Categories > Cartoons > Daria > 1960's Daria
1960s—Chapter 15
By Dr T
Woodstock and Beyond
A ‘Daria’ fanfic, so no claim to original characters, etc. claimed, just my plot twists. Based on an image from the last ‘Daria’ episode/movie, ‘Is It College Yet?’
-60s-
Tuesday, August 12, 1969
Marcus was not as good a photographer as Daria, who in turn was not as good as Jane. Still, all three wanted a photo of Daria and Jane dressed as they would at least be starting out at Woodstock, with the rest of their clothes for the Festival in similar styles. The pair posed in the backyard, where there was still some privacy – while neither woman was wearing anything revealing, Daria was generally seen around the yard in more conventional clothing, other than when she was going to or from campus. Several of the nearby lots had had houses completed over the previous year and there was still relatively little landscaping, there were privacy fences dividing the built-on properties, and none of the neighboring houses looked directly down onto this area of the yard.
Both women had let their hair grow since their Freshman year, even if one or the other had had their hair trimmed a bit to some degree at different times. Now, both had hair about as long as ever. Jane had decided to go with an outfit slightly inspired by some of the pseudo-Native American styles that were popular with some of the ‘hip crowd’ that summer. Her long, straight black hair, which was nearly half-way down her back, was kept off her face with a leather headband. Her half-sleeved shirt was cotton (it was likely to be hot in upstate New York as it was mid-August) with an undyed light grey that had her trade-mark red trim in a stylized pseudo-tribal style. Her knee-patched light-weight trousers were mid-way between the shades of brown of her leather headband and her leather moccasins.
Daria was dressed in a somewhat more popular style of the rock/hippie crowd. Both Marcus and Jane were slightly surprised that she would be wearing sandals. While she usually performed bare-foot at the Thursday be-ins, she generally wore combat boots at schools and stylish flats when dressing ‘straight’. While she planned on wearing jeans once she arrived at the festival, for the photo she was going with an ankle-length denim skirt, along with a full-sleeved shirt in three-striped somewhat psychedelic colors. She was wearing her prescription sunglasses, and had two daisies in her hair – not quite as long as Jane’s. Daria was wearing her hair in two pigtails.
Time-Life was sending the quartet to the Woodstock festival in proper transportation. A slightly used VW van, painted in a somewhat psychedelic style, had been delivered the day before. The festival was scheduled for that Friday through Sunday. The quartet would be leaving the next morning – they had permission to arrive either the evening of the 13th or the morning of the 14th, to help cover the setup. They were leaving early in the hopes of arriving that afternoon, before many early arrivals.
They were lucky they left when they did, as they were far from the only people who wanted to arrive early.
Trent and Jesse had come over that Tuesday afternoon and spent the night in sleeping bags. Neither was all that awake early the following morning. Jane and Daria basically half-carried/half-guided Trent into the back of the van as Marcus loaded their luggage. It took all three to manage to get the larger Jesse into the van as well. As far as Jane was concerned, her job was now finished, and she slumped into the front passenger seat. She was asleep well before the van left town and made it to the highway.
As Jane settled into the passenger seat, Daria embraced Marcus. “Have a good time,” was all he said in between two lingering and deep farewell kisses. Daria knew he wanted to tell her to be careful, but that he wouldn’t, out of respect and the knowledge that she would in any event.
Although the quartet managed to arrive near the venue just before 2:00 that afternoon, in a sense they were already late. They would later learn that nearly 50,000 people had arrived by that morning. At its peak, there would be around 450,000 people in attendance, and the total number who were there for at least part of the concerts was of course even higher. Of course, there were also many thousands who tried to attend who failed to make it within range of the sound.
On the one hand, Daria hated much of the ‘Woodstock experience’ – occasional heavy rain, the resulting mud, poor sanitation (all were mentioned in the movie, and actually each was far worse than it appeared in the film), and overall a miserable physical experience. Trent and Jesse had shaken their heads at what they had presumed was Daria (and Marcus’) over-preparation. The quartet had basically run out of water on the Sunday afternoon, which put them ahead of most people. Similarly, while it was junk food, their snacks lasted until that night. (Granted, neither would have lasted quite so long if Trent and Jesse hadn’t wandered off and gotten lost in the crowd for over twenty hours.)
On the other, most of the music ranged from very good to excellent, which made Daria appreciate the overall experience – but mostly in retrospect. By the time Jimi Hendrix finished his performance on the late Monday morning (more than 12 hours after the scheduled end of the festival), Daria had managed to fill three notebooks and had more than twice that amount of information ready in her head. Jane had taken over thirty rolls of film; she only wished she had been able to bring more. Between Daria’s after-action reports and Jane’s photos, Time-Life felt they had gotten their money’s worth when their information flowed the following week.
