Things I Think I Remember, I Think... Part Two, the formative years, Summer 1964 through Spring 1971.
This is Part Two of my little “Things I think I remember…” series, where I’m trying to make sense of all those little memory snippets and fragments that pop up between my ears from time to time. This is a pretty wide time-span; from the summer of 1964 when I started third grade, through spring of 1971 when I graduated from ninth grade; these were the formative years for sure. Just so you know, for this particular blog post I’ve also borrowed freely from some of my other posts, such as “My love of music and drums…” and “Working for a living…”, so don’t be surprised if you might have read the stuff already. But, this being MY blog, I reserve the right to repeat myself! Also, for historical references and context, I’ve borrowed liberally from Google and Wikipedia, so be aware!
As I was putting my memories in “order”, I realized that
much of what I remembered was closely tied to the music I was listening to on
the radio and my gramophone player, the movies I watched, and the shows I
watched on TV. So, you will see a lot of
references to music, film and TV, since much of these inputs are intertwined in
my memory bank (such as it is…).
Another little caveat; when I talk about the metro or the
subway, the subway in Stockholm is part underground (in the city) and part
above-ground (in the suburbs). So, even
though I talk about the subway, where I lived in Hokarangen, the tracks were
above-ground.
I pondered how to fit all this in chronologically, but since
my birthday is in August, I’ve decided to make it kinda like from August
through August, which fits nicely with the school-years. A lot of times, I do remember things, but
more in a sense of the school-year, rather than the calendar year, but much of
it is still approximate. Nevertheless, a
couple of years ago, I got all my old report cards from my dad, which he had saved
for some reason. At first, I didn’t know
what to do with them, but when I started this little blog series, I realized
that the report cards could serve as a road map to my school years, and each
little segment is closed out with a report card. So, take your grain of salt, and let’s to on
a trip down memory lane, into the swinging 60s!
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Summer 1964 through spring 1965
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A ten-year-old me outside of our apartment building on
Lingvagen. I was wearing a fringed
suede western jacket, that I had gotten as a present from my uncle Janne, who
was living in Alaska at the time. I
wore that jacked well into my teens, with my mom extending the sleeves. |
Hokarangen was one of the first suburbs of Stockholm, and
the Metro/subway was extended to Hokarangen in 1950. Many of the apartment buildings were built in
the 1940s and 1950s, and it has retained its mid-century vibe, even though
there has been much development in 2010 onwards.
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Picture:
Lingvagen 206, in Hokarangen.
My two friends Lennart and Thomas lived across the street in the
circular building, and our buddy Chino lived on Russinvagen, just up the
hill. |
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Picture:
Lingvagen 206, street view. To the right of the front door was the garbage chute, and the garbage collectors would come by once per week and pick up the garbage in a big sack. |
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Picture:
Hokaragen’s Centrum. |
I was turning nine that August, and in the fall of 1964, I started third grade at Skonstaholmsskolan, which had been built in 1954. The little school served the area of Skonstaholm, a little bedroom community with 3-story apartment buildings, townhomes, and its own little shopping center. The walk from our apartment to Skonstaholmsskolan was probably some 10-15 minutes, if you didn’t get sidetracked. Again, no busy streets to cross, and after I met my friend Lennart in fourth grade when we were ten years old, we would walk together. At this time in the mid-1960s, none of us kids ever got dropped off by our parents; walking to school is what we did, whether sun, rain, hail or snow.
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Skonstaholmsskolan,
on Lordagsvagen. Built in 1954. I spent third grade in the “upside-down
L-shaped” building with the black roof to the right, and I spent fourth,
fifth and sixth grade in the main building to the left where the name of the
school is indicated. The “Grusplan”
was our little sports field, where we would play soccer (“fotboll”) and our
own version of baseball which used a broomstick shaped bat, as opposed to the
regular “American” baseball bat. We
probably used a tennis ball, since I never remember seeing a “real” baseball
in Sweden. |
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Skonstaholmsskolan, from https://grundskola.stockholm/hitta-grundskola/grundskola/skonstaholmsskolan |
This was probably the first time that I was made aware that there was something called “fashion” and that one should follow it, if you wanted to be cool. Beetle boots, made popular by my all-time favorite band The Beatles, were in high fashion, and the Bogner poofy ski jacked was all the rage. The Bogner jackets were immediately recognizable, since they had a zipper that would zip from both the top and the bottom, and I think my mom tried to make a regular poofy jacket into a faux-Bogner by changing out the zipper to the “both up and down” zipper.
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My heroes The Beatles wearing their matching Beetle boots. John, George, Paul and Ringo. |
Also, we had started going to the Gubbangen movie theater, which usually showed movies that had already been at the main movie theaters for a while, and they also did re-runs of older movies. You could sit in the first three rows for half price, which was probably 50 cents or so.
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The Gubbangen Movie Theater, located at 117
Lingvagen. The CITY sign can be seen
through the trees in the background.
