Got to Make it ! Collectors’ Edition by Jack Eadon Cover illustration by Scott Freeman, Loveland,CO Eloquence Press Tustin, California Perspective It’s an awfully bleak view of things when you think of it: We either complain when we struggle aimlessly toward an end with no result, or we shrug in disbelief when “what-we-always-hoped-for-with-all-of-our-hearts” comes to us without an effort. Either way, it’s like all our hard work directed toward accomplishing specific goals is totally unrelated to the outcome. Boy, that view of things might seem familiar, but it offers us little hope if what we want is to truly master our lives. Here’s another way to look at it: We don’t just struggle or hope aimlessly, we strive. Common to us all, striving implies an earnest, sometimes unrelenting, persistence in ourstruggle. In fact, as you will see herein, leaning against a cause or purpose is something we homo sapiens are very good at doing. Some might call it our obsessive nature, offhandedly considered a weakness. On the contrary, it is our impatience—so-called realism and can-do attitude—that creates deadlines which in turn prevent us from reaching our goals. If we resist our tendency to constantly set arbitrary benchmarks, on the way to reaching our goals, and instead lean hard and long enough enough, we are capable of exerting enough energy to create any definitive change. This story is a story about the effectiveness of leaning. 5 Jack Eadon Notes on Got to Make It! For the most part the chronology regarding the band is accurate; for sake of readability I have juggled theg timin of several events. Forgive me for these minor inaccuracies. They are not fundamental to the story. Virtually, all of the individual events described herein actually occurred and have been rendered as accurately as memory allows. At the very least, they are my perceptions! Although, their scale may appear quite remarkable at times, any exaggeration is what you might expect from young, excited, first person eyes. The important stuff really happened and left a definite impression on me. For the most part, major characters are accurate portrayals of real persons. That’s what makes Got to Make It! so rich and full. It is real. Some minor characters have been combined for clarity. Now put on a pair of old bell-bottoms and enjoy the ride! NOTE: Throughout the book , Jack will pop-up to say "hey" and let you know when it would be especially enjoyable to “cue up” a particular MP3 track. (Internet connection required). Depending on your browser or computer set-up, Control- Click (Mac) or right clicking (Windows) the tracks link, allows you to "open link in a new window or tab". You will be able to listen to the Mp3 track and read the book at the same time. Mac users: Click on Jack to listen to the song. Then "click on the book window" to bring it to the foreground— and continue to read! 6 GOT TO MAKE IT! Special Thanks I’d like to especially thank the other guys in the final band configuration—Tom, Al, and Crow—for their help and commitment during the band years. It’s amazing that each of us have ended up doing things we love because creating so freely taught us how to see things honestly: about ourselves, about our music, about our lives. Even now it’s interesting how the guys’ recollections of pivotal events paralleled each other’s, but contrasted as well, leaving the descriptions herein robust and intense—a culmination of multiple viewpoints. It is my youthful memoir, indeed, so it is my personal perspective, but it is one that, even to this day, tries to respect the special contribution of each guy—from musical wunderkind to goofball—portraying each band member as realistically as memory will allow. It is a wonderful tapestry of souls that found each other at a critical time in each other’s lives. When three of us got together for a reunion several years ago, it was amazing how we still respected the individual roles we had played in the band. It was as if we still beat with the same heart; maybe we always will. No doubt if you’d put us in a room twenty years from now we’d still act as a unit—a veritable mass mind and soul. That was always part of the wonder. As you read Got to Make It !, you’ll see a kind of magic that exudes from between the lines. It’s like Ringo Starr once said: “We were four guys who really loved each other.” 7 Jack Eadon Success is a light upon the farther shore, That shines in dazzling splendor to the eye, The waters leap, the surging billows roar, And he who seeks the prize must leap and try. James Ephraim McGirt 8 Acknowledgements First, I want to thank Jonis Agee, who saw the magic that GOT TO MAKE IT! could be, and inspired me to take it a critical step further. Thanks also to Tony Wainwright, a real believer, a friend, and mentor, who helped me believe there was hope. I miss him dearly. I want to thank my early editor Leslie Lass, who made me see things three or four levels deeper than I had originally planned. In the end, she helped make the work richer as it’s grown from a tale to a passage. She encouraged me to “face the pain” and promised therein I would find my story. I did. Thanks also to various editors—Janell Duxbury, Esther Kelly, and Rita Markovics—for improving the work with their fine eyes, creative options, and big hearts. I owe a debt of gratitude to the guys in the band, especially Tom, who provided inspiration and insight, both from an adult and a teen perspective. Despite some early hassles in my life, I want to thank my father and mother, John and Lois. Mom blessed me with an appreciation for art and, while gone materially from this earth, remains in my soul. Dad has now joined her. I’ll always love them both dearly. I thank my spouse Karen and all the other women herein who have shaped my life, both as a youth and an adult. To Ilyse I give what remains of my teen soul, and a big part of it does indeed remain. To Marcia, I put a chunk of the rest of me in a bottle and offer it to her—friends forever applies here. I am indebted to John Lennon and the Beatles for triggering that part of me that wanted to be a part of them. Not a day goes by without my passing a thought their way, especially to John. This is 9 Jack Eadon no empty tribute, for John taught me that perfection lies buried deep within imperfection, something all creative people on this earth should contemplate for long hours. Creation is not merely technicianship, but it is at its soul, ragged and real. Finally, I thank God for putting the music in my head. It has magically inspired a creativity that drove me then and continues to rule me as I write away: Like breath, it flows in and out of me every day I exist. Jack Eadon 10 Prologue 1998 I was forty-eight years old and strolling down Church Street in Morton Grove, Illinois, the town where I spent most of my years. The Agate’s hedge seemed like it hadn’t grown, though many years had passed—it must have grown with me. In a few short steps, I came upon 5735 Church Street, the home where I grew up. The two Purple Plum trees in front were bushy now, not like the sticks they were back then, as they popped out of the minuscule patch of grass that was our front yard. The orange brick on our tri-level house had darkened, the house itself looked smaller and boxier, and the wood trim had been repainted from bright white, which I did, to a dark brown. The two strips of cement that were our drive-way back then had been updated to one wide strip, extending along the side of the house to the freestanding garage that still looked like it was the white color I had painted it in the sixties. That garage was where it all started. But only now was I bearing some of the fruits of my labors back then, when I knew so little but expected so much. 11 PART I Pipeline 13 1 The Jinx The start of my teen years began back in 1963 as I sat in that white garage. It was a rainy day in Morto Grove, a burgeoning middle class suburb, seventeen miles northwest of downtown Chicago. When I was a little four year old kid, the town—we called it a village back then—had only three houses on every block; the rest of each block was a field of tall weeds or maybe corn stalks if a farm still existed on that particular block. Basically, little Morton Grove was a barren canvas waiting for paint. Throughout the fifties, during my earliest years, all the fields and farms slowly gave way to houses, a more significant metamorphosis than you can possibly imagine. You see, in those years us kids had a great time playing in all the homes’ foundations: A new playground appeared every week on our block or the next one or the next one.