Tufts had a spectacular campus: the cluster of original buildings were more than a hundred years old in 1967. They rested on a huge mound formed by the movement of glaciers in the area 10,000 years before (we called Tufts "the dump on the hump" when exceeding pissed off at the school or just to be cynical - a constant endeavor). Anyway, our tour continues: immense deciduous trees grew around and between the original buildings, and in the fall this part of campus had the amazing red, orange and yellow foliage accurately associated with New England before the snow arrives. Ivy? That insidious, but beautiful vine was everywhere. It was quite the background in the autumn, and a number of films, TV shows and commercials used Tufts as the focal point of their productions during the time I was a student there. I'm embarrassed to say, no one invited me to be an extra.
Tufts had bought lots of land in the area straddling Medford and Somerville in the 1850s, and had always had the luxury of expanding how and when it chose to. Because of this, there was some consistency in the structures on campus. The University President's House was a huge Colonial home located on the slope mid way down the Hill, not two hundred yard from his office in the Administration building. Fraternity Row was 100 yards further on. By anyone's standards, these large wooden houses, adorned with the Greek letters members pledged to, were impressive. More so were the houses on the next street - Professor's Row. If you want to keep good profs, offer them nice digs, and these mini-mansions were good enough to keep tenured heads and assistant heads of Departments satisfied and settled.
As the land flattened out and you moved off the official campus, the University owned probably 75 or more small houses. Some were used as special interest student dwellings; some were rental homes for married students; some were rented to the neighborhood at a reduced rate. Beyond that was a diminishing strip of land allocated for future development. Tufts' Graduate Schools - Medical, Dental and Veterinary - were located in Downtown Boston.
Residential Halls were found back up the hill. Jackson College - the Women's College, under the umbrella of Tufts University (the school was completely co-ed in all other ways) - was at a lower point on the hill than Tufts College (reflective of the time Jackson was established and the status of women at that point). Jackson had a poorly formed, functionless quad. Perhaps in days gone by, completely, utterly clothed women played miniature croquet there, but other than that, it was ten jumps across on a day you didn't eat your Wheaties. Jackson had newer dorms than Tufts College - nice, bright, modern structures. Consistent architecturally. Absolutely inconsistent, and not seen, from central campus.
The quad I lived next to was big and inviting. Two of the dorms around it, fortunately also invisible to those on main campus, were Soviet-style, efficiency first boxes, with bleak, cinder block walls and linoleum floors. Who wants to vomit on linoleum? And we did a lot of drunk vomiting my first year in a dorm. If you lived in Miller or Houston Hall, you gazed down the Quad at the school's dowager, Carmichael - regal, ancient, inefficient, drafty, noisy, with wood floors and small, leaky johns - it's where everyone wanted to live. It had a spire, which you could reach if you knew hidden passage ways and an obscured ceiling panel, and if you could lift yourself up to the widow's walk at its peak, which provided a grand view of the neighborhood, and of Boston on a clear day.
It was a great place from which to watch activities on the quad, which was constantly filled with students, who constant movement scraped deep walkways in the grass, which was not as well attended to as grass patches are today. There were no Hispanic day laborers then - no hard working illegals - hired at the lowest possible price to keep the University pristine. There were Frisbees and heated discussions; drinking and, later, dope smoking; tanning and posing; milling about and determined striding. Twice a year there were epic football games on the Quad - the Ice Bowl, before Christmas, and the Mud Bowl, usually in early April. They were brutal and intense. You were more likely to get hurt in the Ice Bowl than a Varsity Football player was in the course of a season.
I played in both bowls my Freshman Year, but was a way too cool drug freak to play in them after that.
It's hard to imagine that is more than 40 years ago, and that Tufts is likely a different place now (let's hope Miller and Houston are gone). My last days on campus were not my best. Reality finally caught me, but I wasn't ready to make reality my companion, so it was exit - stage left. I always thought I'd be back to Tufts and Boston "when I got my shit together." Time passed slowly after I left. I saw the campus past midnight in 1972, but have not been been in Massachusetts since then.
