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| original Broadway poster |
Even
through tumultuous times everyday life goes on and so it did during
my years at UMass. The university was a place that I had been missing
without really knowing it. I was, frankly, something of a misfit in
my previous life choices. But, here in the university I thrived in a
socially and intellectually stimulating atmosphere. It fit, I
belonged here as I had not belonged anywhere else before as a young
adult. I met people who thrived on ideas without sacrificing the
emotional component attached to them. Ideas were emotions and
emotions were ideas without the restriction of conventional norms and
restraints. It was a remarkable sense of freedom and possibility that
no slogans about those concepts could begin to compare. It was like
coming home after being lost in a vacuum of conformity, like coming
out of a musty closet full of last year's out of style
clothes—stepping “out of the drab camouflage into the gaudy
plumage” * of a new life. The pot and hash came in, the hair got
longer, the clothes got funkier, the grades plummeted (temporarily),
the music turned to folk and rock bands and rock operas, and friends
were made for life and cherished. God! What a time it was!
I
was 26 in 1967 when I drove my Volkswagen bug to Amherst to begin my
Junior year at UMass. I was assigned to one of the older dorms and
was feeling a little self-conscious being surrounded by younger but
more experienced college students. Attending evening classes at a
junior college was a far cry from the world of a full university
campus. The university housing administration may have taken that
sense of awkwardness felt by older students into consideration in
making roommate assignments, because my first roommate was also an
older student and a veteran.
At
first it seemed like a good idea, but in just a short time it became
obvious that we were not well-matched just because of our ages and
military backgrounds. Just as I had been a non-conformist misfit in
the Navy, my roommate was a misfit in college. It got to the point
where I began to think he was a borderline psychopath, nervous,
jumpy, angry and always grumbling about campus life. He seemed to
idolize the military in retrospect. I tried to avoid him as much as
possible until he eventually dropped out of school and I had the room
to myself for the rest of the term.
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| lifelong friends from university days |
Around
this time I met P and we became friends and began hanging out
together. He told me about a group of people who got together in a
discussion group and asked me if I'd like to attend a couple of
discussions to see if I'd like to join. The university was gradually
changing from below, from the grass roots with the growing
counterculture movements happening on many campuses. Younger, more
innovative, professors were attracting interested students to form
their own courses outside the traditional course offerings. These
discussions were informal and generally unstructured and not for
credit, but were animated by interest and enthusiasm.
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| longer hair and other flamboyant... |
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| ...affectations of appearance |
After
attending one meeting I immediately joined the group and met two
young women, MD and J, who also became friends and who, along with P,
have remained so through the years although we may not see each other
for years at a stretch. In our meetings, we might discuss esoteric
philosophical concepts, the latest advance in computers, how to build
a geodesic dome, eat with chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant, build a
campfire, you name it! I began to take a deeper interest in
photography, while diversifying my formal course studies to include
graphic arts, music appreciation, psychology along with my History
major classes.
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| my roommate's wedding in the Berkshires |
I
moved to a new dorm and met a new roommate in 1968. MB was also an older student, my age, and a Navy veteran.
Although different in character and personality MB and I got along
very well. At my invitation he also joined our discussion group and
became an active and avid member. I was more or less fence sitting
about the counter cultural changes going on all around me, but MB
jumped right in, grew his hair and beard, brought dope into our dorm
room and without much effort enticed me off the fence into the world
of dope and folk music and a remarkable liberation of the spirit—and
a neglect of formal classes and conventional university life. I felt
really alive but my Major grades dropped to the C range while the
more interesting elective classes stayed up in the A and B range.
But, “Time it was and what a time it was, it was.” ** It was
Aquarius *** rising and we seemed to be rising with a new age of
unlimited possibilities, expanding awareness and changing times.
Some
of my favorite music from the era:
Yes,
the times they were a-changin', but not necessarily for the better.
* MacDermot, Rado, and Ragni, Hair
** Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends Theme
*** MacDermot, Rado, and Ragni, Hair
To
be continued...
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