Interview with Hettie Jones

Jones, Hettie ; McKiernan, Stephen

Hettie Jones is the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine Yugen, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, and the University of Wyoming, and is one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University.

2009-07-06

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

105:31

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Hettie Jones
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers
Date of interview: 6 July 2009
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(Start of Interview)

00:09
SM: Still there? Hello, Hettie?

00:18
HJ: Are you there?

00:19
SM: Yep, I am here.

00:20
HJ: Okay. I do not know which phone is better, but I am just going to try them all out. Sometimes it is so difficult, and they are doing something to the street, you know, this is just an incredible area for change.

00:35
SM: Right.

00:36
HJ: But I have closed the windows and hopefully they are on a break. They started this I think at seven o'clock this morning doing something in the street, you know, and jack hammers

00:48
SM: Ah, yeah, there is a lot of that going around here. Not near me but road construction.

00:55
HJ: That is the way it is. Okay, well, I am trying this phone. Can you hear me well enough?

00:59
SM: Yeah, yep, I can hear you.

01:01
HJ: That is good. Okay.

01:02
SM: All right, let us start. The first question I wanted to ask is, when I met with Dr. Marilyn Young, the historian at New York University, maybe five, six years ago, and I asked the question, when did the (19)60s begin and she said, the (19)60s began with the Beat writers. And I think I mentioned this to you on the phone too, or in my letter, she is the only person that ever said that and all the people I have interviewed. Of course, she is a great historian. What do you think she was talking about when she said the (19)60s began with the Beats?

01:39
HJ: Well, because the (19)60s began with the television exposure and the media exposure. Do not forget that was just about the time, that television was growing into it as a medium for the dissemination of information. Before that, it was just sort of game shows and roller derby and just comedy and stuff like that. It was not a very serious thing. Yeah, they had the news but, the Beats somehow were well, I believe there were two things that I can think of: Jack Kerouac appeared on television, reading his poetry. And, what else was the other thing? Life magazine published an article about the Beats. So that these two small things, you would think small, things have made a big change. We were a very, very small group as I have written, you know. Everybody fit into my living room and it was not a very large living room. But then when we moved to a larger space, suddenly there were all these, well, I can only describe them as "wanna beats". And, the whole, the whole idea of rebellion had exploded, the whole idea of forging ahead with your own life and not conforming had made its way into the culture. And then there was suddenly hundreds of people doing that! And you know, in the later (19)60s, because of the Vietnam War and everything, people, young people felt that they could speak out. The threat of, I guess the silence that was imposed on the populace during the Second World War "Loose lips sink ships." You are not old enough to recall that, but I remember posters and things like that. So we were all expected to conform and to go live in the suburbs and be quiet and build peace and have a lot of children to replace all the people that died in the war. But suddenly it was not like that anymore. So that is why I believe it began, and we were a role model for people.

04:28
SM: I was looking up in a book, like four qualities that were described for the Beat Generation, which was, these qualities were: Eastern spirituality, alternative forms of sexuality, experimentation with drugs, and a rejection of a mainstream American values. And when I see that being described for the Beats, that is a lot of what happened in the counterculture in the (19)60s. That when you have the, the Beats, maybe the counterculture was the follow-up to those qualities in the in the (19)60s. Could you comment on those four qualities?

05:13
HJ: Well, you know, you are talking about everything except art. You are talking about everything except writing.

05:20
SM: Right.

05:21
HJ: So the Beats were writers. But they, if you want to include the entire Bohemia at that time, the abstract expressionist painters, the jazz musicians who were changing things. I think we were all interactive with one another, and it was more than lifestyle changing and more than attitudinal changing. It was really the Beats challenged the expected established ideas of what was American art. And you know, everybody knows that art goes before social change, it points the way to social change, points the way to real estate! Art is there, that is why they call us avant-garde! You know. And so, those four points that you mentioned, I would associate so much more with the people who came after us. The hippies, because, we were not; yes, we were doing that, all the points you mentioned it, but our focus was mainly on the commentary and the challenge to the culture that writing, that the writing brought, I think. But yeah, I guess certainly you know, they took the ball and ran with it. But they ran with it; the experimenting with drugs, for example, the only reason we did that was to achieve a higher consciousness and not for quote, unquote "recreation." And, I think it just had, it just had a little segue there into let us get, you know, who was it who used to say? Let us all get stoned, whatever that whoever made that, I forget! [laughs]

07:39
SM: Might have been Tim Leary. Who knows.

07:41
HJ: No, I think it was maybe Bob Dylan. [laughs]

07:44
SM: Yeah.

07:45
HJ: Do not forget, Bob Dylan was around in the village and if you read his autobiography, he attended LeRoi Jones' plays, he read On the Road. Yeah, he was very much influenced.

08:04
SM: When you talk about the arts here, obviously the arts of either the great writers of the Beats in the (19)50s and early (19)60s, and of course, they continue to write throughout their entire lives and are continuing to do so. But when you look at the, maybe some of the artists that came up in the (19)60s, or early (19)70s, whether they be musicians or painters, who would those that influenced the boomers. Who would? Who would they be?

08:33
HJ: Well, you know, it is hard for me to really project. I am not an historian and you know, I specialize in having a Zen mind. It is a blank mind so that I can write.

08:46
SM: Right?

08:47
HJ: So when I am thinking back into history, as to, I am not a critic, who influenced whom, I would still have to say, you know, thousands of people and billions of people read On the Road. Young black people have read or heard about or saw LeRoi Jones' plays. I think some of the women, but women were not really in the mix so much, but who else? Allen Ginsberg, of course. You know, millions and millions of people here and overseas listen to Allen and his rants. He was probably the most influential of anybody, and everybody wanted to "Mola Mola", you know. Turn over the establishment. Rail against war. Do this, do that. But they felt free to open their mouths because of those writers, I think.

09:58
SM: One of the things here, I put these thoughts down regarding the (19)50s. What were the circumstances in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that created the Beats and influenced the early lives of their children? Which are boomers. I put down some of the things that I would remember if I was just an elementary school kid from the (19)50s. President Eisenhower and his smile, the Space Race, Sputnik, Castro and (19)57, Khrushchev, Hungry in 1956, the Berlin Wall, parents had jobs that were secure, parents wanted to make sure that their kids were protected and they had more than when they grew up in the Depression. Moms were at home taking care of the kids and dads were always at work. And there was a seeming respect for authority. And certainly the term Communism was popular, was around at that time and of course McCarthyism, he was trying to find scapegoats and we all know that there is still a lot of segregation in the South. Just your thoughts on those qualities that obviously affected the Beats. They were commenting on them.

11:17
HJ: Well, we were running from them and, and doing whatever we could to set them aside and to try to invent a new life. You know, personally. I guess I experienced every single thing that that you have just listed and, my whole attitude was that I would just going to invent a whole new way to become a woman. From the clothing I wore, to my attitudes about being free to be a sexual being. Yes, certainly. I was in opposition to all of those, but I was not necessarily willing to engage all of those things that were in place. Because if you spend your time fighting, what is the established rule in every aspect, then you are just fighting and fighting, but you have not invented anything new. So my attitude and they attitude of all of the Beats that I knew and particularly women was simply go it alone or find kindred spirits, if you could, which we did a few of us. Just invent a new way of life by embarking on one and going forward rather than forever issuing challenges.