I miss it enough to go back. I know you can't go home again, but I'm constantly trying, so why not there? Neil Young wrote "all my changes were there (Canada)." All my changes were at Tufts. That's worth a second look.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
More Boston
Boston is a sports town, and I arrived at an auspicious time for sports. The Red Sox won the American League Pennant in 1967 - only to lose to St. Louis in the World Series (we called it the "Curse of the Bambino"). The Celtics had been great for a dozen years. The Bruins were on the rise behind Bobby Orr. The Patriots were marginal, but Joe Bellino, who had spent four years in the service after graduating from the Naval Academy, had brought charisma to the team, saving it for the success of the team today.
As good as the Celtics and Bruins were and as excellent as the Patriots would become, Boston was all about the Sox - the Red Sox. If ever there was a baseball town and a ball park that reflected the intimacy of a City, it was Boston and Fenway Park. I could actually go to freaking Fenway Park and watch the Sox. Un-fucking believable.
Boston was the Kennedys - in tragedy and embarrassment; racial animosity in Dorchester and Roxbury; sitting by the murky Charles River watching the coeds stroll by, on the way to class at Radcliffe. Some were lovely, but none were fooled by my amateurish bullshit. I had to go to BU to find such gullibility.
If you wanted tough, Boston had the Combat Zone. Right off the Commons, dangerously close to an ordered downtown. It was a scary place - Times Square North. Two buddies and I cruised it on foot in early 1968, trying to pick up a prostitute for a fraternity scavenger hunt. "Pick her up and get her to ride the subway back to Tufts" were the instructions of our pledge master at Zeta Psi. And we were to get her to agree to do this without showing her any money (they had stripped us of money and identification as we left the House).
We walked down the most corrupt looking area of the Zone, trying to find a prostitute. We stopped and asked what we thought were prime candidates:
"Are you a prostitute?"
They walked up to us, shaking their heads and laughing at our stupidity. "Too dumb to be cops," they chuckled as they ambled on. These ladies had skirts up to their crotch, tops down to their nipples, ratty black pattern stockings and elevator shoes. What did they expect for us to think? We had a Crocodile Dundee moment as they passed us: "If you dress like that down here, people will think that you're hookers." They went from us to the arms of pimple faced 18 year olds, fresh out of Basic, flush with newly acquired cash and determined to break their virginity before shipping out to Vietnam.
After 15 minutes of hustling, we finally got an especially played out, very stoned whore to listen.
"Don't laugh," we said in our best Bostonese, "it will be a bitchin paty."
"You'll have a pissa time."
"We'll give you a wickid lot of money when we get there."
She declined our invitation. We caught hell when we got back to the frat house:
"You guys are wickid wothless. They would have had a pissa time at this bitchin paty."
I loved Boston when I was a gleam in my father's eye; when he played where I later played, on the sidewalk in front of my grandfather's house on 347 Marlbourough St; when we both left when we were 8 years old - he to Prep School, me to exile in Washington, DC. I loved Boston as a teenager, lying in my bed in Bethesda, Maryland, listening to an obscure rock band sing their one hit wonder:
"I love that dirty water . . . oh, oh Boston, you're my home."
Heard at Fenway Park now after every Sox home victory. It all went full circle for me in 1967.
Gotta love that dirty water. Boston you're my home. Again.
As good as the Celtics and Bruins were and as excellent as the Patriots would become, Boston was all about the Sox - the Red Sox. If ever there was a baseball town and a ball park that reflected the intimacy of a City, it was Boston and Fenway Park. I could actually go to freaking Fenway Park and watch the Sox. Un-fucking believable.
Boston was the Kennedys - in tragedy and embarrassment; racial animosity in Dorchester and Roxbury; sitting by the murky Charles River watching the coeds stroll by, on the way to class at Radcliffe. Some were lovely, but none were fooled by my amateurish bullshit. I had to go to BU to find such gullibility.
If you wanted tough, Boston had the Combat Zone. Right off the Commons, dangerously close to an ordered downtown. It was a scary place - Times Square North. Two buddies and I cruised it on foot in early 1968, trying to pick up a prostitute for a fraternity scavenger hunt. "Pick her up and get her to ride the subway back to Tufts" were the instructions of our pledge master at Zeta Psi. And we were to get her to agree to do this without showing her any money (they had stripped us of money and identification as we left the House).
We walked down the most corrupt looking area of the Zone, trying to find a prostitute. We stopped and asked what we thought were prime candidates:
"Are you a prostitute?"