On Sunday afternoons, a hundred kids or more would be lined up for the matinee showings. Now it houses the Moment: theater
company. |
Some of the movies we saw would have been It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, originally released in November 1963, and The Pink Panther movie, released March, 1964. Some of the TV shows we were watching were Vi på Saltkråkan (Life on Seacrow Island), Hylands hörna (Hyland’s corner), Anita och Televinken, Bonanza, The Adams Family, The Munsters, to name a few.
As far as I know, third grade passed pretty uneventfully
from the fall of 1964 through spring of 1965.
Now, even though foreign language instruction did not start until fourth
grade, I do remember having my first lesson in the English language in third
grade. We learned the sentence “I have a
dog”, which to this day is a very useful expression, especially given all the
dogs we have had over the years.
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My spring 1965 Third Grade Report Card, earning Bs and
Cs. I was still sick a bunch;
apparently, I missed 174 hours of instruction, probably from being in a new
school with new kids (and new diseases).
Nevertheless, I earned an A in both overall conduct and
organization! |
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Summer 1965 through spring 1966
On August 17, in the summer of 1965, my love of music really
started when I got a suitcase gramophone player for my 10th
birthday, complete with a speaker in the lid.
It kinda looked like the one below:
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What a suitcase gramophone player looked like in the
1960s |
The thing played 33 1/3 rpm LPs, 45 rpm singles, and I think it even played the old 78 rpm records as well, but I think you had to change out the needle. The needle? Well, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, and troglodytes like myself were doing our hunting and gathering, a record player had an arm with a needle attached, which transmitted the information in the grooves in the record to the amplifier and the speakers. Anyway, my 10th birthday present also came with my first record; the single Save Your Heart for Me, by Gary Lewis and the Playboys (Gary Lewis was the son of comedian Jerry Lewis). So, as far as my love for music goes, that’s how it all began!
I spent the fall of 1965 and the spring of 1966 as a
ten-year-old in fourth grade, still at Skonstaholmsskolan, but by that time we
had moved to the upper campus of the school, where the four through six graders
took all their classes. I think this was
the time that I first met Lennart, who became one of my life-long friends (to
this day (summer 2025), whenever I visit Sweden, I make it a point to go and
visit him), and he will be a frequent mention in this little narrative. Lennart was an ice hockey player, very
athletic (the opposite of me), and since he lived just across the street, we
would hang out all the time.
I also learned to swim when I was ten; we took swimming
lessons at Gubbangsbadet, which has a 25-meter indoor swimming pool:
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Gubbangsbadet, Gubbangen. |
I have a bunch of memories of events that probably happened at this time, in no particular order:
I remember going to see the young Swedish-Dutch troubadour
Cornelis Vreeswijk at NK department store with my mom, maybe 1965-1966. I remember him being dressed all in black
leather, kinda like a Swedish Johnny Cash.
We were having wars with the Saltvagen kids who lived on the
other side of the subway tracks, in an older part of Hokaragnen. We made projectiles out of clay and stuffed
them with gravel, and put them on top of sticks and hurled the projectiles over
the subway tracks, but I don’t think we
ever hit anybody. One time the police
came, since we were disrupting subway traffic.
I also seem to remember a local dump or landfill close to
the Skarpnack air field, which I would go for scavenging. Now, looking at a map, the dump was probably
located in Skondal, because it would have been quite the hike for a
ten-year-old to walk from our apartment to Skarpnack, but if you remember a
Skarpnack dump, please let me know!
I would ride my bike to Farsta Centrum, to visit the little
toy store, which had a section for plastic models, and spend a lot of time just
looking. Being an only child, I spent a
lot of time building plastic models like the Jeep CJ and the Dusenberg car.
I also remember going with my dad to see the Vasa wooden war
ship, that had just been recovered. It
was housed in a temporary hangar-like building, and the hull was being
constantly sprayed with a preservative, so you couldn’t really see much, but it
was a great event!
Just down the street from our apartment building was a
little ICA grocery store, and they had a bottle recycling apparatus, where you
would send glass bottles on a conveyer belt, to be counted. After you were done, you would be paid in
cash, and if you were lucky, you had just enough money to buy a half-liter
(about .53 quarts) box of ice cream, which we would usually cut in half to
share.
My dad and I also went to Sparvags Museet (the Public
Transportation museum), located at the Odenplan subway station. The museum had a picture of my
great-grandfather Mr. Hall (grandma Lily’s father) who drove a horse-drawn
trolly in Stockholm. The picture was
from around 1885, displaying my great-grandfather with his team of horses.
My dad and I also went to a couple of pawn shops, to get
some temporary loans. Back in Sweden, it
was (and maybe still is) customary to get paid once per month, usually around
the 24th of the month. So,
for a lot of people, it was feast for a week, and then famine for three weeks,
until you got paid again. A lot of
times, when my parents got some windfall, they would buy gold jewelry, which
could easily be pawned, when times were lean.
