Paulsen novel looks back on hometown
It was the early 1970s, and someone at every crossroads in America had visions of rock festivals dancing in their heads.
What the heck, they pulled off Woodstock on a farm outside the tiny hamlet of Bethel, N.Y., and staged three massive festivals on the out-of-the-way Isle of Wight in the English Channel before the authorities put an end to it. So why not put one on in, say, western Washington County? Or even Chester, W.Va., the home of the world’s largest teapot?
The proposed Washington County rock extravaganza never materialized, but Chester, W.Va., actually did present a couple of shows in an amphitheater outside the Waterford Park racetrack (it was later rechristened the Mountaineer Racetrack and a casino was added later). It may have only been the steel guitars that were cranked up to 11 in June 1973 for a country concert that featured Lynn Anderson, Danny Davis, Boots Randolph and the Nashville Brass. The following month, Black Oak Arkansas, the J. Geils Band, Humble Pie and Peter Frampton descended on Chester.
A third show was set to take place a couple of weeks later, this one with King Crimson, Foghat, Edgar Winter and Johnny Winter, but before the trucks could arrive and the amplifiers could be plugged in, an injunction was filed against the promoter and the Ogden Corporation, which owned Waterford Park. It seems that local clergy and other grandees were worried about the hordes that would be invading Chester, and that those hordes would be bringing some of the indulgences that alarmed civic leaders when rock shows or festivals were in the offing in other locations.
Scott Paulsen, a Chester native and now-retired Pittsburgh radio host, was not at the two concerts that did take place. He was 14, and not allowed to attend such spectacles. But the hullabaloo left a lasting impression. It served as the jumping off point for his second novel, “Dirty Hippies,” which is about a concert promoter’s effort to stage a festival in, yes, Chester, W.Va., and the excitement it generates among local youth and the trepidation it generates among their parents and grandparents.
“I’m trying to record history through small, fictionalized events, knowing that I’d like to read more history written this way,” Paulsen explained. “I plan to continue walking in the shoes of my past, cataloguing moments while I can still recall them vividly.”
“Dirty Hippies” is Paulsen’s second novel, following “The Night Fruit Army,” which also chronicled life in West Virginia. “Cow Tipping,” another book, gathered together some of his radio monologues. When not tending to his farm in Amwell Township, Paulsen researched “Dirty Hippies” by exploring the history of the racetrack and poring through coverage of the Chester concerts in such newspapers as the Weirton Daily Times and the East Liverpool Review. He also interviewed more than 20 people who were at the concerts, the promoter, Chester’s former police chief and the former sheriff of Hancock County, W.Va.
Paulsen topped off his research by talking to three attorneys to understand the injunction process and taking a trip to the concert site, “to see if any remnants remain.”
As anyone who has ever attempted to write a novel can tell you, the process of sitting down and pulling it together can have its share of delays and moments of self-doubt.
“I tried to set a time every day,” Paulsen said. “But it doesn’t quite work out that way, and it can be tough not to be outside.”
Even when he was engaged in routine activities like tending to his garden or putting in a fence, “Dirty Hippies” was on Paulsen’s mind.
“You’re always thinking about it and rolling stuff around in your head,” he pointed out.
It took about two years from the time Paulsen began his research to finish the novel. Like his first two forays into the book world, he opted to publish “Dirty Hippies” on his own. It can be purchased at Amazon.com.
“I chose them because I’ve used them to buy books and found it painless and streamlined,” he said. Paulsen has almost sold out of his first run of 300 paperbacks, and has sold about the same number of eBook downloads.
Paulsen became a fixture on Pittsburgh radio in the 1980s when he hosted “The DVE Morning Show” on WDVE-FM with Jim Krenn. He arrived in Pittsburgh after stints at radio stations in Steubenville, Ohio, Huntington, W.Va., Ashland, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn. He made a brief return to WDVE earlier this decade, and has also worked at Pittsburgh radio outlets WKRZ-FM and ESPN 1250. His writings have previously appeared in the form of columns for the Observer-Reporter and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
A return to radio doesn’t appear to be imminent.
“I don’t see anything that I want,” he said.
In the meantime, Paulsen becomes animated when the discussion turns to his favorite authors and books. “The Right Stuff,” Tom Wolfe’s classic nonfiction history of the American space program in its maiden days, was recently on his nightstand. Other wordsmiths who haved captured his fancy include Tom Robbins, E.L. Doctorow, John Irving, Cormac McCarthy and Michael Chabon. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” from Hunter S. Thompson and “Confederacy of Dunces” from John Kennedy Toole remain inspirations.
“I’ll read anything if you put it in front of me,” he said.