Where grandmas come from

A classic photo from a Byrds gig—that’s them on stage in the background—at Ciro’s on the Sunset Strip. It’s only 1965 and the Byrds are still singing Mr. Tambourine Man, but the wildness and abandon in this woman’s dancing (I first wrote chick’s but times have changed) more than hints at the mind expansion, freedom and free form experimentation of 1966 and Eight Miles High that’s only a year away. I can only imagine the dread and helplessness that filled parents seeing pictures like this in Life Magazine. But mom and dad are long gone, and their wayward daughter in this frenzy of rock’n’roll is likely a sweet grandmother herself now, if she’s still around, smiling at her picture from sixty years ago and remembering stories she’ll never tell the grandkids.