So, dad would bring some gold, maybe a bracelet or necklace, and get
some temporary cash, with the gold as security.
A while later, they would get the stuff out of pawn, only to pawn it
again. Hand to mouth…
During this time, two of my all-time favorite albums were
released, and I added them to my collection; The Beatles Help, released in
August 1965, and Rubber Soul, released in December of 1965. I still listen to these albums; they never
get old.
Some of the movies we were watching were Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, released in June 1965; What’s new Pussycat, released in June 1965; The Great Race, released July of 1965 and Att angöra en brygga (or Docking the Boat), released in December of 1965. On the TV were watching Popsan (a pop music variety show) and of course Hylands hörna.
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Spring 1966; my fourth-grade report card. Not great, I got three Ds; Swedish, Music
and Physical Education. But
apparently, I had learned to swim, since I passed the 25-meter swim
test. Still a lot of absences; 168
hours, I must have been sick a lot… |
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Summer 1966 through spring 1967
One of the biggest cultural happenings in Stockholm in the
summer of 1966 was the opening of a new art installation at the Modern Art
museum in Stockholm; “HON – en Katedral” (“SHE – a Cathedral”), by the artist
Niki de Saint Phalle. I remember going
there with my open-minded parents, and in the main hall was an enormous
reclining female figure with a small head, painted in black and white with
large red breasts. You entered the
inside of the exhibit through the female’s vagina, which lead to a sort of amusement
park, with all kinds of mini-exhibits.
For me, being an eleven-year-old, the display of the female anatomy was
both wondrous and mysterious, and it was certainly memorable!
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“HON – en Katedral” (“SHE – a Cathedral”), by the
artist Niki de Saint Phalle at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm. This is a family-friendly picture of the
female’s head and body. |
The other big cultural happening in the summer of 1966 was the release of The Beatles Revolver in August of the same year, which to this day sounds as fresh as the day it was released. One of my perennial favorites, that’s for sure!
I also remember going to one of the local swimming beaches
with one of my friends and his dad. It
was a nice day, and I spend probably four to six hours in the water, wearing my
large swimming goggles and a snorkel.
When I got home, I had gotten sunstroke, and I got sick as a dog,
sitting on the toilet with diarrhea and a bucket in front of me so I could
throw up. My face had also gotten really
sunburned around my swimming goggles, and I looked like a raccoon, before the
burnt skin on my face peeled off.
In the fall of 1966 at the tender age of eleven, I got into
fifth grade, and according to my grade report from 1967, my grades improved a
bit, maybe because I had less absences, “only” 126 hours during the whole
school year. Also, it was during
woodshop, probably in the spring of 1967, that I had my accident with the Mora
knife. I was cutting some wood, and the
knife slipped, and I cut the tip of my middle finger, deep and nasty. Blood everywhere; however, the school nurse
did not do stiches, and my parents were both at work, so they sent me on the
subway (by myself) to a medical clinic somewhere in Stockholm City, where they
gave me two stitches, just enough to keep the cut closed up. They wrapped up my finger using some sort of
tube contraption, and some ten days later I had the stitches taken out. In retrospect it seems crazy that they would
put an eleven-year-old on the subway by himself with a cut finger, but this was
the 60s, and as kids we rode the subway all the time, no problem!
I also remember getting my nose polyps taken out, and I think it happened around this time. I was still sick a lot with colds, and my mom would take me to the ear, nose and throat specialists at our local hospital so much that I remember the children's waiting room, where they played a continuous slide show of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling to keep the kids occupied, at least for a while. So, after I was diagnosed with nose polyps, they were to be taken out. On the day of the operation, I was to strip down into my underwear, and it must have been in the winter, because I remember wearing a long-sleeved gray undershirt, and gray long-johns. In the "operation room", a large nurse was sitting on a chair, and I was told to sit in her lap, with my back against her bosom. She locked her legs around mine, and grabbed my arms in a tight bearhug. Then the attending physician placed an ether mask over my nose and mouth, and started dripping the liquid ether on the mask. The next thing I remember was being woken up, and told that the operation was successful, and we headed home. Today (2025), this almost sounds barbaric, but that's how it was done in 1967!
I also had my nose cleaned out several times, since I suffered from colds. The doctor had a rubber bulb, about the size of a fist with a sort of nozzle on the end, which would fit into somebody's nose. The doctor would squeeze the rubber bulb to create a vacuum, stick the nozzle in my nose, and I was told to say "Gingerbread" and as I said the word, the doctor would release the rubber bulb, thereby having the vacuum in the bulb suck out whatever mucus was stuck in my nose. I must say, it did feel pretty good to have a clean nose!
