Dr. Cameron Bangs at Vortex I

One of the great thrills I experienced in writing The Far Out Story of Vortex I was meeting Dr. Cameron Bangs, the medical genius behind providing care at the festival. I included his entire 20,000-word, in-the-moment diary in the book and consider it the greatest document of its kind in the history of that era. I only wish I could have brought it to the attention of a larger audience. Dr. Bangs was so generous to me: use the diary Matt, use all my photos. I dearly miss him and his unique Oregon spirit. (Dr. Bangs is at right in the photo.)

Excerpt From Dr. Cameron Bangs’ Vortex Diary

Several of us walked to the bandstand area. Rock music had gone on all night and it was indeed a strange scene the following morning. It was foggy, with visibility limited to about 100 feet. Through the fog, in the still of the morning, with a little dew on the ground we could hear the loud and somewhat lonely twangs of the guitars on the stage, playing rather erratically, definitely not together, sort of the dying embers of previous night’s loud music.

There were a few voices coming up through the fog, a few from the stage as if people were making an effort to continue some sort of activity. As we walked towards the stage, sleeping bags became so thick that you were continually stepping over or around them. With the visibility of about 100 feet it appeared as if bodies extended forever on into eternity. People were sleeping as if they had obviously been drugged the night before. People huddling on top of sleeping bags shivering rather than getting inside. People sleeping with their heads bent over logs and in obviously uncomfortable positions. Here and there were a boy and girl cuddled together in a sleeping bag oblivious to the numerous people around them. Wine bottles were extremely common, it appeared as if there were a thousand of them, mostly the half gallon green variety of the cheap wine being sold in the park.

There were many people awake, stirring, a few fires going, people trying to keep warm. It had gotten quite cold during the night. A few small groups were playing guitars by themselves. A few just waking up and sitting up wondering what the hell had gone on the night before. The whole scene reminded us the morning after a battle. It also reminded me of my days back on the East Coast when we had hurricanes, violent weather, wind, floods, during the night when we were all huddled together and frightened, and by morning it would be calm and the damage and destruction laying around.

At this point, I can recall, perhaps through the sleeplessness and fatigue, the excitement of such a new experience. I became quite reflective on the whole scene and wondered if it was worth it all and what were these people doing here freezing on the ground, obviously hung over from drugs or alcohol? Why couldn’t they be home in clean sheets with mother cooking bacon or coffee for them and lead some sort of normal existence? What drove these kids to this masochistic self harming existence? At this time several of us discussed what we as individuals could possibly do to correct this situation. Could it be corrected? Why should we get swallowed up and involved in this, what seemed to be, an overwhelming situation?