12:59
SM: Hettie, you bring up an important point, because when, when a lot of people think of the (19)50s, the (19)60s and early (19)70s, they see men always in charge of movements. And what was interesting is even when you look at the women's movement, and you study the history of it in the (19)60s, and how women were tired of being second figures and a lot of the anti-war and civil rights and all the other movements, that was when the Women's Movement really came to fruition. But what you are saying is there was a lot going on in the (19)50s with women trying to assert their attitudes and beliefs and feelings. Could you comment a little bit on women of the (19)50s, Beat writers who are female of the (19)50s and what they had to overcome?

13:49
HJ: Well, let us establish the fact that there were not very many of them. Very few, very, very few people. And of all the people who fit into my living room, probably a third were women. So, but they were all just running, you know. I think in a story, "Running from home as hard as they could, but bringing them, bringing it with them all the same." It is a line from a story I have written but we brought our attitudes. We, we were not out to particularly offend people, but only to seize our lives. To take control of our lives. But as I said, we were castigated. Let us think about a time when if you did not live with your parents until you got married and then live with your husband, there was something suspect about you. You were suspect for having your own apartment no matter where it was, in the village, in my case and then the case of many of the Beats. But you were suspect. If you were a sexual being you, you know? You were violating the law, but everybody knew that kind of subversive life. You know, also as I have written that supporting myself, women have always had sex, you know, you could always have sex. You could have sex in the backseat of a car or in the under the haystack or behind the barn, you know. But you could not talk about it. You could not feel free to live your life as though that were a part of your life. And that I think was very different, that we did what we did, but it was clear that it was open and aboveboard. And that made a big difference. We did not want to hide again. But I think that the, the women who say the women in SDS who came later and the women at Kent State, places like that, had somehow absorbed that idea through whatever effects the Beats on them and felt freer. It is like, you know, the pebbles that you throw in the water and the rings go out, and out and out.

16:39
SM: You raise a very important point here because if you study the history of the Students for Democratic Society, and I just read a book on them by the leader of the anti-war movement at Columbia, Mark Rudd. He talks about the women who were involved with SDS and all the, basically, all the sex they had with different partners, and it was encouraged! It was encouraged by the leadership of SDS.

17:11
HJ: Yeah but you see that was a little different and they are something different. Nobody was controlling it. The Beats were a small enough group or the art community that I am speaking of really basically, not just the Beats. Nobody going to tell you that was a ̶ you know, go ahead and have sex with this one and that one. You just did what you wanted to do. You were not - you know sex was not emphasized. It was just considered a part of everyone's life and you were lucky enough to be able to handle it. It was not, "Oh, I am going to go have sex!" It was more like, "Oh, I am going to live in New Year where people are challenging the establishment by making art and trying to describe life as we want to be able to live it." But it was almost with SDS people and all those people, it was almost deliberate flaunting and opposition.

18:24
SM: Right.

18:25
HJ: That is the ̶ I think that, maybe it is a subtle difference, but it was a bit of a difference.

18:33
SM: Well, I know we are going to ̶ we want to talk more about the (19)50s. But I do have to ask one question because you raise kids that are Boomers.

18:41
HJ: No, not really. Well, I suppose your definition says (19)64 but they do not consider themselves that at all.

18:51
SM: (19)46 and (19)64.

18:54
HJ: Right. My kids were born and (19)59 and (19)61. But there were, you know, black women who never considered themselves a part of that generation at all. They really grew up in a time that was more the Civil Rights era, and do not forget they have a very well-known father and they marched and they did this and that. So, they are a little different.

19:26
SM: What? Is there one a specific event in your life that shaped you when you were young?

19:32
HJ: Oh, well. You know, it is, I always saw that I was going, that art was a talent for me and I have written about this. In my memoir, there was that scene in the beginning of my book when I talked about weaving a basket when I was six. But even prior to that one, I was probably four. I remember making some comments. Making a metaphor and all the adults around me making a big fuss over me and it stayed with me for a very long time. And I have actually got a little written piece about it. So, I always I just always knew that I was a little bit, not a little bit, but a lot, but basically different from the rest of my family. You know, the whole changeling thing.

20:46
SM: Yes. This might be a repetition here, but this is a question I sent when I sent the six questions dealing directly with the Beats. Do you feel the Beats had a direct influence on the (19)60s and (19)70s, even though they were identified with the (19)50s?

21:04
HJ: Oh, yes! And, you know, they are no longer - you know, I taught classes on the Beats. And they are no longer identified with one particular era. You have to, when you are teaching young people who are so far removed from those events, you have to point out all of the historical patterns that led to what the Beats did. But they simply identify with the open road and the freedom and the wonderful writing. That is what they like. And the fact that, you know, that, particularly On the Road or Howl, or any other [those are the two iconic pieces from the time] that they are not about what is usually the case now. Novels are about relationships and poems are about looking at your navel and like that. I think young people appreciate the fact that these are works of engagement in some way or another, and they like them. They like the freedom. They like the spirit. They like the voice. I think that is what they like. So I forgot your original question. I am just meandering here.

22:41
SM: That is okay. To you, when did the (19)50s begin? Now I am talking, we know (19)50s begin in 1950 and (19)51. But when people talk about the (19)60s, we know the (19)60s really did not end until (19)73 and (19)74. So when did the (19)50s really begin in your eyes with the postwar and all things that I mentioned?

23:06
HJ: I feels like the (19)50s were always there, even in the (19)40s.

23:11
SM: Yeah, talk about that.

23:14
HJ: You know, everything was so devoted to the war. The war! The war, the Second World War began when I was seven years old. And I had just, you know, I was beginning to read and I was conscious of the world around me at that point. And the whole idea was to hunker down. Do not forget, I am a Jew, and therefore, we were kept very quietly at home. Because if it could happen over there, it could happen over here. So I lead a, what you would probably call a very comfortable, but ghettoized life. And that seems to be operative until the end of the (19)40s. I went to college in 1951. But at that point, I was beginning to think a lot about where I was in the world and what the world was in the midst of. McCarthy. The Rosenbergs. The atom bomb. All of that kind of stuff. And I had political opinions. I went to college in the South and encountered for the first time my life prejudice against me as well as against black people. The roommate with whom I had been assigned did not want to live with me because I was a Jew, and a Yankee. So you see, it all began for me as soon as I got away from home and started to see a little bit of the rest of the world and thankfully be way from having myself under wraps in a certain sense when I was at home. I already saw that I had to invent a new way of life at that time, and that was when the (19)50s really, really began for me. In the (19)50s, I began to be a (19)60s person. Does that makes sense?

25:48
SM: Yes.

25:50
HJ: Good.

25:51
SM: Yeah, that I will follow that up with when do you think the (19)60s and early (19)70s began?

25:58
HJ: Well, you know, the Bohemia that in which we lived in the later (19)50s and in the early (19)60s. It was short lived but intense and, everything just began around that time. I do not know, (19)62, (19)63. I remember, maybe (19)59, that was the first time we had a television set. And I remember watching someone college student being spit upon and that was the first time television had that much of an effect. Watching television and watching these kids at a lunch counter in some state, I do not know exactly where it was, shopping, their all dressed up in their suits and you know, Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, looking real respectable, and being spit upon in a diner in the South. The (19)50s began right there for me, because I already had one child and was committing that child for that, to that kind of life and wow, you know, my head was expanding every day.

27:29
SM: So that really is that experience of seeing that on TV and then having a child was kind of a watershed moment for you.

