The Summer of '73

It’s hard to believe 1973 was 50-years ago. The Vietnam War had ended with the Paris Peace Accords in January.
The Supreme Court’s Roe vs Wade ruling established abortion as a constitutional right. Gasoline cost 40-cents a gallon, and you could buy a brand-new Ford Galaxie 500 for $3,883. It was the prelude to my senior year of high school.

The Summer of ‘73 was also magical in that I was able to travel to Europe for the first time, spending two weeks with the Spring Woods High School Chorale as we attended the Vienna “Musikverein” Music Festival. Our itinerary also included visits to Prague, Czechoslovakia and Budapest, Hungary.
In 1973, these countries were still behind the Iron Curtain.

The world is smaller today with smartphones and the internet and the flow of instant information. We didn’t have those in 1973, and so taking a horde of high schoolers into a Communist country was a little daunting. I think we were “undauntable” at that time in our lives. The cost of that trip was around $75,000—equivalent to over a half-million in 2023 dollars.

We didn’t know that.
We just knew we’d have to raise the money to travel. A fundraising committee was formed by school officials and Chorus parents. I remember working two part-time jobs to earn money for the trip. Not all the choir families were well-off, and so some students’ passage was paid for through the generosity of others. We were the epitome of “chorus,” not just singing, but working in union towards our European goal under the watchful eye of beloved Choir Director, Jaquelyn Cocke.

I remember our border crossing from West to East: We were sternly warned by our chaperones, ‘no foolishness.’ A Soviet soldier entered our tour bus carrying a Russian automatic rifle. He slowly walked the aisle, looking at each student sternly before passing along.
You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Vienna, Austria 1973

History was all around us, ancient and contemporary. I remember putting my finger in bullet holes of in a building in Budapest, damaged in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, 16-years earlier. The city was still somber. Yet we were able to dissipate that mood with our music.
And our frisbees.

While waiting around on the front lawn of our hotel, a few of us began tossing frisbees to one another. A group of Soviet soldiers in a Russian “jeep” pulled up in front of the building, and an officer strode inside. The three remaining soldiers took interest in our Frisbee antics, and in the international language of play, we taught them how to toss the discs.

Suddenly, the officer appeared on the front steps of the hotel, and the soldiers snapped to attention. He said something that sounded harsh, and they scrambled into the jeep and started the engine. As they drove away, I made a final Frisbee toss to one of the guys in the back of the jeep--which he caught--and was last seen waving over his head as the jeep disappeared behind a rise in the road. This may have been the beginning of East-West detente.

The Spring Woods Chorus’ outreach in the Summer of ’73 included an impromptu serenade at an outdoor café, attending a Hungarian Gulaz Party, and performances in the Vienna Opera House. The Berlin Wall would fall 16-years later, and the communist Soviet Union would crumble in 1991. I imagine that soldier still has his American Frisbee.

Sources:
https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1973.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain

Special thanks to Sharleen Thomas for her photographs