One of my buddies in fifth grade was Dennis, who was the
class clown, was quite disruptive, and probably never studied much. I think he left the school after the school
year was over, but years later (1973-1974) when I was working at Farsta
Hospital, I saw him again. By this time
he was a patient at the hospital; he was paralyzed on the right side, and he
also had some neurological problems. When I first saw him at the hospital,
I was completely astonished; I remembered this guy from my fifth-grade class,
so we were the same age! The story (never checked by me, mind you) went
that at 16, he had gone off on his 125cc motor bike with his girlfriend on the
back. Since he only had one helmet, he had let his girlfriend use the
helmet, and they went riding. Well, he lost control, and crashed the
motorbike into a stone fence, and hit his bare head on the stone (his
girlfriend was supposedly OK). Ergo, his paralysis and neurological
problems; due to his head injury, he was essentially back to being 4-5 years old,
and he behaved as such. Super sad; some years later (maybe 1977-1978) I
saw him in his wheelchair briefly in central Stockholm. He had supposedly
been discharged from the hospital, and he was hanging out with some
questionable dudes, but again this was a very brief encounter.
This was also the time of a bitter teacher’s strike, which occurred
between October 11 and November 5, 1966.
Us fifth-graders were mostly unaffected by the strike, but I remember coming
to class during this time, and our school flag was at half-mast, signifying a
death. I made some silly quip about the teacher’s
strike and the death of teaching. One of
my classmates quickly scolded me, and informed me that one of the school’s
students had died in a horse-riding accident, where she was kicked in the head
by the horse. As my daughter started riding,
that little incident has stayed with me all these years.
At least once, we also had a substitute teacher, who later became part of the super group ABBA; Bjorn Ulvaeus. At the time, Bjorn Ulvaeus was part of the Swedish group Hootenanny Singers, and to make ends meet, he was working as a substitute. We sort of knew him from the Hootenanny Singers, but that’s as far as it went. Who would have thought that years later, in 1974, ABBA would go on to win the European Eurovision song contest with Waterloo, and the rest is history…
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Spring 1967; my fifth-grade report card. A little better, only two Ds! I was still lousy in Music and Physical
Education, but I got an A in woodshop!
Maybe my teacher felt sorry for me because I cut my finger… Or maybe that’s where my love for working
with wood started? Also, my swimming
had improved since fourth grade; I now passed the 50-meter swim test! |
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Summer 1967 through spring 1968
June first, 1967 changed everything when The Beatles’ Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band record was released in Sweden. Ringo’s bom-bom-pa, bom-bom-pa beat made me
wanna play the drums, like millions of kids all over the world. Being a 12-year old kid living in an
apartment, getting a drum kit was out of the question, but I got some drum
sticks and a Ludwig practice pad, which I put on my chair, and I would bang on
the back of the chair like a ride cymbal, and beat on the practice pad as a
snare, and just stomp my left foot to mimic a bass drum:
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My old Ludwig Practice Pad; this was my first “snare
drum”… |
Also, on June 25, 1967, the Our World television event took place, and I remember watching the whole thing. Our World was the first live multinational, multi-satellite production, which did live broadcasts from fourteen countries around the world. The two-hour event was broadcast in twenty-four countries and had an estimated audience somewhere between 400 to 700 million people. The highlight for me was The Beatles singing All You Need is Love, written by John Lennon especially for the occasion. The studio was filled with signs and streamers, and guests were dressed in psychedelic costumes like the Sergeant Pepper’s album cover, and the guests included members of the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Small Faces. What a great time!
In the fall of 1967, twelve-year-old me started sixth grade,
still at Skonstaholmsskolan. I don’t
remember much from the fall, except the switch from driving on the left side of
the street to driving on the right side; however, 1968 turned out to be an
interesting year, both the good, the bad and the ugly (check it out
below).
On September third, 1967, Sweden transitioned from driving
on the left side of the street to driving on the right side of the street,
which was called “H-Day” (H for hoger, Swedish for right). I remember watching this momentous event on
TV; I think it happened at about one PM, and the cars simply switched sides,
and from what I remember, it was well organized and peaceful given the nature
of us Swedes, and by the time I got my driver’s license in 1973, H-Day was just
a memory.
A little sidebar about 1968, which was a tumultuous year to
say the least, especially for us living in Europe at the time. Behind the Iron Curtain, at the beginning of
the year we had the Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization and
mass protests in the former Czechoslovakia, aiming to create a more humane and
inclusive form of socialism (good luck with that). Initially, the movement saw the lifting of
censorship, increased freedom of speech, and economic reforms. However, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw
Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia in August of 1968, crushing the reforms and
restoring strict communist control (no surprise there). In France, we had student and worker unrest,
which lead to clashes with police and the construction of barricades. Eventually the student protests led to a
nationwide general strike, which paralyzed France. There were demonstrations and protests
against the Vietnam war all over Europe, such as London, Paris, Berlin and
Rome. This was also the beginning of the
“Troubles” or the Northern Ireland conflict, which lasted until 1998.