27:37
HJ: I guess so. I can still, I can still see it in my mind. Yeah, you know, you do not take a consideration like that lightly when you are thinking all the time and you are twenty-five years old.

27:59
SM: One of questions I wanted to ask and think I got a couple more before I switch my tape here. Allen Ginsburg, who you knew very well, seemed to be all the writers of the Beats the one that transcended decades. Because I can remember as a college student in 1972, seeing him at Ohio State in the Ohio union doing his chanting. And he never spoke, never read any poetry, he just was there for almost two hours chanting. And the room was packed. It was kind of, it was a, it was kind of a "be in", it was a "happening".

28:37
HJ: Yes.

28:38
SM: But he seemed to be at a lot of the anti-war protests. He was all over the world, was dealing with a lot of issues. What was it about Ginsburg? Because he obviously was very close to a lot of the Boomers and the (19)60s people. What separated him from the other Beat writers with respect to his involvement? He was out there, he was everywhere!

29:01
HJ: Well, God bless him. You know, he was the one to do it. You know. What separates Bob Dylan from all the rest of the people? He was a man with a message, right? A rolling stone. And Allen was a, you know, from his very beginning, even at Columbia, somebody who was breaking away from the future that had been ordained for him, had he followed the usual pattern and going into something wider, and he had lots of media exposure, and he was very good. He had marvelous stage presence. He had incredible concentration. Allen was a very, very multitalented man in that respect, and fearless! And everyone had a lot of respect for him, because he would just stand up to anything. And he was very, you know, all these things were people who were very well read. And they, they were intellectual, in a lot of senses. They were not just populist figures who came out of nowhere. They, they were men with the messages. And Allen particularly was good with audiences. His politics were radical for the day, but, and he used it and he used the forum. Any forum he was offered. But he is less of a figure today more of an occult figure, although he is still beloved by people who read Howl.

31:19
SM: Alright, go right ahead.

31:22
HJ: So he is still beloved, but you know he is not in that, young people caught onto him because they see his rants against the establishment as theirs as well. I do not think anybody but Barack Obama has taken young people by storm, since Allen.

31:51
SM: I often noticed, because I have a lot of books on the Beats and some actually like Ferlinghetti's poetry and I have a lot of the City Lights books and I know Ferlinghetti has written poems on the (19)60s and the (19)70s many, and also, Anne Waldman wrote a great group of poems on Vietnam and Ed Sanders; so there was no question that the (19)60s and (19)70s really have - that many of the Beats were still - this is a very important period for them.

32:22
HJ: Oh, yeah, I think so. Well, do not forget Anne Waldman is much younger than everybody, you know. Anne Waldman is a decades younger and was way younger than Allen too. So, she was. Oh, I think more, more, if you want to talk about I do not know that. She doesn't identify with Boomers but who are the Boomer poets? We think we I do not know really.

32:58
SM: I can only, I can only think of one: Rod McKuen.

33:03
HJ: Yeah, I am not even familiar with him. As I told you when we discussed this interview, during the (19)70s, I was, during the late (19)60s and (19)70s, I was trying to keep my head up, trying to not lose my apartment, of trying to keep my kids on the straight and narrow, you know. I was trying to earn a living, and become a writer and the world just had to fall away at a certain point because even the feminist movement had to pass me by. I was not interested in a glass ceiling. I was not at all. I was concerned in trying to reinvent a life between the races for myself. So when you talk about popular figures and writers of the (19)70s, I am going to be at a loss.

34:12
SM: Right. Well, what is interesting here is you are talking about the writers of different periods. I have a question here. Before I get to that question, I wanted, you in your email to me, you gave a one line regarding the fact about the Boomers. And, I know we are not going to basically talk about the qualities and so forth about them. But I did want to ask you from afar, if you were to be asked, what are your thoughts on the young people that were involved in the anti-war movement and, you know, they were challenging authorities during that timeframe, and also the fact that the intellectual links because you have reiterated over and over again, I believe this, just like you that the intellectual environment which was, was set central core to the Beats, that a lot of the anti-war, and a lot of the things happening in the movements was also happening in the university environment, which is supposed to be an intellectual environment. And the challenges were coming in freedom of expression on university campuses, just as the writers are writing about it, you know, in the (19)50s. Challenging authority. Do you? Can you see, again, the link somehow even from afar, between these two intellectual environments, and the challenging of authority?

35:42
HJ: Well, when we talk about universities, do not forget, up to that point, universities were modeled on the Greek model and we studied Western civilization. Right?

35:59
SM: Yes.

36:00
HJ: And that was really the core curriculum. I think because of the fact that a lot of information pops up, is the right word to use here, about groups who are tangential to all of that came into the culture. People, the young people in the universities, were challenging what was taught. And there began the movement or inclusivity that had been, again challenged every step of the way because nobody learns the same thing anymore. Because the universities have eventually bowed to that and began including courses about other aspects about America. Right? American literature. I mean who read Momaday? He was an Indian? Hardly anybody. You know, who read Langston Hughes? Hardly anybody. Because he is a black man. But trying to get all of these brains into the university as part of American culture. This was an era when film criticism grew as a discipline. When, jazz began to be considered as music! Instead of just entertainment. A lot of different disciplines that required intellectual attention were being promoted. And I think young people who now felt freer than ever to speak their mind were challenging the university's old ways of, you know, studying dead white men and that was all we ever knew about. I mean, you know, unless you took specific courses, you did not learn about the American labor movement. I never had a class in which I learned about the women, the Suffragettes. I mean, yes, I had some general ideas that women got the vote in, you know 19(00), whatever it was (19)11 or something or other like that, but one did not do close studies of that. So, you know, a lot was changing in the universities that had to do with the desire that somehow began to be abroad in the land, and that there was a lot more to learn than what you learned in school.

39:06
SM: One of the qualities you are also looking at Herbert Huncke, who you obviously know. When I am reading on the beats, very important thing came out to the edge of Beat came to the group through the underworld association with Herbert Huncke, where it originally meant tired or beaten down. And a lot of the people in the (19)60s had that same feeling about being beaten down. And so I see these comparisons constantly between the Beat writers, the intellectual writing, the arts, and a lot of the activism of the (19)60s, the feeling of being beaten down. And just your thoughts on that.

39:53
HJ: Well, oppression, you know. And I do not know. You know the word 'beat', 85,000 ways. [laughs] It was a, it was a very convenient, very convenient term, but nobody, you can define it any way you really want to. But the, you know, Huncke, of course, oh, I think he was right. I think, you know, that is the generally accepted definition of it. But I think more, you know, in terms of the people in the sixtes; the college students, they were not beat. They were not junkies hanging out in Times Square. The way they interpreted really all of that kind of feeling was that they will repressed and of course, they were repressed. It was every kind of repression going on. Suppression. It was political for them and sexual and everything, and I think they just responded to it by acknowledging it. And you know how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? Right?

41:17
SM: Yes.

41:20
HJ: They just took this fuse and I think popularized them. And of course, you know young people, they do whatever seems hippest. You have got to realize that when you are, well you know, when you are seventeen or eighteen, if you see something that is exciting, you will gravitate toward it that is where the cutest people were right?