They walked up to us, shaking their heads and laughing at our stupidity. "Too dumb to be cops," they chuckled as they ambled on. These ladies had skirts up to their crotch, tops down to their nipples, ratty black pattern stockings and elevator shoes. What did they expect for us to think? We had a Crocodile Dundee moment as they passed us: "If you dress like that down here, people will think that you're hookers." They went from us to the arms of pimple faced 18 year olds, fresh out of Basic, flush with newly acquired cash and determined to break their virginity before shipping out to Vietnam.
After 15 minutes of hustling, we finally got an especially played out, very stoned whore to listen.
"Don't laugh," we said in our best Bostonese, "it will be a bitchin paty."
"You'll have a pissa time."
"We'll give you a wickid lot of money when we get there."
She declined our invitation. We caught hell when we got back to the frat house:
"You guys are wickid wothless. They would have had a pissa time at this bitchin paty."
I loved Boston when I was a gleam in my father's eye; when he played where I later played, on the sidewalk in front of my grandfather's house on 347 Marlbourough St; when we both left when we were 8 years old - he to Prep School, me to exile in Washington, DC. I loved Boston as a teenager, lying in my bed in Bethesda, Maryland, listening to an obscure rock band sing their one hit wonder:
"I love that dirty water . . . oh, oh Boston, you're my home."
Heard at Fenway Park now after every Sox home victory. It all went full circle for me in 1967.
Gotta love that dirty water. Boston you're my home. Again.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Losing the R
I should have known at the point I met Bobby on the Fourth Floor of Houston Hall in September 1967 that Boston would be a unique cultural experience.
"Nick Pak? I'm Bobby Deutch. pissa to meet you."
I'd arrived in the Massachusetts zone.
I know it's different today: Some is generational - Caroline talks different than Teddy; Some is homogenization - lots of out-of-state and foreign students stayed in the Boston area after the high-tech boom. But forty years ago almost 50% of Tufts students came from Massachusetts; Harvard was being fed by a number of exclusive New England Prep schools - Andover, Middlesex and Exeter, to mention three -and there was a distinct ethnic flavor in Boston, best caught in the accent and phrases of its citizens. It was as heavy as "Da bums" in Brooklyn and "y'all" in Alabama, and, to those of us from outside "the Commonwealth," just as amusing.
No one was immune. It was the MTA conductor and Bobby Kennedy; Mayor White and Tony C.; the President of of Tufts and the janitor who cleaned up the mess in our halls. I must admit, I'd always thought the stories about "Park yer caa in Havid Yad" were apocryphal, but I came to see that a Boston teenager could leave the city for forty years, live in the jungles of the Amazon, speaking only a unique native dialect, and the morning he was scheduled to address graduate students in Linguistic Anthropology at Radcliffe, ask the concierge at his hotel in Harvard square: "Will there be a caa to take me to the yaad?"
When I got into drugs, we turned the reality of Massachusetts' speech into a more elaborate fantasy. We would wonder: when they were six years old, did Boston area youngsters take a special one year class to learn "Bostonese?" If they failed, did they end up sounding like people from Hartford or Providence?
Certainly failing the class resulted in expulsion from the Commonwealth. Maybe "noth, to New Hampshaa." We could imagine parents weeping hysterically as accent challenged children were forced into the awaiting paddy wagons. The vehicles were marked - "Nashua New Hampshire Resettlement Program." Resettlement Day had to be a sobering reality for all seven year olds. This was when you came of age', like a first communion or Bar Mitzvah. The event was memorialized by a tattoo scrolled on the heels of the Chosen Ones: "KOTA." Keeper Of The Accent. Always, indelibly there, a reminder of the heritage and the sacred responsibility.
KOTA classes meant weekly until the children were 16. They would practice inflection, dropping "R's", and mindlessly repeat signature words: pissa, bitchin, wickid; bitchin wickid, pissa; bitchin pissa, wickid; wic id pissa, bitchin, and so on.
Again class, again.
KOTA was an inside joke. The whole fantasy came to several of us when we were really stoned, and it just took a barely audible "kota" to get us hysterically laughing while feeding the munchies at Nick's Pizza surrounded by locals. They were good enough people - "Good Will Hunting" was fairly accurate in its depiction of the non-Collegiate youth of Somerville - and we didn't hassle them, or vice/versa. We laughed at a fantasy, not at people. Most of the time we knew the difference.