The United States saw the assassinations of Martin Luther
King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and widespread
protests against the Vietnam War, and also increased demands for civil rights
and also the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where police clashed
violently with demonstrators. To make
matters even worse, this was the start of the Hong Kong flu, or the 1968 flu
pandemic, which, according to our friend Wikipedia, killed somewhere between
one and four million people worldwide (sounds familiar? Covid 19 anyone?).
In Sweden, the students at the Stockholm University occupied
the Student Union building between May 24 through May 27, 1968. The occupation was a protest against the
student politics of the time and excessive government interference in higher
education. This event marks a time of
political engagement and activism among students.
Nevertheless, In December of 1968, the year ended with the
first ever human space flight to reach the Moon (although it did not
land). Apollo 8 orbited the Moon ten
times, before returning to Earth on December 27, 1968, which gave us faith in
technology, and that anything was possible.
However, being a 12-year-old, I was shielded from much of
the news, or maybe I just didn’t care.
Despite this, I vividly remember being home sick and watching the 1968
winter Olympics on our black-and-white TV, which were held in February in
Grenoble, France. The French skier
Jean-Claude Killy won all three down-hill events; downhill, giant slalom and
slalom, and he was hailed world-wide as the best skier ever.
I think I got my first 26” (or maybe 24”) bike, for my
twelfth birthday. This was either a
Monark or Crescent bike, the two brands being the most popular Swedish bike
brands (and when Sweden actually made things like bicycles). It had a cool banana seat, as was the bike
fashion at the time. It had an automatic
two-speed shifter, and you switched between the two speeds by giving the pedals
a little backwards kick. The rear brake
was engaged by stomping hard on the pedals backwards, and for the first time I
had a bike with a front brake! One of
the first things I did was trying out the front brake, by riding at speed, and
then pretty much stopping the front wheel.
As you can imagine, I flew straight over the handlebars, but for some
miraculous reason, I didn’t hit my head!
This was way before anybody but bike racers wore helmets, so again my
guardian angel was looking out for me!
This was the time when Lennart, Thomas, Chino and myself got
seriously into going to the movies, and we would frequent the Farsta movie
theater, in addition to the Gubbangen movie theater. Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes
during the week we would be at the movies, and we loved it! Below is a list (probably not comprehensive)
of the movies we saw during this time:
You Only Live Twice; released in June, 1967.
The Dirty Dozen; released in June 1967.
Bonnie and Clyde; released in August 1967.
The Jungle Book; released in October 1967.
The Fearless Vampire Killers by Roman Polanski; released in
November 1967.
The Graduate; released in December 1967
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; released in December 1967.
Planet of the Apes; released in March, 1968.
The Party with Peter Sellers; released in April, 1968.
2001: A Space
Odyssey; released in April 1968.
As far as music goes, these were some of the albums I added
to my collection:
The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band released
in June 1967.
The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour EP released in December
1967.
Axis: Bold as Love by
the Jimi Hendrix Experience; released in December 1967.
Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake by the Small Faces; released May,
1968.
Hair, the original Broadway Cast Recording; released May,
1968.
The spring of 1968 was the end of an era; at the time, Skonstaholmsskolan only went through sixth grade, and in the fall of 1968 we all moved to Gubbangsskolan, for seventh-through ninth grade.
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Spring 1968; my sixth-grade report card. Only one D; this one still in music. I continued to retain my A in woodshop; I
remember building a little wooden case with hinges and a lock, and a slender
bird sculpture. And I could still swim
100 meters! |
Summer 1968 through spring 1969
In the summer of 1968 I was almost thirteen, and we started
going to the Eriksdalsbadet open-air swimming pool complex. The main outdoor pool was built in 1962 for
the European Aquatics Championships. In
addition to the main swimming pool, there was also a smaller, more shallow pool, suited for
kids. In the summer, when the sun was
out, the place would be packed with kids and adults alike. It had a snack bar, and the entrance also had
room for changing into your swimsuit. In
Stockholm, we used to mark the beginning of summer with the spring opening of
Eriksdalsbadet, usually May 15, and the end of summer was September 15, when
Eriksdalsbadet closed for the winter. We
would take the subway from Hokarangen and make the 10-minute ride to Skanstull,
and from there it was just a 10 minute walk to the pool. We had seasons passes, and we would spend all
day at the pool, swimming, hanging out, watching the girls, and maybe if we got
up the courage, even talk to one of them!
Over the years, we continued to go to Eriksdalsbadet, and I remember
going there in my early 20s, if the sun was out.
Outside of the main entrance there was usually a guy selling
hot dogs from a metal box hanging around his neck. If we had money, we would buy a hotdog and
bun, but if we had nothing but pocket change, we would just buy the hot dog bun
with ketchup and mustard. Being thirteen
was the greatest!
