another classmate. Four years later, she filed for divorce when my few beers became too many, too often. Meanwhile Brian Wilson suffered his first schizophrenic bout in the middle '60s. He spent years in his bed and in therapy. Denny drowned in 1983, after a vodka binge on his boat. Mike Love married and divorced several times. The band declined in popularity because of the cultural changes. Bands began singing about death and destruction, not surfing and girls. Hair, including mine, grew longer.
I lost jobs, cars and most of my idealism. Thankfully, my struggles were anonymous. I lost my father to a heart attack at the age of 51 in 1971.
I lost interest in the Beach Boys, too, though I did move to Los Angeles in 1975. I didn't find L.A. the Valhalla I had always dreamed it would be, but I found sobriety. I stopped drinking and began to think about writing.
Whereas I used to count my ribs, I now count calories, alternating exercise with copious consumption of ice cream. I have gained 50 pounds, to a not-so-svelte 210. Nobody calls me skinny now. My waist is thicker, but my hair has thinned. I wear baseball caps to avoid a sunburned scalp.
I lost my romantic notions of being a novelist, a la Hemingway. I'm a free-lance correspondent for this journal and another or two. I haven't gained fame or fortune, but I manage to put words on paper every day. Most of them see the light of publication.
Virginia Beach has gained about 300,000 residents since 1965. Most of them seem to meet every afternoon at the intersection of Virginia Beach and Independence boulevards. No longer in use, the Dome will be lost to the wrecking ball this autumn. It's obsolete and the prime location is badly needed for parking space.
I know that I too will one day face my own personal wrecking ball, mortality, an idea unimaginable in 1965.
Last month, I received an invitation to my 30th high school reunion. Among the names of the missing, whereabouts-unknown or unaccounted-for was my date that night in 1965: Carol Garrett.
This weekend, The Beach Boys return for the American Music Festival. They will perform on stage at Fifth Street, outdoors, fittingly enough. They will sing about the sand, the surf and California girls.
I won't be there to see them. I have stories to cover, words to write.
Besides, I don't look so hot in jams anymore and the crowds and noise would only rattle my middle-aged nerves. MEMO: Gary Edwards is a free-lance writer and lives in Virginia Beach.
by CNB