41:48
SM: Freedom of expression is something you know, we just came off the July fourth weekend and our founding fathers and through two hundred plus years here in the United States freedom of expression is something we all love. We see what happens in Iran and the suppression going on over there. But if the Beats and their writing, obviously there was some suppression going on there. And even though we talk about freedom of expression in the United States of America, is not there a price one has to pay for truly speaking up? Whether it be through a great book, whether it be through an interview, or a TV show, or in the (19)60s through a protest? There is a price. Dr. King used to always say that if you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, then you really do not have any beliefs. And especially if there is injustice happening, this concept of free expression - if you were in the room right now, with all the great Beat writers of the (19)50s and you were just going to have a conversation on the term "freedom of speech in the United States of America in 1955" what do you think most of your peers would say?

43:14
HJ: That it was limited, you know, I am just thinking of McCarthy in his day. I know I was in, I think I was still in college? Do you have McCarthy's dates? When the House on American Activities was?

43:32
SM: Yeah. That was early (19)50s.

43:38
HJ: (19)52, (19)53?

43:39
SM: Yes.

43:39
HJ: Yes. So that it was evident that speaking out and were using to speak up. People were jailed, blacklisted, jailed! So that had happened in the immediate past. In 1955, it would have been on everyone's mind. The bomb. Speaking out against the bomb. Speaking out against. You were a communist sympathizer, if you even said that maybe there was something to socialism, not even communism but socialism heaven forbid. Equality for women, parity in the work ̶ We did not even get that far in the mid (19)50s. But, yeah, of course a price would be paid! You know the first demonstration that I ever went on was not until I had one child so it would have been 1960 and it was when Castro came to the UN, and we marched around the park. I have written about this in front of the UN. And they had a whole cordon of mounted policemen who [inaudible] us. And they did not let me march with my baby in her stroller.

44:31
SM: Hmm.

44:44
HJ: You know, and they made me go sit on a bench. They said it was too dangerous. So yeah. Oh dear, someone is ringing my bell. Steve can you bear with me because that may be a kind of a package.

45:37
SM: Yep, yeah, I will bear with it. I will wait.

45:38
HJ: I do not want it to go back to the - Okay, thanks a lot.

45:41
SM: Yep. Alright, I got my tape back on. Continue what you are saying.

45:48
HJ: Now I forgot what I was saying. I was so, what was I talking about?

45:52
SM: I am not even sure now. Maybe I will just go to the next question.

45:57
HJ: Sure.

45:58
SM: Okay. This is just again, I know we are not going to talk about specifically about the Boomers but just from that one line you sent me on the email again. If you were ̶ Just your general thoughts on the Boomer generation. What, what were their good qualities or bad qualities in your mind, from afar?

46:21
HJ: Um, well, you know, it is funny because all of those kids as I, I thought of them, and I never thought of them as Boomers I mean, we did not even we did not use that word then. I thought, the ones that I knew and who hung around my neighborhood and everything, were hippy. And, and that was how I saw them. I appreciated a lot of their impulses. That was what I appreciated, were their impulses. They had certain ideas: back to the land, nonmaterialistic culture, things like that. I appreciated all of that. However, they seemed to lack the kind of, I do not think 'political will' is what I really mean here, but they seemed this kind of laid back on, you know, 'let us go get stoned' sort of thing and that was not what we were about. We were about hard work and making our, you know making the changes that we wanted known through, were not only political protests, but through writing. And so I saw a lot them as, a lot of them were, aimless at first. But, you know, then throughout I think the (19)70s people had to shape up. But at first, they seemed, I do not know what they were living on, you know. Whatever they were living on, they might have been drifting? I just, you know, there were a lot, I because of my position I saw them a lot of the time as spoiled little white kids who could do whatever they wanted, because they did not have a hardscrabble existence. They could straighten themselves up and put on a jacket and tie and go work in an office when they wanted to. I felt that there was some, a little bit of a nonseriousness about them. But then, I am sure things changed. And do not forget, as you know, I have to keep reminding you, I was off in my own little world.

49:05
SM: Yes.

49:05
HJ: Kind of trying to figure out how to get through each month.

49:11
SM: A lot of the hippies went into the communes. What were your thoughts on the communal life that many of them participated in?

49:20
HJ: Well, if you look at the history of it, they did not really they did not succeed in a lot of ways, because they had forgotten to take into account the fact of human feelings; of jealousies and the need for privacy and, we were not all meant for a communal existence. Some of them, some of us are lone wolves. You know, I think you have to applaud a lot of what they, a lot of what they did. But you know, communal, well, there are still a few communes that are running but communes very often degenerate into cults. And I have seen and read the effect of cults on people. I have had students who had formerly been in cults and you know, directionless people looking for direction are going to look for a leader and sometimes the leader is less than trustworthy, were exploited.

50:41
SM: One of the one of the things about I always looked at where people genuine when they did things and obviously, I want to come in and if you felt the Beat writers were genuine in their writing. And also when you look at the generation of followed them, the Boomers, 15 percent of the people that were in that generation of seventy to seventy-five million really participated, though the rest of them did not. But always, the question that I have to ask myself to who experienced it, how genuine were most of them in in their concerns? Or you know - so basically, could you comment on how genuine the Beats were in their writing? Because obviously, they were intellectually gifted. They were deep thinkers. But the term genuine is something that is a very important quality in people. And so your comments on both the Beats of the (19)50s and the ones that continue writing today, plus the Boomers and their activism during that (19)60s and (19)70s.

51:54
HJ: Regarding genuine, you know, you certainly are genuine when you are putting yourself up for criticism and castigation because do not forget when the Beats were first published that they began to write. I mean, I worked, I ran the Partisan Review office at that time and the general response from the literary establishment was, oh, this is ridiculous. You know. This is just, you know, they just dismissed them. So if you are the genuine article and you believe in what you have to say, you are just going to say, okay, that is the way they feel and I will just continue to go on. I think that the fact that they were genuine is evidenced by the fact that they have lasted so long and are in now the tannin. You know? Now kids who take freshmen "Comp." are reading On the Road. So, there you go! Talk about the cannons they have been admitted. But had they not spoken from their heart, who would have bothered you know? They would have faded away.

53:19
SM: Well, were the anti-war, civil rights, women's movement, gay and lesbian, where would you place them in there?

53:28
HJ: Certainly somebody like Adrienne Rich, certainly. Yeah. You know, like the other people who really are associated with the beginnings of the feminist movement all of a sudden, I am blanking on their names. Who I do I mean? They had to! Of course they were genuine! Otherwise, they wouldn't have been considered so, over and over and over by so many different generations tracing the history of the feminist movement. And you know, genuineness is the fact that Allen spoke openly of homosexuality let a lot of people come out of the closet. The fact that the feminist movement led women to make demands of their own, do not forget, we were also we were making something like fifty-five cents on the dollar compared to men or sixty-five? I have forgotten. A very, very low salary. And you never saw women lawyers, you never saw, we hardly had any women doctors. The whole world has changed a great deal in terms of what we accept the ability of women to do! So, yeah, they were genuine. But as far as the writers that I think of they are more polemicists than artists in that sense. The writing is to formulate a political agenda rather than to create art, and that is a bit of a [inaudible] I think.

