Memoirs

The first thing the room needed was to be dark ---------------------------------------------- Blankets on all the windows were indeed making the pot smoking room quite dark, but Mark was not satisfied. Oh it was tolerable when the dark of night was there to assist but despite their thickness, the blankets still glowed slightly with the dreaded [...]

Mark and I descend the third floor stairs and emerge from my room, looking around. There's almost no one in the apartment. To the right, Melvin's door is closed with that "Do NOT even think of disturbing me!" look about it. "Dorky looking, big nosed Melvin scores again eh?" I think. "Good for you, man." [...]

Mark dumps the last of what had been a quarter bag, onto the cleaning tray and starts chopping up the lumpy shake into a finer consistency. Fine enough for all the "oneies" we need to finish it off. He separates the largest of the remaining little buds and systematically searches through them with his fingers. [...]

December 1977. Christmas break for those high school graduates who'd gone off to college. Those like our friend Mark. Yup, it was the end of the fall semester. But... nope, Mark would not be returning to Carlton College for spring semester. Mark... Mr. Cool, Mr. yes we are going to follow his lead but no [...]

The moment I cross the intersection, where north Broadway turns into highway 63, I shift down to third and gun it. The Fiat's hot little motor is made for this. It whirrs with delight as the tachometer shoots up near the red line. I quickly shift back up and bear down on the gas. Now [...]

It's such a sad old feeling The fields are soft and green It's memories that I'm stealing But you're innocent when you dream ------ Tom Waits ---------------------------------------------- I think it was the other way round for me. My adult self feels like my innocence those days was more a waking state than the one Mr. [...]

"The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." ----- Shylock from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespere ----------------------------------------------------- I do however, remember how I felt when I saw a movie about revenge at the Chateau Theater that fall. Halloween 1977. ------ It was an [...]

Many of “us” in the arts had our own successes that we saw as not at all appreciated the way every little thing “they” did was heralded as the greatest thing ever. -------------------------------------------- I wish I could remember this more clearly. Of how the whole... students of the art building having their own version of [...]

When I did a search for images to go with this story, I found the above. It's from a 2014 YouTube video I'd never seen before. It's by ActorVarunPruthi. Please check it out. ----------------------------------------------------- ...the time a few of “us” decided to have our own “Stud Bench”. ------ The traditional "Stud Bench" at John Marshal High [...]

I’ve made that entire wing of school (where the art rooms and the theater and music rooms are) a comfortable place for me to be. ------------------------------------------------- But the art, theater and music building wasn't always a comfortable place for everyone at John Marshal High School. That was a good thing as far as many were [...]