That would be in the intermediate future. In the short term, Trent and Jesse were even less able to drive at the end of the festival than they had been to start the trip – each had hangovers from alcohol and dehydration, not to mention still being a bit stoned on top of everything esle. Jane was nearly as bad, although she hadn’t smoked anything. As tired as she was, Daria had to get them out of the area. The van was somewhat stuck in the mud. Daria got the semi-conscious Jane to take her shirt off, the sight of which inspired a group of guys to push the van onto solid ground. Not fully realizing what she had done (and she would later be embarrassed when Daria showed her the two photos she had taken of the incident), Jane pulled her shirt back on and went to sleep.
Instead of going south or north/northeast, Daria drove west, as that was the least busy way out of the area. Once she got to Binghamton, she changed into slightly more conventional (and much cleaner) clothes. She got the other three in to use the facilities, before stopping at a Carrol’s hamburger stand. They ended up driving on to a little town called Waverly, New York, before they found rooms. In this case, it was at a hotel that had a great view of the Chemung River just below it and farmland spreading out to the west of it. Daria checked them in, as she doubt the other three currently looked respectable enough to be allowed in.
The four each spent a fair amount of time under the showers in their rooms. After hers, Daria called Marcus and then Amy. To Daria’s surprise, after giving Amy a brief report and an outline of what she could expect from Daria and Jane’s reporting of the event and its aftermath, she was told to hang up and wait. Fifty minutes later, Amy called back and told her that late the next morning, the four were booked on a flight out of Elmira airport. The van was to be left at the airport, where it would be picked up. Anything they could not take on the plane should be left in the van and would be shipped to Daria, and she could then distribute the items to whomever they belonged to.
Despite being clean and looking somewhat respectable, none of the four felt like braving the dining room of the O’Brien’s Inn, and so made their way over the border into Pennsylvania and ate at an A&W. They did eat breakfast at the Inn, drawing some odd looks from the usual crowd of families on vacation and local businessmen. Then they were off on the short trip west on NY Route 17 to the airport and a flight back to Maryland.
Jane would spend the next week back at the Lane family home, as she, with some help from Trent, developed all the film she had shot, along with the dozen rolls Daria had used as well. Daria put together a good review of the concert for Aunt Amy, and that along with 120 of the best photos (102 of Jane’s, 18 of Daria’s) went express mail the following Monday afternoon. Amy and her superiors were well-pleased.
Altogether, both felt good about their ‘adventure.’ Daria sat down with Jane and together they picked out another 90 of their photos. With some commentary, corrections, and suggestions from Jane, Daria put together a nice pamphlet on the festival. It would be published in soft-cover in time for the Christmas buying season, and would gain nice boosts in sales when the film came out the following March, and the first album that came out in May. In the end, the pair only ended up having to pay for the water and snacks they took to the concert, and in turn made a fair amount from their soft cover. Altogether, they earned a good reputation for their work, both from the book and from Time-Life.
By the time Daria graduated that December, she therefore had three novels (the Coventry novel and its sequel and the Haight-Ashbury novel) published to good reviews and more than decent sales, plus the soft-cover book on Woodstock. She had also completed the Civil War romance novel, and would be ready to send it to her publishers soon after New Year’s, as she still needed to edit it some more.
Daria only had 7 gen ed credits she had to take that autumn. She wanted to take a full load – her father was still honoring her mother’s agreement to pay for four years of college, even if her mother had refused any communications since the previous Thanksgiving. Daria did manage to arrange to take the 3-credit independent study in script writing she had hoped to take, and a theater course. She disliked the fact that she would have to play a part (fortunately a minor one) in the fall theater production, but she liked the experience of seeing a play put on.
So, even without the added personal plans she had to make that autumn, between writing the Woodstock book, working on her novel, her classes, the Thursday be-ins, and playing in the orchestra, Daria had a busy final semester. Of course, there were those personal plans to work out as well. After some discussions and plotting with her maternal grandmother, Daria got that ball rolling towards the middle of September.
Jake Morgendorffer was in his office at the tv/radio station, going over the early September advertising figures – the new fall shows would be premiering soon, and he was trying to guess how those shows might do in the station’s market. He was interrupted by the intercom. “Yes?” he answered automatically, as he had seen it was his secretary and not one of his bosses.
“Your daughter is on line two,” the secretary responded.
Jake was surprised, as Quinn usually called home for money (as opposed to his office) and Daria hadn’t called anyone for months, although he had received a few letters from her here at work. “Hello?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Daria! I, well, it’s good, I mean….”
“Calm down, Dad. Nothing in wrong,” Daria assured him.
The calm tone in Daria’s voice reassured him more than her words did. “Great! So…what’s, well….”
“I do have something to tell you. I will be sending the announcement home, but I wanted to give you a heads up … and ask a favor.”
