Posts Tagged ‘1969’

Imagining A Lot(tery)

Lennon’s voice comes across as exhausted by sadness. And it speaks to me because that’s how I feel after this close encounter. I could have been a war casualty; I’m not, thank God. But I tell myself I must never forget what it felt like nearly to have been one. And I never do.

Finding the Main Line

If that day taught me a lesson, it concerned the occasional moments of grace that drop into our lives, days where downtime unexpectedly becomes time out from one’s cares. For one gorgeous, sunny day I was forced to stare out the window of a cozy two-car train at some of the prettiest creation Pennsylvania has to offer.

House of Song and Laughter

I’m glad to say that neither my dad nor Tom ever lost a penny by this rickety arrangement. But it was a harbinger of the generally lawless lifestyle we were to pursue at 2209. We started with that fraud (though we meant and did no harm to anyone by it), and went on from there. It wasn’t just that we were drinking underage or having sex without benefit of clergy. Kids, don’t try this in your home: LSD was literally kept in the fridge for consumption by – one or more of us – but let me hasten to say it wasn’t me.

Lovesick on the Shop Floor

The first car may frequently be more important in a young man’s life than the first sex. Sometime in the first two weeks of May 1969, my dad bought me mine, a well-used blue Chevrolet Nova. The car finally necessitated that I get a job, in order to pay for insurance. The following Monday I was at the gate of the Grove Street plant of the Ford Motor Company.