About fifty yards away was the focal point of the crowd's wrath: A police van with three terrified Austin cops backed up against it. They had their hands on their guns, but were uncertain whether drawing them was a good idea. Even that far away I could see that their faces were drained of color. The roar continued. Then I saw the cordon of riot police making an alley through the crowd. They were bringing people out of the Chuck Wagon in handcuffs and loading them into the van. The crowd threatened to engulf them. "The do-do has hit the fan!" Rocky said.
"I can't believe this," I said.
***
Alice's Restaurant
Alice's Restaurant was packed. Johnny Winter had been playing in a free concert at Woolridge Park in the shadow of the State Capitol. The café was named for the famous one in "Alice's Restaurant" of Arlo Gutherie fame. They had plain wooden tables, long necked beer, and all kinds of sandwiches on all kinds of homemade bread. It was on the Drag up between 31st and 38th .
Alice's was crowded with most of the people who had been at the park for Johnny Winter.
I was standing in line with a few hundred other people who were crowded around the back entrance to Alice's. There was a similar crowd on the sidewalk in front.
A longhaired young man with round wire-rimmed glasses and a pleasant face was standing next to me. He grinned at me and said, "Ain't this somethin'?"
"Damnedest thing I ever saw," I said, "and I been to two goat ropin's and a county fair."
He stuck out his hand. "John Love," he said. He had an open, pleasant face. He looked the way you'd look if you could choose your face. He was about twenty-two. He said he was studying to be a Methodist minister.
I said, "What a coincidence, we're standing here drinking beer, and I'm an ex-Baptist minister." We laughed and had a good time with that and agreed that the Methodists and Baptists needed to wake up and see that a lot of the younger generation had moved out from under them.
They finally got everyone inside. Nobody was leaving. The band, sans Johnny Winters, had moved from the park to Alice's. By the time John and I got inside, they were on tables pushed into a stage. They launched into Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," which had become the Hippie national anthem in a short time.
There's somethin' happenin' in here,
what it is ain't exactly clear;
there's a man with a gun over there,
tellin' me I got to beware,