“Announcement?” Jake asked nervously. That would likely mean one of two things, and had it been around nine months since they last talked? No, it hadn’t been nearly that long … but long enough…?
“Yes, Marcus and I are getting married on the Thirty-first of December.”
Jake made a sigh of relief. “That’s…well, that great! And it will be an easy date to remember!”
“Thank you,” Daria stated drily. She realized what her father had feared the announcement might have been about. “Like I said, I will be sending you and Mother the announcement. She will likely have one of two reactions – she’s either going to kick up a fuss or try and take over all the arrangements. She can fuss all she wants, but all the arrangements are in hand. I of course hope she can be happy for me, but if she can’t, well, if she can at least put on a neutral expression she’s of course more than welcome. If she wants to fuss or fight, then no – you remember how she was at Erin’s wedding!”
Jake winced at the memories of that fiasco.
“However even if she reacts badly, I really hope you can be there – I very much want you to escort me down the aisle.”
“I will,” Jake promised, hoping his wife wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss. Still, while it rarely happened, when he was determined he usually got his way.
Daria knew all that. “I’ll call Quinn later tonight. If she wants to, she can be a bridesmaid, assuming Mother allows it.” Jake winced again. “I wanted to talk with you first, so I’ll be sending out the invitation tomorrow – Mother will likely receive it on Monday.”
Jake was glad he wouldn’t have to keep this a secret for very long. After chatting for a few more minutes about generalities, Jake leaned back and hoped for the best.
Quinn was surprised that evening to receive a phone call at her sorority house from her sister, and was somewhat surprised about the general content. That her sister was carrying on some sort of love affair had been evident for the previous ten months (and that fact had certainly shocked Quinn at the time!), and that it was with her landlord/former professor was likely. Quinn was simply glad her sister was going to be regularizing the situation. Dating, engagements, and marriage made sense to Quinn – clandestine (or in this case, semi-clandestine) love affairs were for novels, not real life, in her opinion.
What did surprise Quinn was being asked to be the second bridesmaid, along with Jane, who even Quinn knew was Daria’s best friend. Quinn was slightly disappointed that the wedding wasn’t going to be very fancy, or even all that formal. However, when told the parameters of what she could wear and that it was up to her to realize her outfit (with a small but dent budget to create the actual outfit), she was pleased. Quinn knew she could put together an outstanding outfit – and even Quinn knew not to overdo things. The bride should always be the star of her own wedding.
Quinn did realize that there was the possibility of their mother putting up some sort of fuss, especially when Quinn learned that Helen would NOT be allowed to do any of the planning. Their mother loved planning, almost as much as she enjoyed bossing everyone around and making them conform to her ideas of what any event should be. In some ways, this was the ultimate way for Daria to assert her independence. Quinn also realized that if Daria got away with this, Quinn’s theoretical future wedding would be even more under their mother’s direction if her mother had any say in it.
Still, that was in the possible future. Quinn decided to concentrate on this probable future.
Plus, Quinn had some ideas on how wonderful and elaborate her (theoretical at this point) wedding and reception could be.
-60s-
The following Monday afternoon, Jake sighed as his telephone rang. He had a good idea who it was. “Jake Morgen….”
“Jake! Do you know what our daughter has done now!”
As Helen refused to even refer to Daria unless absolutely necessary, Jake decided to milk the situation. “No, what has Quinn….”
“Not Quinn! The other one!”
Jake’s voice took on an edge. “You mean the one you DON’T want anyone to refer to, unless it’s you complaining about her?”
Normally, Helen would simply override a statement like that, but the tone in her husband’s voice made her pause mid-tirade.
After a moment of silence, Jake asked, “I take it you’ve heard from her, or heard something about her. Which? And is she alright?”
“From her,” Helen acknowledged, her voice closer to normal. “In fact, we received a wedding announcement.”
“She’s married? You mean she got married without telling us, all because you….” Jake allowed the frustration he had over the estrangement his wife had created with their older daughter to drive his response.
Helen hurriedly broke in, “No, no! She’s marrying that professor of hers in December.”
“Oh…” Jake said, calming down. “What day?”
“New Year’s Eve! That’s a Wednesday this year.”
“So, what’s the problem? It sounds like all good news so far, and you certainly wanted her to regularize whatever relationship she’s been in.”
“Wait until you come home and read the enclosed note! She’s organizing everything! Knowing her, the reception will be a sheet cake with music supplied by scratchy forty-fives!”
“I see,” Jake stated, before his voice hardened again, “Having basically driven her away, then refuse to keep in touch with her, you are now upset because she’s not allowing you to run her wedding the way you want to, because it won’t allow you to outdo Erin’s wedding, thereby showing up your sister and mother. Does that sound about right?”
