Writing at Seventy

Starting High School

In San Francisco it’s the summer of love,
Long haired hippies, peace signs and doves.
In Viet-Nam the soldiers are dying,
Back home their families are crying,
And Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.

Jim wants to “Light My Fire”,
While Grace’s rabbit only flies higher.
The evening news shows the war isn’t cool,
This week I started high school,
And “All You Need Is Love” is what The Beatles say.

Written by Jimmie A. Kepler
Schertz, Texas, August 1967

The photo is Grace Slick. She is an accomplished artist. The artwork is hers.

Note: This is the oldest poem I have written by me. It was in notebooks and papers my mother recently gave me. Aren’t mothers good and keeping things and then later in life returning them?

I wrote this poem as a freshman at Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, Texas. Impressing my English teacher was challenging. The assignment was to write a paper on “What I did on my summer vacation”. Instead, I wrote about what was happening in popular culture. She called me a “beatnik poet weirdo”. It was a compliment! I gave in writing five pages of drivel avoiding a grade of “F” on the job.