Paul Dorpat's 65th birthday, held at the Masonic Temple on Queen Anne the day after Halloween, must be a contender for Seattle's 2003 Party of the Year.
One friend calls Dorpat "an era on two legs."
Dorpat - in case you didn't know - was the primary force behind the Helix newspaper of the late '60s and the Sky River Rock Festival.
He also has produced a weekly "Now and Then" column in The Seattle Times' Sunday Magazine that, compiled as a book, has sold about 50,000 copies. And 10 other books besides.
But all that is not what first comes to mind when hearing his name. It's Paul's meaty bear hug - "a combination of vision, benevolence and manipulation" - and finding yourself suddenly infected with, as friend Hunter calls it, some Dorpassion.
Anyway, Paul's friends decided he should achieve full geezerhood with more than a whimper.
About 400 people showed up. Tom Robbins and Country Joe MacDonald sent regrets. They required more than four days' notice.
As we entered the Temple's front door, an artist was holding forth on the incomparable quality of Eskimo love to Charles Krafft, Seattle's latest art star, who's turned AK-47s into Dutch ceramics.
Riding down the stairs on a chair, thanks to a stroke, was KING-5's former crusader, Don McGaffin.
A guy in front of us was trying to protect the tables of food from the Bubble-man's bubbles.
Carol Ostrom, ex-religion editor, slid by, long gold tresses intact. Walt Crowley looked pretty timeless himself.
Garfield's Scott Rohrer was telling a story about sailing with the King of Norway, who told him: "Yes, our boat is much faster - which allowed you to more quickly go in the wrong direction."
Hawaiian-shirt mogul Danny Eskinazi was comparing original Seattle phone numbers - "WE ... for West Seattle" - with a friend from Franklin: "Before Parkway came Mohawk."
On a monitor was a glimpse of an earnest folksinger performing upstairs. I wondered where John Belushi was when you needed him to smash a guitar.
Councilman Nick Licata, over by the keg of dark beer, was confiding, "I'm just glad I'm not up for election...."
An attractive woman smiled and said, "You look familiar - did we ever sleep together?"
It was a '60s reunion, after all.
The bride of Billy King came down from upstairs in shock, declaring: "I don't think I've ever seen so much talent in one place before."
Upstairs, 50 performers had five minutes. Sopranos sang arias. Pianists pounded out Rachmaninoff. Jonathan Raban read "Old Fools." Danny O'Keefe, the star, sang.
In the back, a king at court on a Masonic throne, was Dorpat, attended by elves in velvet miniskirts. Security and stage-managing was provided by moonlighting Seattle librarians.
Paul was giving out gifts and hugs, receiving drawings, bantering with the video cameraman and enjoying himself like Zorba the Greek at the beach.
Dorpat was born in Grand Forks, N.D., on Oct. 28, 1938. His father's roots track to Dorpat, Estonia; his mom's, to Denmark.
When Paul was 6, his father, a Lutheran minister, took charge of Spokane's largest parish. He was a man of charm and rich voice who, during a visit to the Helix office, revealed: "I was the original hippie."
Paul, like Ken Kesey, whom he much resembles, was an athletic scholar who went to Whitworth College on a music scholarship and graduated in philosophy and English. He liked to write notes for grand writing projects in small pica lettering on rolls of butcher paper, loving "the way the sentences would sway across the page." Next came Claremont, and then the UW and study with Roethke.
On March 23, 1967, he launched Helix on $200. Vendors like Eskinazi sold it on the street for 15 cents. Proceeds went into "the open box" in the office, which people drew from as they needed.
In Seattle's post-'50s affluence, Dorpat says, "we lived on air and youth." (One Queen Anne mansion: $100 a month)
Too simply stated, the Helix blazed across the sky, propelled by rock 'n' roll, free love, good drugs and anti-establishmentarianism. It was anti-war, pro-health, and loved the Cosmic Giggle.
Looking over a crowd of 3,000 who came to see a piano being dropped from a helicopter over Duvall, Paul asked: "I wonder how many would come to see a dozen or two dozen bands?"
Answer: Tens of thousands trooped to an organic berry farm near Sultan to hear the Grateful Dead, Youngbloods, Country Joe and the Fish, Santana, and Big Mama Thornton. It was our Wood-stock, the Sky River Rock Festival.
Price of admission: $4. (Simon and Garfunkel Saturday night? $150.)
At 40, Dorpat gave up cigarettes and freeways and took up monogamy, pro-ducing books and films.
Now he presides over a collection of material that includes 45 file cabinets in two houses in Wallingford and just stuff in a third.
He works until 3:30 each morning under a Scaylea portrait of the mu-nificently modest dean of Northwest historians, Murray Morgan. (Paul didn't invite Morgan's widow Rosa to the party because he was afraid she'd try to drive all the way down from Trout Lake.) His efforts go a long way toward keeping local historical societies busy.
Saturday's party was produced by Jean Sherrard, a very tall actor and old friend who says, "When you walk with him through Seattle, he brings to life all the stages that came before.
"We did a radio production of 'Gift of the Magi,' and an actress took a tape home. Hearing it from another room, her mother, from Spokane, exclaimed: 'IT'S THE REVEREND DORPAT!'"