As much as she wanted to deny it, and as angry as that statement made her, Helen could not honestly protest the accuracy. She tried, but she couldn’t manage to force the protest out.
Over the weekend, Jake had thought of some things he should have asked Daria the week before. “So, where and what time, and will there be a rehearsal and dinner? Are they registered anywhere?”
Those questions allowed Helen to regain her voice. “Apparently, it will be in some building on his campus! Can you imagine? Six o’clock, wedding reception in the campus cafeteria! And no! Nothing before the wedding.” There was a pause, and then Helen said dismissively, “And no! There’s an insert that states that they have all they need, and only our presence is requested!” Helen’s voice went into a growl. “He must be some sort of hippie, too!”
“Possibly, but I rather doubt it,” Jake replied. “As you’ve pointed out many times, they’re playing house, so the household is probably set up. Err, you said she’s marrying her professor, right?”
“Yes,” Helen admitted.
“Then he already had the house, and they probably have what they need. If you feel we should give them something, even though it’s impersonal, there’s always cash,” Jake teased. Before Helen could respond to that sally, he went on, “Did she say if she’ll ask Quinn to be in the wedding party?”
“She said she would ask,” Helen grumpily replied. “And she asks that you escort her down the aisle.” This would mean only Helen would be left out, other than being the mother of the bride – the traditional organizer of their daughters’ weddings. If the reception looked cheap, she believed she would be blamed – and if it somehow looked great, she would know she would not deserve any credit.
In the end, with a great deal of continued grumbling, Helen sent in the RSVP, and hoped for the best.
Daria really had little to worry about when it came to the wedding as the semester progressed. Vincent Lane really liked and even admired his youngest daughter’s best friend, and was happy to schedule himself to shoot the event and as a present would do the photos at cost. Trent and the band were willing to forgo a good gig at a club in Baltimore to attend the wedding for their part-time lyricist and some-time co-act, but Daria’s grandmother, when she learned of that offer, paid them double what the club would have paid them to play at the reception. Four of Daria and/or Marcus’ friends from the orchestra would perform some quartets before the wedding and play the processional and recessional (and of course attend the reception, while the band would of course also attend the actual wedding). Jane would organize the decorations, in part produced by some of her fellow art majors.
All this planning meant that the wedding was an open secret on campus by early October. This resulted in Marcus being called first into his department chair’s office and then the dean’s office, and finally by the academic provost. Each scolded him, as each felt that since Daria was graduating that December, the pair should have held off the wedding until the following summer, to provide a little plausible deniability. Student/faculty relationships were not officially forbidden, but they were discouraged (at least having openly acknowledged ones). A number of Marcus’ colleagues also reprimanded him, as his marrying Daria was giving their student mistresses ideas.
Marcus was called into a meeting of the senior administrators the next Monday. However, rather than the wedding, they had only just learned that the students were planning a demonstration that Wednesday and hoped Daria would have some influence over it to keep things peaceful on the students’ part. Many college campuses had anti-war protests that October 15th , including LSC. Marcus was able to assure the nervous campus leadership that what was planned, at least, was as peaceful as the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination.
In the end, the LSC protest was peaceful, in part because of the efforts of the student leadership and in part because the campus administrators didn’t overreact. They met with many of the student leaders on the day before, and assured them that if there was no trouble started, there would be no response or retaliation.
Oddly, while student protests still occurred on many other campuses through the next year (with the Kent State tragedy occurring in May of 1970 for example), the campus really quieted down after October 15th. When the final Thursday be-in occurred during the final exam period in December, it would turn out to be the last one held at all. In many ways, while the movement which mostly started between 1965-66 would hold on in many minor ways for many years, the so-called ‘hippie sixties’ basically died sometime between the Altamont festival in December, 1969, and the Kent State shootings the following May.
No matter how conventionally she would sometimes dress and act in the future, in her own mind, Daria would always consider the portion of her that sat busking with her guitar near Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967, barefoot, face painted, and flowers in her hair, as second only with her love affair with Marcus as defining herself.
-60s-
Daria enjoyed her final semester. She had several ideas for future work, and also did another set of lyrics for Trent’s band. Like Daria, Jane had dropped the education degree option as soon as she could. Over the first part of the previous summer and the early autumn, she put together an excellent portfolio of art (mostly paintings and drawings, but also some sculpture and jewelry), photography, and designs. She applied for an MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design, and would be accepted the following spring.
Daria and Jane knew they would miss each other – the two’s sex life had ended, but the pair still adored cuddling with each other, and throughout Jane’s remaining time before moving to Providence the following August, they usually spent one or two nights a week together. Still, both knew they were moving on with their lives in different ways. Marcus surprised them both that Thanksgiving when he told Jane that she should consider the apartment her home until such time, if ever, she decided to make place else her permanent base.
