One of the strangest gigs we had was for a politician running for Congress. In 1971, 18-year olds had just been given the right to vote, so music events became the new way to reach that younger audience. It was super cool to stage these rallies in remote areas with rock bands. This one had us playing the headliner for this particular event that was attended by about a hundered people. So there were several, less practiced bands warming up for us. I remember there was one final really sucky band finishing up before we were supposed to go on when the politician arrived.  We quickly set up while he was shaking hands with the teens. Then he grabbed our microphone made a ten minute speech using words like”cool, hip, and peace,” and then said to the crowd, “thanks for coming and have a safe trip home.” As we started to play the politician left as did everybody else.  By the time we got to play our last song, the place was virtually empty. Carl took his very expensive guitar and threw it about ten feet. We were all pissed! We did have some neat gigs though. The opening of the park in Hopewell, the Junior Prom, Sock-hops, Canteens, Charlies Brother Restaurant, a fraternity party at Rutgers, and an eating club at Princeton. We even played at a “Be-In” in Lawrenceville in front of hundreds of people. We competed for several years at the Prineton Hospital Fete where we finally won the battle of the bands the last year we played. Dave, John, and Carl were awesome to be around, and I still consider them to be my best friends. As of this writing, we still find a way to play together every year. In fact, I think the fact that I never got heavy into drugs, never smoked, or drank alcohol during that time was due to the fact that none of them did it either. Lord knows, my family home was loaded with it.