55:19
SM: One of the important questions I have asked all of my guests and this just applies to everyone here and you probably saw this on the list, it was number eleven. The concept of healing. I want to - I took a group of students, to see former senator Edmund Muskie before he died when I was working at the university and it was one of our leadership on the road programs. And I took fourteen students with me, we got into the room, we were taping we were talking about the (19)68 convention and all the divisions in America the anti-war movement, and of course he was he had long since retired and actually he was not feeling very well either he had just come out of the hospital. And I asked the question, I said, about healing and this is the ̶ I am going to just read it here: Do you feel Boomers and I guess I will say the people of the (19)50s too. Do you feel Boomers are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth and their growing up years? The division between black and white. Divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it. Division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. What role did the Wall play in healing these divisions in Washington? Do you feel that the Boomer generation will go to it is grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has thirty-five years made that statement "Time heals all wounds," a truth? I bring this up and Senator Muskie when I asked him a question specifically about the divisions in America in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s and (19)80s. He did not even respond for about a minute. And then he looked up at us and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War."

57:06
HJ: Yes.

57:06
SM: And just your thoughts? To me healing, I have worked with a lot of veterans, I have worked with a lot of people that were involved with the (19)60s and they still have issues about you know, what happened then. And a lot of times people do not come together that are opposing sides. Your thoughts on this concept? Do we have a problem with healing in this nation?

57:29
HJ: Well, I think Senator Muskie was right, you know, the Civil War. But, then yeah, I mean, we keep going slowly toward it and then drawing away and slowly toward it and drawing away. It has so many little subtexts and so many ramifications. The war in Vietnam, of course, divided people. You know, any war. I am just thinking about the Gulf War, the war in Iraq. All the people who marched all over the world. All the people who marched here and try to keep it from happening. There are people, who still live with the idea that, that this is America. We are the strongest nation, we control. Everything we do is correct. And if you criticize, you are not patriotic. And then, of course, there is the other side who feel free to change direction. I think that was what everybody was hoping. Healing was what everybody was hoping for when they elected Barack. And we see it is hard. It is hard to do, but oh you know, we have to give it – we are a young country, with a lot of different immigrant groups who have not yet become an American thoroughly. We are still group identified. We play identity politics all the time. And that is a result also of that, push for inclusion in the universities. You know, everybody talks about that now, how nobody learns the same thing anymore and we are all half educated and half-assed. But if we live long enough and we do not destroy each other, if we can still manage to go to the polls and vote and not have this same sorts of guys who won the election then we can. You know, democracy is a very messy, messy thing. And generations change. You can see it in families, children think differently from their parents.

1:00:11
SM: Can you speak again more clearly into the phone?

1:00:15
HJ: Yeah, I am sorry. I got up, I moved! [laughs] That was what happened, okay? America is a young country and we are a young people. And eventually the whole country will look the way New York looks now, which is everybody is a different, slightly different color when you look at somebody. I sometimes have no idea when I encounter students and little children. I do not know. I cannot imagine what their parenthood is and why would you want to know? So we still have a ways to go. You know, Europeans who now call themselves Europeans, they have hundreds and hundreds of years behind them. And here we are, you know, we just dumped ourselves on the Indians not too long ago. [laughs]

1:01:18
SM: This business of healing and other one is the issue of trust. And I say this even to the Beat writers of the (19)50s. And, and then also to the Boomer generation, and the, the issue of trust because there was a lot of things in our lives when we were young and as we were growing up that we look at authority figures that really turn young people off. And the Boomers saw so many of them through Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and even Ronald Reagan in later years. I speak of the Iran Contra with Kennedy and what was really going on Vietnam, Johnson with a Gulf of Tonkin. Eisenhower lied about the U2 incident. And the Boomers really did not trust anybody in authority, whether it was a minister, a rabbi, a priest, a university president, a corporate leader. We did not trust anybody. The question I am asking you, and I, you know, be a great question also, while the Beats were in a room too, as they get as they grew up. I remember a psychology professor telling me this in PSYC101 at my university, Binghamton University. I can remember him saying this in our in our PSYC101 class that if you cannot trust somebody, and if you have no sense of trust, then you yourself will not be a success in life. And that always stuck to me and I remember that class and then as I got older. So what I am getting at is that you know, not having it - do we have an issue of trust in this country? And had the writings of the Beats and the activism of the Boomers of the (19)60s and (19)70s and hopefully in their lives, helped? What do they trust after all of their efforts?

1:03:25
HJ: Well, if you want blind trust it is one thing. If you add a trust with keeping your eye on, on what people are doing, I think that is a different thing. But we've learned to withhold our immediate sense of trust because we've been disappointed, you know, here, look at the most recent - look at the look at the war in Iraq! Who were we trusting? Who did? Did we question the evidence that was manufactured about weapons of mass destruction, etcetera, etcetera? And if you; we've learned over and over again, that people lie. That people in authority will lie sometimes to keep their own interest or what they believe to be right with, there is you know, the fact that there was no open discussion of well, there was open discussion, there was protests as you know, more recently with Bush and then he went ahead and did what he wanted to do. But why? Why would one? Why would one give them what I am thinking? I do not agree with your professor. If you do not trust anyone. Let me hedge that a little bit.

1:05:08
SM: Make sure you speak closer to that mike.

1:05:10
HJ: Oh, yeah, it is my phone. You know, sorry. I think that personal trust in one's daily interactions with people is a good thing to have. One should be open to the hope that one another instead of you having an exchange with someone, it will be built on mutual trust and respect. But we have to learn politically to cast a wary eye and I think that is a very good thing. That is what democracy is. You know, we are participating I think, when we criticize.

1:06:00
SM: Just a general question. Why do you think the Vietnam War ended?

1:06:06
HJ: Huh.

1:06:06
SM: What was the ̶ if they were to pinpoint one thing? Why did it end?

1:06:11
HJ: You know, McNamara died yesterday. I heard that on the radio this morning.

1:06:17
SM: I did not know that!

1:06:18
HJ: Yeah, he died. So they were talking a little bit about that. Why do I think it ended? Well, it was, you know, everybody - it was understood that it was a lost cause! That this was, well, was not our first war of imperialism, you know, if you think of the Spanish American War. That was also. But I think we learned what the French had learned and what the British had learned. There was so much protest here that I think that public officials had to understand and take into account the will of the people finally, finally. But, you know, it was a whole lot of different facts.

1:07:21
SM: Is it is it realistic, you know, the Wall in Washington and I do not know if you visited it, but it is, it is unbelievable. It was done an awful lot to heal veterans and their families. But also a lot of vets will not go there because it brings back sad memories but your thoughts on him? I, me, Steve McKiernan, the writer of this book, and the person who puts these questions together, am I kind of asking an almost impossible question regarding the fact of healing that, that one day we will not do what they did in the Civil War, which they never did heal, but that one day, people who are against the war in Vietnam and those who were for the war will hug each other?

1:08:09
HJ: They are all going to be dead Steve. [laughs] So it is not going to make one bit of difference. Right now we are focusing on what is going on over in the Middle East. And that has become, you know, it is not that we have a limited attention span. It is just that will have to that will take the war in Vietnam will remain a sticky issue and it can be argued by historians from then on and but the Boomers will go to their graves debating that. I think. Because they believe so firmly in, each in his own way. There was no win and there was no loss. So there were no winners and losers there.

1:09:11
SM: It is amazing at Gettysburg this past weekend, one of the park rangers; retired, his son, who serves in Iraq and I asked him point blank about the Wall and he went into a rage about the anti-war protesters and boy, he said, if he the chance, he'd, "put them up against a wall and shoot him!"

1:09:29
HJ: Yeah, right.