"Nick Pak? I'm Bobby Deutch. pissa to meet you."
I'd arrived in the Massachusetts zone.
I know it's different today: Some is generational - Caroline talks different than Teddy; Some is homogenization - lots of out-of-state and foreign students stayed in the Boston area after the high-tech boom. But forty years ago almost 50% of Tufts students came from Massachusetts; Harvard was being fed by a number of exclusive New England Prep schools - Andover, Middlesex and Exeter, to mention three -and there was a distinct ethnic flavor in Boston, best caught in the accent and phrases of its citizens. It was as heavy as "Da bums" in Brooklyn and "y'all" in Alabama, and, to those of us from outside "the Commonwealth," just as amusing.
No one was immune. It was the MTA conductor and Bobby Kennedy; Mayor White and Tony C.; the President of of Tufts and the janitor who cleaned up the mess in our halls. I must admit, I'd always thought the stories about "Park yer caa in Havid Yad" were apocryphal, but I came to see that a Boston teenager could leave the city for forty years, live in the jungles of the Amazon, speaking only a unique native dialect, and the morning he was scheduled to address graduate students in Linguistic Anthropology at Radcliffe, ask the concierge at his hotel in Harvard square: "Will there be a caa to take me to the yaad?"
When I got into drugs, we turned the reality of Massachusetts' speech into a more elaborate fantasy. We would wonder: when they were six years old, did Boston area youngsters take a special one year class to learn "Bostonese?" If they failed, did they end up sounding like people from Hartford or Providence?
Certainly failing the class resulted in expulsion from the Commonwealth. Maybe "noth, to New Hampshaa." We could imagine parents weeping hysterically as accent challenged children were forced into the awaiting paddy wagons. The vehicles were marked - "Nashua New Hampshire Resettlement Program." Resettlement Day had to be a sobering reality for all seven year olds. This was when you came of age', like a first communion or Bar Mitzvah. The event was memorialized by a tattoo scrolled on the heels of the Chosen Ones: "KOTA." Keeper Of The Accent. Always, indelibly there, a reminder of the heritage and the sacred responsibility.
KOTA classes meant weekly until the children were 16. They would practice inflection, dropping "R's", and mindlessly repeat signature words: pissa, bitchin, wickid; bitchin wickid, pissa; bitchin pissa, wickid; wic id pissa, bitchin, and so on.
Again class, again.
KOTA was an inside joke. The whole fantasy came to several of us when we were really stoned, and it just took a barely audible "kota" to get us hysterically laughing while feeding the munchies at Nick's Pizza surrounded by locals. They were good enough people - "Good Will Hunting" was fairly accurate in its depiction of the non-Collegiate youth of Somerville - and we didn't hassle them, or vice/versa. We laughed at a fantasy, not at people. Most of the time we knew the difference.
Boston
There are only two cities in the United States I find magical - Boston and San Francisco. There are dozens of places I'd rather live right now, but in their prime, when rents were cheap and excitement free, these were the only two places to be.
I was lucky enough to be in Boston during its heydey - 1967 to 1970. This was before the Highway 128 loop; before high-tech and abundant jobs; before a vital downtown; before massive traffic jams at Logan Airport and "the dig." This was when 250,000 students defined the town, when radical politics and the sexual revelation collided with Back Bay and the Catholic Church.
It started innocently enough for me. My dad dropped me off at Tufts in mid September 1967, and I languished in my room for two weeks, homesick, wondering why I hadn't gone to the University of Maryland, 20 miles from my parents' home in Annapolis. Truth be told, I didn't like being at home much - my mother was drinking and was loud and vicious much of the time - but I didn't like starting over, either. I have had little fascination with the unexpected and unknown in my life, except, ironically, during my time in Boston. My roommate didn't make things any easier. Bobby Deutsch was a good enough guy. He was a local kid - which made me teary - and a bit of a nebbish. He ended up in politics, and was elected years later to the Massachusetts House. There was nothing between us. I needed a friend and Bobby was campaigning for some office within a week of getting on campus.
But soon enough, I came out of my funk. Met the other great guys on my floor. Switched roommates; got approached by fraternity; went to a Red Sox game; walked around the city; learned the stops on the MTA; became a serious student. And that was my fourth week at school.