-60s-
By Dr T
Woodstock and Beyond
A ‘Daria’ fanfic, so no claim to original characters, etc. claimed, just my plot twists. Based on an image from the last ‘Daria’ episode/movie, ‘Is It College Yet?’
-60s-
Tuesday, August 12, 1969
Marcus was not as good a photographer as Daria, who in turn was not as good as Jane. Still, all three wanted a photo of Daria and Jane dressed as they would at least be starting out at Woodstock, with the rest of their clothes for the Festival in similar styles. The pair posed in the backyard, where there was still some privacy – while neither woman was wearing anything revealing, Daria was generally seen around the yard in more conventional clothing, other than when she was going to or from campus. Several of the nearby lots had had houses completed over the previous year and there was still relatively little landscaping, there were privacy fences dividing the built-on properties, and none of the neighboring houses looked directly down onto this area of the yard.
Both women had let their hair grow since their Freshman year, even if one or the other had had their hair trimmed a bit to some degree at different times. Now, both had hair about as long as ever. Jane had decided to go with an outfit slightly inspired by some of the pseudo-Native American styles that were popular with some of the ‘hip crowd’ that summer. Her long, straight black hair, which was nearly half-way down her back, was kept off her face with a leather headband. Her half-sleeved shirt was cotton (it was likely to be hot in upstate New York as it was mid-August) with an undyed light grey that had her trade-mark red trim in a stylized pseudo-tribal style. Her knee-patched light-weight trousers were mid-way between the shades of brown of her leather headband and her leather moccasins.
Daria was dressed in a somewhat more popular style of the rock/hippie crowd. Both Marcus and Jane were slightly surprised that she would be wearing sandals. While she usually performed bare-foot at the Thursday be-ins, she generally wore combat boots at schools and stylish flats when dressing ‘straight’. While she planned on wearing jeans once she arrived at the festival, for the photo she was going with an ankle-length denim skirt, along with a full-sleeved shirt in three-striped somewhat psychedelic colors. She was wearing her prescription sunglasses, and had two daisies in her hair – not quite as long as Jane’s. Daria was wearing her hair in two pigtails.
Time-Life was sending the quartet to the Woodstock festival in proper transportation. A slightly used VW van, painted in a somewhat psychedelic style, had been delivered the day before. The festival was scheduled for that Friday through Sunday. The quartet would be leaving the next morning – they had permission to arrive either the evening of the 13th or the morning of the 14th, to help cover the setup. They were leaving early in the hopes of arriving that afternoon, before many early arrivals.
They were lucky they left when they did, as they were far from the only people who wanted to arrive early.
Trent and Jesse had come over that Tuesday afternoon and spent the night in sleeping bags. Neither was all that awake early the following morning. Jane and Daria basically half-carried/half-guided Trent into the back of the van as Marcus loaded their luggage. It took all three to manage to get the larger Jesse into the van as well. As far as Jane was concerned, her job was now finished, and she slumped into the front passenger seat. She was asleep well before the van left town and made it to the highway.
As Jane settled into the passenger seat, Daria embraced Marcus. “Have a good time,” was all he said in between two lingering and deep farewell kisses. Daria knew he wanted to tell her to be careful, but that he wouldn’t, out of respect and the knowledge that she would in any event.
Although the quartet managed to arrive near the venue just before 2:00 that afternoon, in a sense they were already late. They would later learn that nearly 50,000 people had arrived by that morning. At its peak, there would be around 450,000 people in attendance, and the total number who were there for at least part of the concerts was of course even higher. Of course, there were also many thousands who tried to attend who failed to make it within range of the sound.
On the one hand, Daria hated much of the ‘Woodstock experience’ – occasional heavy rain, the resulting mud, poor sanitation (all were mentioned in the movie, and actually each was far worse than it appeared in the film), and overall a miserable physical experience. Trent and Jesse had shaken their heads at what they had presumed was Daria (and Marcus’) over-preparation. The quartet had basically run out of water on the Sunday afternoon, which put them ahead of most people. Similarly, while it was junk food, their snacks lasted until that night. (Granted, neither would have lasted quite so long if Trent and Jesse hadn’t wandered off and gotten lost in the crowd for over twenty hours.)
On the other, most of the music ranged from very good to excellent, which made Daria appreciate the overall experience – but mostly in retrospect. By the time Jimi Hendrix finished his performance on the late Monday morning (more than 12 hours after the scheduled end of the festival), Daria had managed to fill three notebooks and had more than twice that amount of information ready in her head. Jane had taken over thirty rolls of film; she only wished she had been able to bring more. Between Daria’s after-action reports and Jane’s photos, Time-Life felt they had gotten their money’s worth when their information flowed the following week.
