Merry, Merry Chicago!

The Merry Pranksters were followers of American author Ken Kesey. Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy road trip they took in the summer of 1964, traveling across the United States in a psychedelic painted school bus called Furthur, organizing parties, and giving out LSD. During this time they met many of the guiding lights of the 1960s cultural movement and heralded what are commonly thought of as hippies with tie-dyed and red, white, and blue clothing, and renunciation of mainstream society, which they dubbed The Establishment. Tom Wolfe chronicled their early escapades in his 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, including a bit on the same epic 1964 cross-country trip on Furthur - a sojourn to the 1964 World's Fair in New York City, stopping to visit Kesey's friend, novelist Larry McMurtry in Houston on the way.