By November, I was settled, happy drinking beer with my soon to be frat brothers, including Dave Schrumm, my roommate and later to be first citizen of Cheshire, Connecticut, and Marc White and Gary Fradkin, our next door neighbors in the dorm.
Everything was on track, chugging along towards a typical college experience - four years and out and on to my place in some stellar company and successful career.
Fortunately, it didn't turn out that way.
I was lucky enough to be in Boston during its heydey - 1967 to 1970. This was before the Highway 128 loop; before high-tech and abundant jobs; before a vital downtown; before massive traffic jams at Logan Airport and "the dig." This was when 250,000 students defined the town, when radical politics and the sexual revelation collided with Back Bay and the Catholic Church.
It started innocently enough for me. My dad dropped me off at Tufts in mid September 1967, and I languished in my room for two weeks, homesick, wondering why I hadn't gone to the University of Maryland, 20 miles from my parents' home in Annapolis. Truth be told, I didn't like being at home much - my mother was drinking and was loud and vicious much of the time - but I didn't like starting over, either. I have had little fascination with the unexpected and unknown in my life, except, ironically, during my time in Boston. My roommate didn't make things any easier. Bobby Deutsch was a good enough guy. He was a local kid - which made me teary - and a bit of a nebbish. He ended up in politics, and was elected years later to the Massachusetts House. There was nothing between us. I needed a friend and Bobby was campaigning for some office within a week of getting on campus.
But soon enough, I came out of my funk. Met the other great guys on my floor. Switched roommates; got approached by fraternity; went to a Red Sox game; walked around the city; learned the stops on the MTA; became a serious student. And that was my fourth week at school.
By November, I was settled, happy drinking beer with my soon to be frat brothers, including Dave Schrumm, my roommate and later to be first citizen of Cheshire, Connecticut, and Marc White and Gary Fradkin, our next door neighbors in the dorm.
Everything was on track, chugging along towards a typical college experience - four years and out and on to my place in some stellar company and successful career.
Fortunately, it didn't turn out that way.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
It's 1967: Where are the Drugs?
I certainly didn't know where the drugs were in 1967. I was born in Australia, raised in the US, attended a fine school, hung out which inquisitive minds, but I didn't have a clue when I graduated from Prep School in 1967. I thought Dylan songs were better covered by Peter, Paul and Mary and the Byrds, that the Beatles had peaked on Rubber Soul, that Johnson was OK and the War In Vietnam was an inconvenient necessity.
My immediate concern was college. I had been admitted to Duke and Penn for undergraduate work, but I had decided I'd go to Tufts, outside Boston. They were all good schools, but my American family came from Boston, and I felt some tug there. I could say that I looked at the summer of 1967 as a blow out summer, my "American Graffiti" moment, but the thing I lacked most in 1967 was perspective, the ability to see myself in context, and because of that, I was dull to the meaning of everything.
The summer of 1967 was beer and beer, drunken drives in fast cars, aimless searches for loose women, punctuated by a couple of road trips. I made it through that summer with the help of a couple of close buddies, and when August ended, my dad and I headed for New Hampshire, for some bonding before I started school. I could say I was excited, but I realized later that I'd been in a state of shock most of my life prior to 1968, and what I was mostly as we drove through Connecticut and Southern New Hampshire was numb.
Not knowing what was going on, but hoping something would happen. Anything.
My immediate concern was college. I had been admitted to Duke and Penn for undergraduate work, but I had decided I'd go to Tufts, outside Boston. They were all good schools, but my American family came from Boston, and I felt some tug there. I could say that I looked at the summer of 1967 as a blow out summer, my "American Graffiti" moment, but the thing I lacked most in 1967 was perspective, the ability to see myself in context, and because of that, I was dull to the meaning of everything.
The summer of 1967 was beer and beer, drunken drives in fast cars, aimless searches for loose women, punctuated by a couple of road trips. I made it through that summer with the help of a couple of close buddies, and when August ended, my dad and I headed for New Hampshire, for some bonding before I started school. I could say I was excited, but I realized later that I'd been in a state of shock most of my life prior to 1968, and what I was mostly as we drove through Connecticut and Southern New Hampshire was numb.
Not knowing what was going on, but hoping something would happen. Anything.
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