1:09:30
SM: So that the rage is still in some people. So,

1:09:34
HJ: You know, how old was this park ranger?

1:09:36
SM: Oh, he was sixty or sixty-one he was not a park ranger. He was a volunteer.

1:09:41
HJ: Okay. All right. Yeah. But, you know, he is still fighting the Civil War too, right?

1:09:47
SM: Yes. [laughter]

1:09:52
HJ: You know and the Civil War is not going to be over until the New South truly becomes the New South. You know, every time I go down south with my family, especially, I am always aware that the New South is just the Old South in a new dress.

1:10:11
SM: Hmm.

1:10:12
HJ: You know, many of the attitudes have not changed. You know, when I went to college in Virginia, it was in my sociology class, it was "our people," and when I asked, "What do you mean our people?" Well, it was "our Negroes." You know, and I was just shocked and offended.

1:10:32
SM: Oh my gosh.

1:10:33
HJ: that people my age, which was, you know, seventeen years old and eighteen years old, we were fighting the Civil War again, one hundred years later. So people will absorb what they learn from their families and what they are on in school. But I think right now, there is a whole generation of young people who are very willing to open their mouths. And Vietnam means nothing to them at all. What they are concerned about is what is happening now. And one of the differences is that the wars being fought by a volunteer army of generally poor people. Mostly poor guys from, from all over America who, liked the idea of picking up a gun and going to shoot people who wear head wraps. The same way there were those people who wanted to go in Vietnam and shoot at the "Gooks" or whatever they called them. But there is, but there is no draft. Were there a draft, boy that would be a whole different story? So, we'll see. I do not know, I mean, nobody knows what the future holds.

1:12:02
SM: Kind of a follow up to that, one of the things when you think about you in the in all the Beat writers is you would write and you are not afraid to go it alone. That you go it alone and then pay a price for it and one of the things we try to instill in college students when they become first year then by the time they graduate is the concept of self-esteem. Where they are comfortable with who they are, what they stand for, and what they believe in and they kind of develop a concept of integrity, which I believe the Beats have, and certainly the people that were genuine and the anti-war movement had. Do you feel? Do you sense this too? About how important it is that the Beats can really send a message to today's college students? Because of that concept of going at it alone? Because you have to have a sense of self-esteem to, to speak up and to believe in something and stand on your own two feet.

1:13:01
HJ: The kids I teach are far more vocal but these days, I am teaching graduate students. But I have taught undergraduates in the last couple of years and, and it is true that I am in New York, and I get really smart students at the New School but, I think there are pretty smart students everywhere. And they also they write a lot. Look at that! They write emails. They write all over Facebook. They do this, that. They are always expressing themselves, whether it is important or whether it is not important. But they have the idea of free expression, and that is a great entitlement. That is a very different thing. And in the course of expressing themselves, they are figuring out what they think. So that I think is a very, very good thing. And if I am me I have respect for, they are a little concerned about how they are going to support themselves, given the economy. There is no longer any sense that oh, well, I will just go get a job and stay with it then and then I will do my art on the side or whatever. Nothing like that! Their position is a little more open and scary. But they have to rely on themselves. Also, something we have not mentioned, which has to do with pop psychology. When I went to college, psychology and psychiatry and related professions, were very young. Not everybody went to be psychoanalyzed. Only a few intellectuals. You know, you did not have TV shows that explored people's motives and this and that and the other thing. There were not self-help books. The whole idea of self-correction was; hadn't even yet been developed. So there is a very different zeitgeist in that respect. That people think of their inner lives and, and their desires and are more willing to express them than before because that is socially acceptable.

1:15:36
SM: One thing, Hettie, though, is when you - willingness to express and willingness to act. And there is a big difference. I know today's college students are really into volunteerism. Probably 90 to 95 percent of college students are volunteering and helping people in a variety of ways. But when you define volunteerism, and you separate it from activism. Activism is twenty-four seven, seven days a week and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Whereas volunteerism is a specific time you go and do things and even though it is part of activism, it is not the way one lives one's life. And my question to you is, the impact that Boomers have had that is, they are now in their late (19)50s and to mid (19)60s, or heading toward mid (19)60s is that activism is the willingness to speak but also the willingness to act. And, and I have gotten a sense, this is just, just me, that universities today are afraid of the term activism, and they will constantly talk about volunteerism. Activism reminds them of an era when students protested whether it be in the late (19)30s or in the 1960s and it connotes disruption of the university, a challenge to authority again, and they are fearful of it. And um, I'd like your thoughts on that if you are teaching college students, and also the fact that I am sensing that a lot of college students, aren't activists, they are volunteers.

1:17:15
HJ: Well, you know, I think you are right, because they, all of those who have, you know, take a look at the election. All the volunteers, the student volunteers for the election, they saw the electoral process as an act for which they have something they could do volunteer, no matter what you call it, that could actually have a result within the democratic process. And I, you know, that was the first time I have seen that and it was to be applauded. Now, you know, like, one of one of the things that you learn if you study [inaudible] and people like that. It is like when people are hungry, you cannot expect them to be active politically, they are looking for something to eat.

1:18:16
SM: Mmm.

1:18:17
HJ: And a lot of these college students today are looking for something to eat. They are not as you know, they are not as confident that daddy and mommy will support them. And they are looking around rather warily. But they believe in participatory democracy. They believe in helping. But I do not think they have reached that stage although, ho! ho! Ho! If you want to look for one example, look at what a few was last month when the students at the New School took over a building.

1:19:02
SM: I did not know that.

1:19:03
HJ: You did not know that.

1:19:04
SM: No, I did not.

1:19:05
HJ: Well you better read up on it! Okay. Everybody wanted Bob Perry, the President, of the New School to resign. And guess what? After enough foment, he resigned.

1:19:18
SM: What was it over?

1:19:19
HJ: What?

1:19:19
SM: What was the issue?

1:19:21
HJ: The issue was the management of the university and his taking control and appointing himself not only the president, but provost and pre-Provost as with under his tenure.

1:19:34
SM: Wow.

1:19:36
HJ: There were firings of professors who'd worked in various departments or a long period of time. I was a couple of years ago, there was a lot of reorganization at the university but I had been teaching a class on the beats at the invitation of the person who was the head of the writing program at the undergraduate school, Lange.

1:19:59
SM: Uh huh

1:19:59
HJ: And he said that nobody needed to study the Beats anymore. So he took away my class.

1:20:06
SM: Unbelievable.

1:20:07
HJ: So I was fired for, you know, somebody I know would been working at the New School in various departments for ten years was fired. You know, things like that. Anyway, there was general dissatisfaction and the students, they figured well, you better, you know, you can look that up and see.

1:20:17
SM: I definitely will. I am proud of the students!

1:20:32
HJ: They were on the roof with masks on and everything.

1:20:35
SM: Okay.

1:20:37
HJ: [laughs]

1:20:37
SM: Well, that is, well, that is, that is good!

1:20:42
HJ: Yeah.

1:20:43
SM: Because I have always felt that students need to be empowered and feel that they are.

1:20:48
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, like, as I said, this is New York, and we get a lot of people here who have come here, specifically to make a big fuss, make a lot of noise and to do art and whatever and they are doing it.

1:21:07
SM: If there was one event, if, if we had a room of five hundred Boomers. And if there was one event that had the greatest impact on their life when they were young, and I mean, between the time they were born and say, thirty, what would that event be?