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Eriksdalsbadet, Hammarby Slussvagen 20,
Stockholm. When we were kids, the
round circle (which is a sort of covering, I’m sure) to the left of the main
swimming pool had a deep pool, and a 10-meter concrete diving structure was
to the left of the deep pool (now demolished). The diving structure had platforms for
3-meters, 5-meters and 10-meters, but being afraid of heights, I never made
it past the 5-meter platform. On the
other hand, my friend Thomas would dive off the 10-meter platform, he was
crazy! |
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Eriksdalsbadet, a view from the main grass area. We would usually camp out on the benches in
the spectator viewing area to the right, or if you were lucky (and early) you
got one of the wooden chaise-lounges.
Look toward the back of the main swimming pool and imagine a 10-meter
concrete diving structure, and you get a view of what it looked like when we
were kids. |
On the 26th of August, 1968, as a fresh-faced
thirteen-year-old, I started seventh grade at Gubbangsskolan, and now we were
in the big leagues. No more rubbing
shoulders with the little kids at Skonstaholmsskolan; instead, we were thrown
in with kids that two to three years older than us, and it was both frightening
and exhilarating! Also, Gubbangsskolan
had a smoking section (I’m not kidding, this was the sixties), a “Smoke Square”,
a square some 12 feet by 12 feet toward the back of the school yard, where the
kids could go and take a smoke break.
Mind you, most of my friends had started smoking around twelve,
thirteen-years old, and pretty much every adult that I knew was a smoker. Crazy times!
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Gubbangsskolan, in Gubbangen, flying overhead. Toward the lower left-hand corner was our
smoking section, a 12’ by 12’ painted square where us kids could smoke. I know it sounds crazy today, but this was
the sixties baby! |
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Gubbangsskolan, in Gubbangen. |
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Gubbangsskolan, in Gubbangen, the view from the
smoking section, looking toward the main building. If memory serves me, the library was on the
top floor, and below the library was our in-house dentist, who pretty much filled all my molars. |
Also in the fall of 1968, Chino and I went to see The Hollies and The Small Faces, who were playing in Stockholm as part of British Week. Later on, when Steve Marriott went on to form Humble Pie, the album Rockin the Fillmore (which came out in 1971) became one of my favorite albums! Steve Marriott was truly a rock legend, and like many rock stars, met his maker way too early.
This is probably when I got drumming lessons at school, as
an extra-curricular activity. The school
had what I believe was a four-piece Japanese kit, and once a week I got
lessons, taught by a nice old dude.
However, since I didn’t have a kit of my own (we were living in an
apartment, mind you), I probably never practiced, not even on my practice
pad. I think the lessons only lasted for
one semester, and after all that I still couldn’t read drum notation.
Since our apartment building had room for some small
businesses in the basement, for some reason, and for a short while, there was a
sort of music store at the end of our apartment building. They had an old Ludwig kit set up in a sort
of sound-proof glass enclosure, and I remember trying out the kit for a couple
of minutes, before they told me that time was up. It was probably pretty evident that, being a
twelve-year-old, I was not a real customer…
But I had gotten a taste of playing drums, and the rest is history!
Let’s not forget Disco; my buddies Chino, Lennart, Thomas
and myself had started to go to Disco’s around 1968-1969, using fake school IDs
to get in to the clubs (remember, we were 13, 14 when we started going out, but
we were pretty tall for our age, and with our fake IDs the bouncers would
usually let us in). Our favorite Disco
was Cat Ballou on Sturegatan 12 in Ostermalm, a swanky part of Stockholm. One of the most popular disco songs of the
time was Venus by Shocking Blue, which came out in 1969, and we would continue to
frequent the Stockholm Discos probably until 1973-1974, when pretty much all of
us got drafted into the compulsory Swedish military service. On Wednesday nights you could get in to Cat
Ballou for half price before 9:30PM, so on Wednesdays you would see a line of
teenagers outside of the club lined up to get in! Julle the bouncer had a sweet spot for the
young ladies, so they usually got in!
And then there are things you don’t forget… This was probably in the spring of 1969, and
we were in the school library at Gubbangsskolan. My school friend Kjell had become smitten
with one of the girls, who was quite curvaceous for her age. Poor Kjell couldn’t help himself; he was
sitting close to this girl, and suddenly he reached out and grabbed one of her
breasts, just like that. I think we were
all a bit surprised and stunned, but after a second, he let go and started
running out of the library, with the girl hot on his heels. She chased him across the whole school yard,
screaming “when I get you, I’m gonna beat the snot out of you for touching
me!” I don’t think she ever caught him,
but since she was bigger than he was, she probably would have beaten the snot
right out of him!
My friends and I continued to go to the movies, here is a
little list:
Rosemary’s Baby with Mia Farrow and directed by Roman
Polanski; released in June, 1968.
Bullitt with Steve McQueen; released in October 1968.
Funny Girl with Barbara Streisand; released in September
1968.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; released in December 1968.
The Love Bug; released in March, 1969.
Midnight Cowboy; released in May, 1969.
In November of 1968, The Beatles “The White Album” was
released, and we had a listening party at Thomas’ apartment, where he lived
with his parents and two sisters. Due to
the records experimental nature, I remember “not getting it”, and I was quite
disappointed. I never bought the White
Album… However, I added Jimi Hendrix’s
Electric Laydyland to my record collection, as much for the European album
cover as the record itself.
