I was at the National Mall in the summer of '69.

[panader0]

There was a huge music festival with groups playing all over. I tried to post
photos from google but I'm too incompetent. I was working for Mayflower moving
company for the summer. I had just been expelled from Willamette U in Salem,
Oregon for having sex in my dorm. I wandered around listening
until I got to a stage with a black church band. Drums, bass and guitar
with about four or five back up singers. They got really revved up and I
was captivated. Then one of the back up ladies had an epiphany and fell on
the stage, writhing with the Lord. Amazing. My whole life has been amazing.
About a week later we were packing up a house to move and the TV was on.
Apollo 11 had landed on the moon. Everyone stopped working and stood in
our client's kitchen watching.

[cilla4progress]

1. Thank you for

your wonderful poem!

[Aristus]

2. I'm always skeptical of people who engage in histrionic writhing and jerking when claiming to be

"in the spirit".

AFAIC, it's just a form of "Look at ME!"

[panader0]

3. I don't get it either. I'm not religious in the least. But it seemed genuine.

[Kali]

6. it can be an altered state - just like drugs or drinking (sometimes together as enhancers)

it is called ecstasy in some religions. there may be an aspect of look at me, but there is more to it than attention-seeking.

[Backseat Driver]

4. FYI - Apparently, Apollo 8 Commander, Astronaut Frank Borman, and his wife were on a tour

of the Soviet Union and attended a July 4th celebration at the US ambassador's residence on Independence Day, 1969 - auld lang syne!

https://picclick.com/1969-Press-Photo-Astronaut-Frank-Borman-at-Independence-233216519359.html#&gid=1&pid=1

[panader0]

5. When I worked at Mayflower back then

me and my friend Chuck were the only two white guys out of 100 or so
employees. I was on a truck with Lynch, the driver, and a big guy whose
name escapes me. When we carried two man stuff, he'd sing 'Only the Strong Survive'. Lynch was small, tough and wiry. After we left the
warehouse in the morning, Lynch would drive to the liquor store. He'd buy a bottle
of Cold Duck, open the side door and sit on a couch, or whatever and drink.
Properly fortified we'd drive into DC and he'd visit his girlfriend while I waited
in the truck.
Chuck and I went to the beach one weekend and I passed out in the sun.
I got brutally sunburned. On Monday morning Lynch looked at me and said
"What are you trying to do? Look like me?"
When the loaded truck would come back to the warehouse and get on the
weight scale, all of the other guys would come out and stand on the scale.

[llmart]

7. I just love stories of that time and yours is good.

I was 19 that summer and oh, the memories of being young and so full of life! We were out to break all those stuffy rules our parents' generation lived by weren't we? I didn't have two nickels to rub together but somehow I enjoyed my life immensely. Good thing my two grown kids don't know the half of it.

[panader0]

8. I was 18, too young to drink in Virginia,

but old enough in Georgetown.
Our parents were very concerned about me and Chuck.
They had sent us the airfare to fly from Portland, Oregon to DC
where Chuck's dad was a general at the Pentagon.
So we took the money and bought a beautiful old Chevy panel truck
for $125 and drove across the country, much to our parents' dismay.
At the end of the summer both of us had enrolled at Lane Community
College in Eugene and, with the savings from our work, we headed off
back across the country. The truck broke down in the Mojave Desert
a few miles outside of Amboy on the old route 66 before Hwy 40 was built. Four or five
days walking back and forth to Amboy, a town of less than 50 people,
and we were able made a deal and trade our truck and $100 for a beat
up station wagon. But we made it to Eugene.
I just looked up Amboy and the population in 2000 was 4.
The new highway 40 killed the tiny desert town.