1:21:26
HJ: Gee, you know, I do not know, if you have to give me a date and one event?

1:21:35
SM: After 1960.

1:21:37
HJ: In the (19)60s?

1:21:39
SM: It would be mostly ̶̶ because Boomers did not go to seventh grade until they were in the 1960s. So it would have to be when they were in high school or college or early adulthood.

1:21:53
HJ: Well, you know certainly the constriction for the Vietnam War. When everyone had to register for the draft. Now and the war and it was revealed early on as a useless, colonialist war. That it seems to me what has to be the point because that really caused the most foment.

1:22:23
SM: Right.

1:22:24
HJ: You know, I guess for my generation would have been more the McCarthy era, but it has to be the war the war was the biggest thing. The Vietnam War was.

1:22:38
SM: If you could just respond just a quick thoughts on these things. What just your quick thoughts: Kent State and Jackson State?

1:22:48
HJ: Oh, Kent State got a lot of notice because of the killings, because of the photography, because at that point, TV news could disseminate information easily. But Jackson State, you see there you go! Jack State demonstrates how, again, the lives of young white people were valued more than the lives of young black people.

1:23:22
SM: Hmm.

1:23:23
HJ: And that is the way that you know, this is the world. This is the world in which I was bringing up black children. So you can understand why my emphasis has more to do with that issue, the civil rights issue, than anything else.

1:23:45
SM: How about Watergate?

1:23:48
HJ: Oh, well, Watergate, you know. None of us liked Nixon anyway, but that exposure you know! What year was Watergate again?

1:24:03
SM: (19)72, (19)73, (19)74.

1:24:08
HJ: Right. Well, it was exposing that kind of terrible lying and shenanigans that you would never expect from quote your word "authority." And it made us disrespect the elected political figure.

1:24:35
SM: Woodstock.

1:24:35
HJ: Woodstock? Oh, you know, Woodstock. Woodstock was charming and all people were covered with mud and everything it was so cute. I had to look upon it from afar and think is not it wonderful that they had all the time to go listen to music.

1:24:55
SM: How about the term "counterculture" which they think is the expansion of the Beat Generation. Yeah,

1:25:02
HJ: Yeah. You know, counterculture. It is all part of the culture from this removes. The counterculture has consumed the other culture although we still read a Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted a lot these days. It will all be one culture eventually. I was thinking the other day about there is a guy on the radio on WNYC who has a program called the American Songbook. And I have a son-in-law who's a musician and we were talking on the fourth about music and of course, we were talking about Michael Jackson and I thought well you know the American Songbook; one of these days, they will figure out that it has to include Carole King, and has to include all those wonderful you know, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay Wasting Time." You know, yeah, that is America and that is what, that is what, a lot of the rest of the world sees as American culture, so whether it is counter or not, it was counter then but it is not counter no more.

1:26:19
SM: How about the term "1968?" That was a pretty rough year.

1:26:25
HJ: Yeah, it was a pretty rough year, but, um, you know, it was personally harder for me than just about anything else. So, I do not know that I can quantify it.

1:26:39
SM: If you look in the while, you know, more than anybody, they have the beatniks whenever you know, especially in the (19)50s when I was a kid and I am sure a lot of Boomers this way they look they watched Dobie Gillis and of course Maynard G. Krebs. He was the beatnik and of course everybody loves Sandra D. is beautiful white girlfriend. But the beatniks became the hippies of the (19)60s then you had the yippies which was the extreme. What are your thoughts on the hippies and the yippies?

1:27:11
HJ: You know, everybody likes a name for something or other. The hippies, you know it was very cute. "Beatniks" also that that is something that Herbert (Huncke) made up after the beats had achieved some kind of note ̶ you know, it was right after Sputnik went up and that "N-I-K" is a Russian diminutive. I never thought us beatnik but people use it interchangeably with the Beats and I have to correct them all the time although sometimes I am too lazy to do that. But, you know, hippies, oh hippies wore flowers and smelled like patchouli and, you know, asked for spare change on the street and went barefoot and you know, were very sweet and very young and smoked a lot of dope.

1:28:14
SM: [laughs]

1:28:14
HJ: A very, very small group of you know, again using your word "activists", but they really did not have very much effect.

1:28:28
SM: Your thoughts on the students for.

1:28:30
HJ: Abbie Hoffman.

1:28:31
SM: Jerry Rubins.

1:28:33
HJ: Jerry ̶ yeah, but if you know if you think of the trouble in Chicago.

1:28:44
SM: Yes.

1:28:45
HJ: That was 1960 - what year?

1:28:48
SM: That was 1968.

1:28:50
HJ: Yeah, that was 1968.

1:28:51
SM: It was after the "Chicago Eight" when Bobby Seale was chained and that was the "Chicago Seven" because he wouldn't stop speaking.

1:29:01
HJ: But you see, that kind of thing.

1:29:04
SM: The SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society and The Weathermen and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, those groups.

1:29:13
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, I am personally acquainted with people who were in the Weather Underground, and they, they, if you talk about activism, they felt that what they were doing was just. But they did not realize, you know, they were naive. They were naive. They had no backing, they were just small underground groups of people and, you know, I am personally acquainted with some people who served time and many years in prison and some who still are in prison for those actions and they regret them. Because they were first acts that, you know, brought all of the all of the armor of the state against them as well as public opinion. You have to be ready if you are going to conduct guerilla warfare you have got to go up into the mountains and get a lot of folks around you, you can do it with ten people. I do not believe.

1:30:30
SM: When the best history books are written, and normally it is fifty years after an era, so when we are talking about the Beats, actually the best ones, are probably being written right now or in the coming years. And certainly the same thing is going to happen about the Boomer generation there has been so much written about the war and all the activisms be it right now and down the road are going to be the best books. What do you think? The, like, say one hundred years from now when students are in school, and they are reading about the (19)50s and the (19)60s and the (19)70s. How important were the Beats be in those history books, the Beat writers, and, and how important with the Boomers or the (19)60s and (19)70s be in those history books?

1:31:21
HJ: Well, I think, given the fact that we still read, Edgar Allan Poe, and we still read, oh, those wonderful Abigail Adams letters, it is possible that people will still be reading the Beats for their literary interest. But not but as I said, you know, I do not think much. I do not know what exactly people will be reading of the Boomer generation because that, you know, they did not have very much of an effect on me. So maybe there'll be maybe people will still be studying the history of the feminist movement. You know, when I was young, I used to be able to predict the future. And now that I am pretty old, I do not exactly know. Technology will change very many things. Who knows whether we'll, I hope will be reading. I do not know that we'll be reading books. If we cannot figure out some way to replace all the oil that is in the ground. We are not going to be able to have this wonderful internet anymore. So we got to figure out alternative energies. But you know, you cannot imagine. Could you imagine if you lived in 1850, the motor car? [laughs]

1:32:59
SM: My golly! Yeah, you are right in that, you know, the Boomers oftentimes, I do not know if this is the naiveté or whatever they always think they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to end racism, sexism, end all war. And that is not every member of the generation, but certainly a lot of them that were involved in activism. What, what kind of, is that just youthful thinking? Or is there a belief that one day we can do that?

1:33:27
HJ: At least their desire was in the right place. They wanted to, they wanted to heal. You know, going back to our first question. They saw what was wrong and what needed to be remedied. And being the problem is not, it is not addressing the problem, but it is not curing the problem. Maybe -

1:33:57
SM: There you go. OK? I am ready. Still there?

