Springwater Books

Tomorrow is the big day!!! 9am to 6pm 🫐Fresh Blueberries 🫐 U-pick $5/lb or we-pick $6/lb. CASH only. Come enjoy fresh blueberries, visit all of our vendors, and check out our store! We will also be open Sunday and Monday 9am-6pm.

Post of the day…

Holy Moly...

On April 10, 1970, The Doors were playing two shows in Boston on their Roadhouse Blues Tour, one starting at 7 p.m. and the other at 10 p.m. But the second didn’t actually start until after midnight. The concerts were immortalized on the triple CD Live in Boston, which wasn’t released until 2007. Ultimately, the show was a mess, ending unceremoniously when the venue cut the power.

The disastrous event was due to Jim Morrison’s continuous intoxication on stage. He was still adept at hitting musical cues while wasted, but his often lewd antics would draw unwanted attention. This was now Nixon’s America, and the free-wheeling sexual revolution of the 1960s was under intense scrutiny. Obscenity, indecency, and po*******hy were openly condemned and often punished under the law.

That night, The Doors’ set was nearing Boston’s 2 a.m. curfew. Long sets were already typical of the band. But the venue manager eventually cut the power to force them to call it a night. Only Jim Morrison’s mic was connected to a separate system. With his mic still live and an entire day of drinking behind him, Morrison unleashed a tirade of profanity.

Fortunately, keyboardist Ray Manzarek grabbed Morrison and hauled him off stage. Unfortunately, Morrison escaped from his grasp and ran back to the mic.

“We all should get together and have some fun,” he shouted, “because the a**holes are gonna win if we let them.” He then asked the audience if they wanted to see his ge****ls, in those words. Luckily, Manzarek managed to grab him again.

The Boston show was recorded and preserved for posterity, but it was a small comfort for The Doors. Their next scheduled show, in Salt Lake City on April 11, was canceled. Apparently, the promoter for that show had seen the Boston gig and didn’t approve.

Morrison’s unpredictability had been steadily increasing. In March 1969, he faced a felony charge in Miami. The charge cited “lewd and lascivious behavior in public by exposing his private parts and by simulating ma********on and oral copulation.” Additionally, he had six arrest warrants for various counts of indecent exposure, open public profanity, and public intoxication. He was staring down the barrel of a maximum of three and a half years in prison.

“They’d crucify him if they could, they’re so worked up,” said Larry Mahoney, reporter for the Miami Herald, per an April 1969 report originally from Rolling Stone.

This reaction to Jim Morrison and The Doors’ usual flair for sexually provocative displays was just a small drop in the bucket of America’s restrictive view of obscenity. In 1970, a two-year Commission on Obscenity and Po*******hy was released. It found that the majority of Americans felt their exposure to obscene material actually had a positive impact on their development. Additionally, sexually explicit material had no direct contribution to antisocial behavior in adults or adolescents. At least, not the p**n people were watching in the 60s. These days, it’s a different story.

But Nixon had taken office in 1969. By then, a much more Puritan mindset had begun to take hold, often influenced by religious organizations like Citizens for Decent Literature.

Several months after Jim Morrison’s antics, in October 1970, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were playing a show in Tallahassee, Florida. Before performing, they were asked by the promoter to refrain from lewd or obscene behavior. Perhaps they had The Doors in mind when making this request.

Zappa’s response? He and the band went on stage and recited The M.O.I. Anti-Smut Loyalty Oath. They solemnly swore, in no uncertain terms, “under no circumstances to reveal my tube, wad, dingus, wee-wee, and/or p***s any place on this stage.” With, of course, the addendum: “This does not include private showings in the motel room, however, which is the Ramada Inn.”

Hey Now!

"Gandy dancer" was the slang for the railroad section crews who kept the tracks aligned. The work was brutal, traditionally men-only, and done using a "gandy"—a heavy lining bar. But everything changed during World War II.

When the men shipped out to the front lines, the railroads grew desperate. In Montana, the Great Northern Railway hired the "Switch Track Gandy Dancers"—a crew of 30 women, mostly ranch widows and Native American wives from the Blackfeet Reservation. Swapping dresses for men’s overalls, bandanas, and spiked boots, they took on the grueling task of replacing 39-foot rails in temperatures ranging from 110°F heat to -20°F blizzards.

Their foreman, "Big Bess" Yellow Horse, stood only 5’2”, but she could drive a spike in just three hits. She invented a chant to keep the crew’s rhythm steady: “Line her up, line her down, Bess ain’t letting this train down!” Together, they cleared derailments, laid sidings, and kept the copper moving for the war effort.

When the men returned home in 1945, the women were let go that very day. There were no pensions and almost no photos to document their service. They simply went back to their lives.

In 1987, the story resurfaced when a retired engineer found Bess’s old spike maul in a shed. Carved into the handle were 14 notches—one for every derailment she had prevented. It was a silent, lasting testament to the work they did when the world needed them most.