That would be in the intermediate future. In the short term, Trent and Jesse were even less able to drive at the end of the festival than they had been to start the trip – each had hangovers from alcohol and dehydration, not to mention still being a bit stoned on top of everything esle. Jane was nearly as bad, although she hadn’t smoked anything. As tired as she was, Daria had to get them out of the area. The van was somewhat stuck in the mud. Daria got the semi-conscious Jane to take her shirt off, the sight of which inspired a group of guys to push the van onto solid ground. Not fully realizing what she had done (and she would later be embarrassed when Daria showed her the two photos she had taken of the incident), Jane pulled her shirt back on and went to sleep.
Instead of going south or north/northeast, Daria drove west, as that was the least busy way out of the area. Once she got to Binghamton, she changed into slightly more conventional (and much cleaner) clothes. She got the other three in to use the facilities, before stopping at a Carrol’s hamburger stand. They ended up driving on to a little town called Waverly, New York, before they found rooms. In this case, it was at a hotel that had a great view of the Chemung River just below it and farmland spreading out to the west of it. Daria checked them in, as she doubt the other three currently looked respectable enough to be allowed in.
The four each spent a fair amount of time under the showers in their rooms. After hers, Daria called Marcus and then Amy. To Daria’s surprise, after giving Amy a brief report and an outline of what she could expect from Daria and Jane’s reporting of the event and its aftermath, she was told to hang up and wait. Fifty minutes later, Amy called back and told her that late the next morning, the four were booked on a flight out of Elmira airport. The van was to be left at the airport, where it would be picked up. Anything they could not take on the plane should be left in the van and would be shipped to Daria, and she could then distribute the items to whomever they belonged to.
Despite being clean and looking somewhat respectable, none of the four felt like braving the dining room of the O’Brien’s Inn, and so made their way over the border into Pennsylvania and ate at an A&W. They did eat breakfast at the Inn, drawing some odd looks from the usual crowd of families on vacation and local businessmen. Then they were off on the short trip west on NY Route 17 to the airport and a flight back to Maryland.
Jane would spend the next week back at the Lane family home, as she, with some help from Trent, developed all the film she had shot, along with the dozen rolls Daria had used as well. Daria put together a good review of the concert for Aunt Amy, and that along with 120 of the best photos (102 of Jane’s, 18 of Daria’s) went express mail the following Monday afternoon. Amy and her superiors were well-pleased.
Altogether, both felt good about their ‘adventure.’ Daria sat down with Jane and together they picked out another 90 of their photos. With some commentary, corrections, and suggestions from Jane, Daria put together a nice pamphlet on the festival. It would be published in soft-cover in time for the Christmas buying season, and would gain nice boosts in sales when the film came out the following March, and the first album that came out in May. In the end, the pair only ended up having to pay for the water and snacks they took to the concert, and in turn made a fair amount from their soft cover. Altogether, they earned a good reputation for their work, both from the book and from Time-Life.
By the time Daria graduated that December, she therefore had three novels (the Coventry novel and its sequel and the Haight-Ashbury novel) published to good reviews and more than decent sales, plus the soft-cover book on Woodstock. She had also completed the Civil War romance novel, and would be ready to send it to her publishers soon after New Year’s, as she still needed to edit it some more.
Daria only had 7 gen ed credits she had to take that autumn. She wanted to take a full load – her father was still honoring her mother’s agreement to pay for four years of college, even if her mother had refused any communications since the previous Thanksgiving. Daria did manage to arrange to take the 3-credit independent study in script writing she had hoped to take, and a theater course. She disliked the fact that she would have to play a part (fortunately a minor one) in the fall theater production, but she liked the experience of seeing a play put on.
So, even without the added personal plans she had to make that autumn, between writing the Woodstock book, working on her novel, her classes, the Thursday be-ins, and playing in the orchestra, Daria had a busy final semester. Of course, there were those personal plans to work out as well. After some discussions and plotting with her maternal grandmother, Daria got that ball rolling towards the middle of September.
Jake Morgendorffer was in his office at the tv/radio station, going over the early September advertising figures – the new fall shows would be premiering soon, and he was trying to guess how those shows might do in the station’s market. He was interrupted by the intercom. “Yes?” he answered automatically, as he had seen it was his secretary and not one of his bosses.
“Your daughter is on line two,” the secretary responded.
Jake was surprised, as Quinn usually called home for money (as opposed to his office) and Daria hadn’t called anyone for months, although he had received a few letters from her here at work. “Hello?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Daria! I, well, it’s good, I mean….”
“Calm down, Dad. Nothing in wrong,” Daria assured him.
The calm tone in Daria’s voice reassured him more than her words did. “Great! So…what’s, well….”
“I do have something to tell you. I will be sending the announcement home, but I wanted to give you a heads up … and ask a favor.”