1:34:04
HJ: Well, I am saying that their last, they are seeing all those problems and wanting to remedy them doesn't have any bearing on whether they were able to. But, you know, we had the Voting Rights Act, we had the Equal Opportunity Employment Act, we had all different kinds of governmental decisions that were based on popular desires. If they were not, generally they were, yes, some quarters, they were imposed but we were still challenging all these, these, these laws and everything and it was still, as I said, we were young country and we were still fighting and that democracy is messy.

1:34:59
SM: I agree. One of the novels that was written in the early (19)70s. I forget the gentleman who wrote it, he only wrote three, he wrote a book called, "I think, therefore I am." And for me, and you can comment on this, I would hope that when people are reading books one hundred years from now that they will look at the Beats and some of the activism of the (19)60s and the issues that people were involved with, is that people can challenge authority, when for justice and equality and things that are right. Dr. King said oftentimes that, you know, he was not about breaking laws, but if laws were unjust, you have to protest against those laws. And I hope forever young people will look at this era because of the examples that these people raised that they think therefore they are, and they stand for something. Just your thoughts on that.

1:35:59
HJ: Well that is from Descartes, 'je pense' [I think in French] they took the translation from French. I think, therefore I am. Well, of course, I have you know, the idea that one can participate in democracy implies a basic understanding that that is how democracy works. And that one can, in concert with others affect change. And that is what that is what protests meant. You know resulted in sometimes. Or they publicize the opinions that people share. So I think it is quite wonderful. I think we've gone through, through electronic means to be able to do what the Greeks thought they were doing, although of course, yes, yes, they had slaves but participatory democracy. You know, it is a great, great invention. And oh, I hope it will last.

1:37:11
SM: Yeah, that was the SDS manifesto too. Yeah, I know that Harold Brown wrote a book in the early (19)70s, called "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World." And, and so that was the kind of things that would be written at that particular time. My last question that centers on the, you know, the beats were often linked to San Francisco, a lot of the poets. San Francisco and New York. San Francisco and New York. And you look at one of the major happenings of the (19)60s, which was the summer of love and (19)67 in San Francisco and of course, Allen Ginsburg was part of that. But so you see these constant links between the beats and the boomers, particularly those that may be connected to the counterculture or activists dealing with a lot of issues. Your thoughts on some why San Francisco? Why New York? They were the two centers and youth obviously went to San Francisco in that (19)67: Summer of Love.

1:38:14
HJ: Well, you know, those are the two places that had established our, our colonies, if you want to call them colonies or whatever. Our scenes, our world, both coasts like that. You did not care about Chicago art, particularly nor did you hear about Dallas, Texas art or you know, or Knoxville, Tennessee, maybe, maybe the Grand Ole Opry. But those were places where one could live a bohemian life and it had thriving poetry scenes and that was that was why Allen was out there in the first place. That is why "Howl" was published there. Ferlinghetti had settled there, you know, he is from Westchester County, New York. And then of course, New York. New York was always thought of as, heaven help me, the cultural capital of the United States. People will disagree, I suppose. But even so, it remains that way. And I think all of us just figured those were the two places to be. I do not think there is any, any particular reason. Except that the swimming is good.

1:39:37
SM: Yeah. Well, I am not going to ask you to respond to all these names, because I am, you know, there is there are a lot of personalities of the (19)60s if you want to, but I think you are okay. Is there any question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask that you'd like to respond for a final comment?

1:39:59
HJ: No. Not, not really and, you know, as I told you, my perspective on the whole thing is from somebody who was always off trying to struggle through her life and invent myself. And, you know, talk about feeling trying to make a place in the world for the races. I suppose to interact, come together if they would. And so, that is what I am still doing, I suppose.

1:40:41
SM: As I conclude the interview, and I will go back to that very first question of Marilyn Young making the comment that the (19)60s began with the Beats. Could you make a final comment on why she felt that way? And you, I think, agreed. Why were the beats so important and as the precursor to the (19)60s.

1:41:01
HJ: Because we were the first people to open her mouths. (Laughs.) Against, everything that we saw that was wrong. But do not forget along with the beat there were, I keep plugging the painters and the musicians but you know, there was Tom Leherer who wrote "Little boxes, and they are all made out of ticky tacky," you know that song? *"Little Boxes" was written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, and was made popular in 1963 by Pete Seeger.

1:41:28
SM: Right.

1:41:28
HJ: Yeah, you know, everyone was beginning to see that the instructions that were given after the war, which did not end really, until (19)46. And then there was, you know, a period of people coming home and the (19)50s, but the ideas of go forth and multiply and make a lot of money and shut up, was not working anymore, because people were suffering under it. Under that load of silence and the Cold War so yeah, that is where it began, you know. Especially with Allen and Jack so we have to applaud the both and I hope they are watching.

1:42:10
SM: I am sure they are and then when you look at the musicians, people, the one person that comes to mind and that is just me is Nat King Cole. I just think he was an unbelievable person. They had him on television last night in a retrospective. He died in (19)65. But he was such a, he was the first African American to have his own TV show. So would he be included in some of these musicians and artists you are talking about?

1:42:38
HJ: Well, you know, I am just talking about not, not necessarily exposure, but style. And the inclusion of say, Jazz, not just as not popular music for entertainment but as, as a great American art form. So that has to do with studying women's history. You know, it is all connected with this push for inclusion, and for proper estimation, and quality above all, talk about counterculture of inclusion in American culture. A void, a voice, in American culture.

1:43:29
SM: What musicians in the (19)60s do you think had that feeling?

1:43:33
HJ: No, well say musicians in general. Look at Bob Dylan. You know, all the blues musicians who influenced him and were. Oh what about Aretha Franklin? You know all these people. Aretha saying "You better think, think about what you what you are trying to do to me." You know, all that. Oh, Michael Jackson. (Laughs.) there has been a lot of stuff about Michael Jackson and some people are very tired of it. But, you know, he was such an influence on my kids and you know.

1:44:17
SM: Oh yeah, I agree.

1:44:20
HJ: And, you know, every when I had the windows open all weekend, cars would go by with their radio blasting. Michael Jackson song "You got to be starting' something."

1:44:36
SM: His memorial is tomorrow.

1:44:38
HJ: Yeah.

1:44:39
SM: So well, Hettie, thank you very much. In a couple weeks, I will be sending you a form. It is a waiver form you just sign it and it is going to be a while for you all these things transcribed, but you will see it before I ever do anything with it. And wish Susan, I mean, I wish Joyce would still do it, but she is not going to I guess so.

1:44:58
HJ: Yeah. You cannot change her mind sometimes.

1:45:01
SM: Yeah, and I sent a letter to Anne but I never heard from her so I got to put a call through out to the school. And I have sent three letters to Ed Sanders and

1:45:13
HJ: I have no idea where to find him now.

1:45:15
SM: Well, nobody can. He has moved three times. Maybe on purpose.

1:45:20
HJ: It could be.

1:45:21
SM: But Hettie, thank you very much.

1:45:24
HJ: You are welcome.

1:45:25
SM: And you have a great day.

1:45:26
HJ: You too.

1:45:27
SM: Bye.

(End of Interview)

2009-07-06

Stephen McKiernan

Hettie Jones

105:31

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

2 Microcassettes

Audio

Authors; College teachers; Jones, Hettie--Interviews

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