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Spring 1969 Seventh Grade Report Card |
Summer 1969 through spring 1970
I got my first “real” job with a paycheck in 1969, the
summer I turned 14. I was loafing around
during the summer holiday, and my dad obviously got tired of seeing me do
nothing, so he found an employment ad where they actually hired 13-year olds,
for what was then called PostGirot, a money transaction system that was
developed by the Swedish postal service.
I spent the first two weeks in training, trying to learn how to operate
a 10-key adding machine. Since most of
the transactions involved paper checks, the idea was that you were to flip over
the paper checks with your left hand, read the numbers on the check, and put
all the information into the 10-key adding machine with your right hand,
without looking at the keys on the adding machine. However, since I was left handed, I was never
able to get the hang of it.
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10-key adding machine. |
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Paper punch card; the cards are about 6” long by 2.5”
high. |
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Punch card reader, probably late 1960s. The punch cards would be fed into the slot
on top of the machine. |
The output from the punch card reader was paper ticker tape,
not unlike the ticker tape in the picture below, where you can see the reel of
ticker tape to the left:
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Computer ticker tape on a roll. |
I would ride the Stockholm subway on my own from the suburb
of Hokarangen where I lived, to downtown Stockholm to the PostGirot office, no
problem! When I got to the office
building, in the main entrance hall was a large glass cabinet filled with
numbered medallions hanging on nails, green on one side and red on the
other. As you entered the building, you
would turn your numbered medallion from red (when you were out of the office)
to green, which would indicate that you had entered the building, and, after
the payroll lady had inspected the glass cabinet, you would get paid for that
day. The glass cabinet was guarded by
the payroll lady aka the cabinet dragon; she would be standing beside the glass
cabinet with a calibrated watch, and precisely at 8:00AM she would lock up the
cabinet, so if you were late, you had some explaining to do! I remember seeing kids running toward the
glass cabinet, only to have the cabinet dragon lock the cabinet right before
their eyes! Later, I would sometimes
doubt this memory; however, after watching the movie October Sky, in the scene
where the coal miners come up from the shaft to turn their medallions from
green to red just like we did at PostGirot, I realized that it was actually
true!
One of the coolest features of the office building were
PostGirot was housed was the Paternoster elevators, which, according to our
friend Google is “a passenger elevator, consisting of a chain of open
compartments, each usually designed for two people, that move slowly in a loop up
and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at
any floor they like.” If I remember
correctly, the building was a five, maybe six story building, and the
Paternoster elevators would run all day, and if you were really adventurous,
you would take it all the way to the top, where it would go around to come back
down again. Given that I was not the
only 13-year-old working in the building, it is obvious that the workplace
safety standards were different in the late 1960s! That would never fly today!
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A Paternoster lift or elevator, like the one at the
PostGirot headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, where I worked in the summers of
1969 and 1970. |
I’m sure I spent the weekends at Eriksdalsbadet with my
friends, but no particular memories stand out (at least for now).
After working there over the summer of 1969, I had made
enough money to buy a stereo system, consisting of a free-standing turntable, a
stereo receiver, and two speakers.
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Fall 1969 Eight Grade Report Card |
For some reason, I don’t have my final spring eight grade report card, but I would be surprised if it was much different from my fall report card. As usual, we continued to go to the movies: Easy Rider, released in July, 1969; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, released in September 1969 and Woodstock the movie, released in March of 1970, were some of the hit movies that we went to see.
Also, with my new stereo system, it was time to buy more
albums:
The Easy Rider soundtrack; released
in August 1969.
Santana the album;
released in August 1969.
The Beatles Abbey
Road; released in September 1969.
Led Zeppelin II;
released in October 1969.
Woodstock the
Album; released in May, 1970.
The Beatles Let It
Be; released in May 1970.
The Who Live at
Leeds; released in May 1970.
Now, the album Led
Zeppelin II was a game changer for kids who wanted to play drums; we had never
heard anything like John Bonham! Ringo
had his style, but it was laid back and he used his playing to support the song
(as we all should), and Charlie’s playing was kinda sloppy, but John “Bonzo”
Bonham was different, his incredibly powerful and inventive playing did not
just support the songs, it took the songs to a whole other level. Also, we had never heard anybody play
triplets on the bass drum before, and that was simply mind-blowing (when I saw
Led Zeppelin live in 1973, it was like a religious experience, with Bonzo
starting off the show at 8 PM precisely, with his signature beat for Rock and
Roll). Also, besides the big band cats
from the 40s, nobody played a 26” bass drum, but John did! Both Ringo and Charlie played 20” or 22” bass
drums, and now came John with his massive Ludwig kit, big toms and big bass
drum, and two timpani drums as well!
Crazy!