“Announcement?” Jake asked nervously. That would likely mean one of two things, and had it been around nine months since they last talked? No, it hadn’t been nearly that long … but long enough…?
“Yes, Marcus and I are getting married on the Thirty-first of December.”
Jake made a sigh of relief. “That’s…well, that great! And it will be an easy date to remember!”
“Thank you,” Daria stated drily. She realized what her father had feared the announcement might have been about. “Like I said, I will be sending you and Mother the announcement. She will likely have one of two reactions – she’s either going to kick up a fuss or try and take over all the arrangements. She can fuss all she wants, but all the arrangements are in hand. I of course hope she can be happy for me, but if she can’t, well, if she can at least put on a neutral expression she’s of course more than welcome. If she wants to fuss or fight, then no – you remember how she was at Erin’s wedding!”
Jake winced at the memories of that fiasco.
“However even if she reacts badly, I really hope you can be there – I very much want you to escort me down the aisle.”
“I will,” Jake promised, hoping his wife wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss. Still, while it rarely happened, when he was determined he usually got his way.
Daria knew all that. “I’ll call Quinn later tonight. If she wants to, she can be a bridesmaid, assuming Mother allows it.” Jake winced again. “I wanted to talk with you first, so I’ll be sending out the invitation tomorrow – Mother will likely receive it on Monday.”
Jake was glad he wouldn’t have to keep this a secret for very long. After chatting for a few more minutes about generalities, Jake leaned back and hoped for the best.
Quinn was surprised that evening to receive a phone call at her sorority house from her sister, and was somewhat surprised about the general content. That her sister was carrying on some sort of love affair had been evident for the previous ten months (and that fact had certainly shocked Quinn at the time!), and that it was with her landlord/former professor was likely. Quinn was simply glad her sister was going to be regularizing the situation. Dating, engagements, and marriage made sense to Quinn – clandestine (or in this case, semi-clandestine) love affairs were for novels, not real life, in her opinion.
What did surprise Quinn was being asked to be the second bridesmaid, along with Jane, who even Quinn knew was Daria’s best friend. Quinn was slightly disappointed that the wedding wasn’t going to be very fancy, or even all that formal. However, when told the parameters of what she could wear and that it was up to her to realize her outfit (with a small but dent budget to create the actual outfit), she was pleased. Quinn knew she could put together an outstanding outfit – and even Quinn knew not to overdo things. The bride should always be the star of her own wedding.
Quinn did realize that there was the possibility of their mother putting up some sort of fuss, especially when Quinn learned that Helen would NOT be allowed to do any of the planning. Their mother loved planning, almost as much as she enjoyed bossing everyone around and making them conform to her ideas of what any event should be. In some ways, this was the ultimate way for Daria to assert her independence. Quinn also realized that if Daria got away with this, Quinn’s theoretical future wedding would be even more under their mother’s direction if her mother had any say in it.
Still, that was in the possible future. Quinn decided to concentrate on this probable future.
Plus, Quinn had some ideas on how wonderful and elaborate her (theoretical at this point) wedding and reception could be.
-60s-
The following Monday afternoon, Jake sighed as his telephone rang. He had a good idea who it was. “Jake Morgen….”
“Jake! Do you know what our daughter has done now!”
As Helen refused to even refer to Daria unless absolutely necessary, Jake decided to milk the situation. “No, what has Quinn….”
“Not Quinn! The other one!”
Jake’s voice took on an edge. “You mean the one you DON’T want anyone to refer to, unless it’s you complaining about her?”
Normally, Helen would simply override a statement like that, but the tone in her husband’s voice made her pause mid-tirade.
After a moment of silence, Jake asked, “I take it you’ve heard from her, or heard something about her. Which? And is she alright?”
“From her,” Helen acknowledged, her voice closer to normal. “In fact, we received a wedding announcement.”
“She’s married? You mean she got married without telling us, all because you….” Jake allowed the frustration he had over the estrangement his wife had created with their older daughter to drive his response.
Helen hurriedly broke in, “No, no! She’s marrying that professor of hers in December.”
“Oh…” Jake said, calming down. “What day?”
“New Year’s Eve! That’s a Wednesday this year.”
“So, what’s the problem? It sounds like all good news so far, and you certainly wanted her to regularize whatever relationship she’s been in.”
“Wait until you come home and read the enclosed note! She’s organizing everything! Knowing her, the reception will be a sheet cake with music supplied by scratchy forty-fives!”
“I see,” Jake stated, before his voice hardened again, “Having basically driven her away, then refuse to keep in touch with her, you are now upset because she’s not allowing you to run her wedding the way you want to, because it won’t allow you to outdo Erin’s wedding, thereby showing up your sister and mother. Does that sound about right?”
