Driving to the Darkness: Splinter's Journey Through the 1960'S

By Thomas Harrison Moore

Driving To The Darkness is a story of the 1960's about Splinters and Boomer in a decade of an asian war, anti war protests, assassinations in the country, civil rights, pot smoking and wonderful rock 'n roll music that the twins collected and listened to endlessly.
It begins with the calm of the early sixties and a young president being elected to office. It shows the violence and near civil war that followed, as the psyche of the country became damaged from President Kennedy's killing to other killings and violence. The decade was also the emergence of incredible singers and songwriters, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. The intensity and fury of life in America became frightening on a national and a personal level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456799663

Thomas Harrison Moore

Driving To The Darkness is Thomas Harrison Moore's second book, following Grandaddy Drove An Oldsmobile. He was born and raised in Worthington, Ohio during the Eisenhower years of big shiny cars and emerging rock 'n roll. Thomas graduated from Worthington High School in 1964 and started college at Ohio State University. Upon graduation from Ohio State in 1968, he was inducted into the US Army. He was sent to South Vietnam in July, 1969 and was honorably discharged in September of 1970. Thomas traveled to the western United States and settled in Gunnison, Colorado in 1971 for graduate school. After graduation he moved back to Ohio, lived in Wyoming a short time and returned to Ohio. In 1976 Thomas married, and he and his wife moved to Grand Junction, Colorado in 1976. They had two daughters, Courtney and Meredith. Thomas and his wife divorced in 1986, and Thomas moved to Denver, Colorado, where he now resides. He began writing in 2010 and had his first book published in 2011.

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© 2011 Thomas Harrison Moore. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 9/8/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-4681-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-4682-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-9966-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011915100

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

CHAPTER ONE Refreshing

CHAPTER TWO Calm

CHAPTER THREE Windy

CHAPTER FOUR Storm

CHAPTER FIVE Sun

CHAPTER SIX Cloudy

CHAPTER SEVEN Cloudy

CHAPTER EIGHT Rain

CHAPTER NINE Fury

CHAPTER TEN Loss

Dedicated to Skip Ackler

Foreword

There were storms coming unlike anything Splinters would ever before encounter. His childhood had been innocent in the fifties. This decade would be a lot different. He could feel it.

This decade began with a promising new young president taking oath of office on a sunny cold day. It ended brutally affecting every American, and leading to turbulence never before seen in America. Splinters would personally be sucked into it at the end of the decade. The storm began in 1963 and intensified in 1968 to near Civil War. There were periods of sunshine with the emergence of Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Those were soothing sounds. The intensity and fury in life were frightening. The country was about to be struck with an era that could never be described as innocent.

CHAPTER ONE

Refreshing

The beginning of 1960 brought in varied sounds in popular music. There were the silly songs like Alley Oop by the Hollywood Argyles, and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini by Brian Hyland. They were great summer sing along songs. There were also teenage angst-death songs: Teen Angel with Mark Dining losing his love on the fateful night on the railroad tracks; Billy Preston’s Running Bear of two Native American teen lovers drowning; Ray Peterson’s Tell Laura I Love Her with Laura losing Tommy as his car burst into flames on the racing grounds; Marty Robbins losing his life when he returned to El Paso to find his love, after having killed another of her paramours. Three singers became instant hits makers: Roy Orbison with Only The Lonely; Brenda Lee with I’m Sorry, I Want To Be Wanted, That’s All You Gotta Do and Sweet Nothins; Connie Francis with Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own, and Among My Souvenirs. Hank Ballard wrote an incredible dance song, The Twist, that Chubby Checker made into a huge dance sensation. There was the Philly sound with Bobby Rydell singing Volare and Wild One. Bobby Vee sounded like Buddy Holly with Rubber Ball (written by a young Gene Pitney). A song on the Sue label called A Fool In Love featured a new soul sound from Ike and Tina Turner. Splinters loved how Tina screamed it out to Ike. The Drifters sang the great love song, Save The Last Dance For Me. An obscure singer named Gary US Bonds had a hit with New Orleans. Jerry Butler sadly sang He Don’t Love You, a rhythm ‘n blues song where in the final light he will have the girl. Elvis had come home from the US Army and had hits of It’s Now or Never, Are You Lonesome Tonight and Stuck On You. An obscure singer- songwriter Maurice Williams had the first version of Stay, later to be performed by The Four Seasons and Jackson Browne. The Everly Brothers made it big with Cathy’s Clown, where everyone was pointing out the poor guy as her clown. They also released When Will I Be Loved, So Sad, and Let It Be Me. Even country was popular with Jim Reeves’ He’ll Have to Go, Hank Locklin’s Please Help Me I’m Falling and Floyd Cramer’s Last Date. Was that Floyd playing the piano on Please Help Me I’m Falling? It sounded like him. The music was fantastic, and the rock ‘n roll sound was going to stay.

Splinters and Boomer agreed there were two songs that were their favorite, but one would be a classic. Only The Lonely was almost song of the year due to Roy Orbison’s operatic voice, but Save The Last Dance For Me was for the twins the best song of the year. Splinters felt Ben E King took that song and totally put himself in the position of the boyfriend at the dance, that she could dance with other guys but she would return to him for the last dance.

A young president was elected in November. He made people feel good and confident with a feeling the country was headed in a progressive direction with rights for all colors. A sit –in by four black students in a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s lunch counter had taken place in February. By July