Fall 1968 at Suffield

Dancing the razor blade, I begin stepping outside the lines

Back at Suffield, new dorm, new roommate. The new roomie I can relate to, Jim M. was a bright, well read guy and we shared many more interests than my freshman roommate.

The summer of 68 had turned on more Suffield students than just me. The formerly beat oriented senior group that had befriended me were now gone and another clique was forming outside the norm. Several of us had discovered pot and psychedelics over the summer. LSD became a favorite as it was smell free, easy to hide and Saturday nights became adventure zones for those into experimenting. Oh man, after Saturday lights out, there were amazing journeys spent with headphones on, listening to albums galore: Music from Big Pink, Electric Ladyland, The White Album, Beggars Banquet, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Anthem of The Sun and many more as we rolled toward 1969.

I was chewing on new readings, well outside of the school manifest. “Notes Of A Native Son”, “Soul On Ice” and “The Other America”, were compelling and read through quickly. Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto were attempted but were struggles for me. The combination of translation and aged jargon helped to eliminate my ability to go further. Modern day revolutionaries were more accessible to me than learning the foundations laid by Marx, Lenin, Bakunin etc. That would be a long climb that I never really summited.

White, privileged, male. My race, upbringing and gender put me on the top of the unbalanced pile and I was not comfortable with that. Like the older college aged protestors I felt there must be some way to change that. I subscribed to Ramparts and when in NYC, would cull the book stores for other alternative sources. This led me to my first Whole Earth Catalogue and discovering the Merry Pranksters ethos (or lack thereof) through the “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”.

To be honest, I was completely overwhelmed at the breadth of possibilities out there in the world. In my simple, just turned 16 year old mind, the focus of political revolution did not always synch up with the freedom of the hippie lifestyle. Yeah, there were many common flashpoints, but they still felt like two separate worlds to me and it conflicted my adolescent mind for several more years.

That confused young man is shown in my sophomore year picture below.

I finally was cast in one of the Cue and Curtain productions that fall. Othello was being presented and I was cast as Cassio, Othello’s favorite captain and the abused wedge between him and Iago. The picture below is of me and MaryBeth who played Desdemona. She was the daughter of one of the school masters (teachers) and became a friend.

I continued writing for the Bell (student newspaper) and began honing my craft as a poet. My roommate Jim was a fellow poet and we would bounce ideas off each other. There was a literary magazine “Where You’ve Been” produced each spring and we both worked hard to be included. I also joined The Forum, the school’s debating club. I participated in internal debates but never in competition with other schools.

We had the opportunity to tutor kids in the Hartford inner city and that process gave me two wake up calls. The kids were all thirsty for learning and knowledge and it was delightful to work with them. It was also a real challenge, since few of us had any sort of teaching experience. It helped me to become more aware of the opportunities that I had at hand. But most importantly, every two weeks, I got a drive through a depressed, worn down African American neighborhood and view a very different reality.

I was now eligible for dances and the first offering was with Miss Porter’s. My grade school friend Liz L. was enrolled there and she thought it would be fun to see each other (if we made the cut). I was surprised that I was able attend all three of the dances that I applied for during my tenure. I guess it was not a major drawing card for many of my classmates. Liz and I made the cut and this dance was held at our campus.

To my best recollection, the guest total was 24 students. They were ushered into the teachers’ lounge, off the main lobby of our dining hall. Then the head of our social committee would announce each Suffield attendee’s name and you would walk to the lounge entrance and be introduced to your guest for dinner. Then you would escort the young lady into the main lobby where they were politely ogled by my fellow students. Keep in mind that we were still wearing dress slacks, shirts, ties and sports coats. The girls from Miss Porters’ were wearing dresses that were just as conservative.

I had a substitute covering me on dishwashing and when the meal began, my date and I joined all the other couples at tables designated as ours for the meal. Sitting down at the mixed table, the vibe was almost tangible. The prior summer, I had discovered my own libido and realized that I was not alone. As discussions opened up, you could see new couples forming from aligned interests and the dance floor would open the playing field to changes of partners.

Liz and her “date” were at the same table as myself and my date. As things turned out, Liz and I had taken different paths in the past two years and discovered during dinner that we really had nothing in common but a shared grade school education. My date was in the same ballpark and I headed to the dance floor facing what I expected to be a boring, lonely evening.

We were chaperoned down the hill to the gymnasium complex where one of the basketball courts had been trumped out a bit into a foggy ballroom. There were tables around the perimeter and a covered dance floor on the court area. Music was played through a record player connected to the gym speakers.

I danced two songs with my assigned date and easily let go when a schoolmate asked to cut in. After the dance, he spirited her off to his table. I went to get a glass of punch and then possibly just head to my room. But everything changed when a girl sidled up by the punch bowl. She quickly and surreptitiously asked if I would ask her to dance, then immediately walked away to one of the tables. I know, it sounds so silly today, but that was protocol in boarding school in 1968.

Remembering her as being across the table at dinner, I could not recall anything I heard her say. But hey! A cute girl just expressed an interest in me!! I tried to calm myself a bit, drank my punch and headed over to the table where three couples sat. All three of my schoolmates were a year or two ahead of me and talented jocks. She turned to me as I approached and made it so easy by looking directly at me as I asked her to dance. She smiled, stood and took my hand as the boys all sniggered that she must be a weird hippie chick.

As we approached the dance floor, the song changed from a Chuck Berry rock number to a ballad. I cannot recall the artist or song, but this was getting complicated. I had atttended Cotillion in my early teens and been instructed in the waltz, fox trot, cha cha and a bit of lindy. But I was never very good on the floor for constructed dances.

As I lifted my left hand to take hers, she skipped contact, wrapping her right arm around me and then doing the same with her left. Looking around, I saw that we were not at all alone and 50% of the couples were doing the same thing, their feet tied to a kind of mindless waltz shuffle. While I had engaged in a lot of clumsy making out the past few years and finally lost my virginity, this new fusion was leading to something very different.

I could feel every molecule of this girl/woman pressed against me and I could feel the heat of her body. In this refined, restricted environment, being pressed together so closely made it all the more sensual. I could feel myself becoming aroused and bent my hips back, away from her, to ensure she would not feel it. In response, she pulled my waist back to her and pushed herself harder against me. She then let out a soft moan against my shoulder where her head rested. We spent the remainder of the evening together. Dancing, sitting, talking…

She was a senior and said that she loved how I was willing to follow her lead on asking her to dance. In 1968, that did not always work, often being ignored or worse. She told me that she chose me because she heard me piss off most of our table going on about James Baldwin as I was knee deep in “Native Son” at the time. She also told me that womens’ rights were next on the table and gave me a condescending nod when I appeared to not fully understand (which I did not).

There was an allowed walk to the restroom area in the lobby that included a stroll behind the length of the seating stands. It allowed couples to dip into the support structure for kissing and more, but had chaperones on each end, so it could only go so far. After another slow dance, she turned and asked if I could walk her to the restroom area. Pulling me into the gloomy haze under the seating, she slowly touched me and invited the same. She showed me how to kiss with my mouth open. Not the silly, frenetic tongue wrestling I had known to date, but something slow, intimate and communicative. It was all-absorbing; it was erotic… it was adult.

I cannot recall her name and although we traded a few letters that fall, it went no further. I was just a sophomore and she was headed to college the next year.

But there were three things I learned:

Expressing my thoughts brought this remarkable woman to me.

Listening to her and following her lead connected us.

And womens’ rights were next on the table (I was going to have to do some research).

There were more major moments that fall, but they can come in later offerings.