As much as she wanted to deny it, and as angry as that statement made her, Helen could not honestly protest the accuracy. She tried, but she couldn’t manage to force the protest out.
Over the weekend, Jake had thought of some things he should have asked Daria the week before. “So, where and what time, and will there be a rehearsal and dinner? Are they registered anywhere?”
Those questions allowed Helen to regain her voice. “Apparently, it will be in some building on his campus! Can you imagine? Six o’clock, wedding reception in the campus cafeteria! And no! Nothing before the wedding.” There was a pause, and then Helen said dismissively, “And no! There’s an insert that states that they have all they need, and only our presence is requested!” Helen’s voice went into a growl. “He must be some sort of hippie, too!”
“Possibly, but I rather doubt it,” Jake replied. “As you’ve pointed out many times, they’re playing house, so the household is probably set up. Err, you said she’s marrying her professor, right?”
“Yes,” Helen admitted.
“Then he already had the house, and they probably have what they need. If you feel we should give them something, even though it’s impersonal, there’s always cash,” Jake teased. Before Helen could respond to that sally, he went on, “Did she say if she’ll ask Quinn to be in the wedding party?”
“She said she would ask,” Helen grumpily replied. “And she asks that you escort her down the aisle.” This would mean only Helen would be left out, other than being the mother of the bride – the traditional organizer of their daughters’ weddings. If the reception looked cheap, she believed she would be blamed – and if it somehow looked great, she would know she would not deserve any credit.
In the end, with a great deal of continued grumbling, Helen sent in the RSVP, and hoped for the best.
Daria really had little to worry about when it came to the wedding as the semester progressed. Vincent Lane really liked and even admired his youngest daughter’s best friend, and was happy to schedule himself to shoot the event and as a present would do the photos at cost. Trent and the band were willing to forgo a good gig at a club in Baltimore to attend the wedding for their part-time lyricist and some-time co-act, but Daria’s grandmother, when she learned of that offer, paid them double what the club would have paid them to play at the reception. Four of Daria and/or Marcus’ friends from the orchestra would perform some quartets before the wedding and play the processional and recessional (and of course attend the reception, while the band would of course also attend the actual wedding). Jane would organize the decorations, in part produced by some of her fellow art majors.
All this planning meant that the wedding was an open secret on campus by early October. This resulted in Marcus being called first into his department chair’s office and then the dean’s office, and finally by the academic provost. Each scolded him, as each felt that since Daria was graduating that December, the pair should have held off the wedding until the following summer, to provide a little plausible deniability. Student/faculty relationships were not officially forbidden, but they were discouraged (at least having openly acknowledged ones). A number of Marcus’ colleagues also reprimanded him, as his marrying Daria was giving their student mistresses ideas.
Marcus was called into a meeting of the senior administrators the next Monday. However, rather than the wedding, they had only just learned that the students were planning a demonstration that Wednesday and hoped Daria would have some influence over it to keep things peaceful on the students’ part. Many college campuses had anti-war protests that October 15th , including LSC. Marcus was able to assure the nervous campus leadership that what was planned, at least, was as peaceful as the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination.
In the end, the LSC protest was peaceful, in part because of the efforts of the student leadership and in part because the campus administrators didn’t overreact. They met with many of the student leaders on the day before, and assured them that if there was no trouble started, there would be no response or retaliation.
Oddly, while student protests still occurred on many other campuses through the next year (with the Kent State tragedy occurring in May of 1970 for example), the campus really quieted down after October 15th. When the final Thursday be-in occurred during the final exam period in December, it would turn out to be the last one held at all. In many ways, while the movement which mostly started between 1965-66 would hold on in many minor ways for many years, the so-called ‘hippie sixties’ basically died sometime between the Altamont festival in December, 1969, and the Kent State shootings the following May.
No matter how conventionally she would sometimes dress and act in the future, in her own mind, Daria would always consider the portion of her that sat busking with her guitar near Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967, barefoot, face painted, and flowers in her hair, as second only with her love affair with Marcus as defining herself.
-60s-
Daria enjoyed her final semester. She had several ideas for future work, and also did another set of lyrics for Trent’s band. Like Daria, Jane had dropped the education degree option as soon as she could. Over the first part of the previous summer and the early autumn, she put together an excellent portfolio of art (mostly paintings and drawings, but also some sculpture and jewelry), photography, and designs. She applied for an MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design, and would be accepted the following spring.
Daria and Jane knew they would miss each other – the two’s sex life had ended, but the pair still adored cuddling with each other, and throughout Jane’s remaining time before moving to Providence the following August, they usually spent one or two nights a week together. Still, both knew they were moving on with their lives in different ways. Marcus surprised them both that Thanksgiving when he told Jane that she should consider the apartment her home until such time, if ever, she decided to make place else her permanent base.
-60s-
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