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Summer 1970 through spring 1971
I went back to PostGirot in the summer of 1970, doing the
same job, but this time I made enough money to buy my first drum kit; a used
British-made Premier! I don’t remember
if the blonde lunch counter girl was there, such is the memory of an old
dude! But I do remember that first drum
kit, which I played until about 1974.
The kit was a four-piece with Imperial Inch heads, which meant that it
was difficult to get heads for this kit; “normal” US Remo heads did not fit
correctly. I think it was wrapped in
yellow contact paper, which I proceed to strip off. It probably came with Zildjian cymbals,
crash, ride and high hats. 20” bass
drum, 12” rack tom, and a 16” floor tom with a no-name snare, It probably
looked something like this:
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Vintage British Premier kit, 1950-1960 |
Moreover, in the
spring-summer 1971, I remember Chino and I putting together four speaker
cabinets for Syndikatet’s PA (Syndikatet was Chino’s and his brother Maffi’s
band) outside of Chino’s parents apartment on Russinvagen in Hokarangen; Chino
had got a carpenter to cut out the speaker cabinet pieces out of Medium Density
Fiberboard (MDF), and Chino and I put the cabinets together using screws. The band had bought eight 12” speakers, and
we put two speakers in each cabinet, and wired it all together. Chino or his brother had bought Rod Stewart’s
Every Picture Tells a Story, and we had put the speakers in the window so that
we could hear the record outside; every 15 minutes Chino had to run back into
the apartment and turn the record over!
Later, probably around 1976, I bought those speakers for our band Synd
ock Skam, and I used those speakers for various bands up until 1979-1980, when
I finally sold them (or gave them away, I don’t remember).
The spring was closed out by the Almstriden (the Elm
Confict) occupation in central Stockholm.
The conflict centered on the
planned destruction of 13 Scots Elm trees, in response to prevent damage to the
nearby subway. Under the Elms was a
popular outdoor coffee house (still there, as far as I remember), and between Tuesday
the 11th and Wednesday the 12th of May, about a thousand (mostly
young) citizens of Stockholm gathered around the Elms, protecting the trees and
setting up a tent camp. This was a
happening place, and I remember my buddies and I visiting the tent camp, in equal
parts to show solidarity and to check out the scene. Believe it or not, the protests were
ultimately successful, leading to the relocation of the subway station, and the
preservation of most of the old Scots Elms.
I think ninth grade was pretty cool; by this time, we were
the big kids in school. Many of us had
turned, or were about to turn, sixteen, so we all felt pretty mature. We were still going to discos and clubs,
using our fake IDs I’m sure. (In
Stockholm, the last subway train from the center of the city to the suburbs
would leave around 3 AM, and on a Friday or Saturday night you would see a
bunch of teenagers catching the last subway train home. It almost looked like rush hour! If you missed the 3 AM train, you had to wait
until 5 AM…).
We still went to the movies:
Kelly’s Heroes, released in July 1970; Solider Blue, released in August
of 1970 and Little Big Man, released in December of 1970 were some of our
favorites.
As far as music, I had branched out a bit, and my tastes
included more than just The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. I remember buying Pearl by Janis Joplin,
released in January 1971; Chicago III, released in January 1971 and Sticky
Fingers by the Rolling Stones, which was released in April of 1971. You had to have Sticky Fingers, if nothing
else for the album cover with its real zipper… Also, let's not forget Jesus Christ Superstar, released in October of 1970; Tapestry by Carol King, released in February of 1971, Rock On by Humble Pie, released in January of 1971 and Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart, released in May, 1971.
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My friends Per-Erik (sporting a natural 'fro), Michael and myself, toward the
end of ninth grade. Per-Erik was (still is, I hope) a
very gifted musician, playing both piano and guitar. Michael drove Go-Karts, and he also had a
cool original bomber leather jacket, which of course made him one of the cool
kids! And then there was me; not a lot
of talents, just really good looks, ha, ha, ha! I'm wearing a sort of denim suit, complete with bellbottoms and a matching denim jacket. I bought the ensemble at one of the little boutiques in Stockholm. |
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Spring 1971 Ninth Grade Final Report Card. Not bad, mostly Bs and Cs, and to my astonishment, an A in chemistry! However, French was not my friend; I only managed to get a D. No wonder; I probably never studied; I was too busy having fun with my friends! |
My ninth grade experience ended quite happily; toward the end of the school year, we had a general assembly were awards were given out for all sort so student achievements, such as music and academics. Since I was not the most studious kid, I didn't get any of these awards, and I didn't expect any. However, at the very end, our Principal Sven Forsberg announced a special award, the "being a friend to everybody" award, and, again to my astonishment, I was the lucky recipient! Nice guys finish first!!!!
In retrospect, it amazes me that so many songs from this time period endures today. Below is just a little smattering of songs from the sixties and early seventies that I've continued to play with various bands, some 40 years plus after they were originally released:
House of the Rising Sun, originally released in 1964 by The Animals; we did it in 2014 with Not For Human Use:
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