The High Life

I live a quiet and peaceful life. Wildlife, you ask? Well, the cats and dogs like to chase chipmunks and frogs. We see squirrels often, and a few years ago, a moose wandered by. The moose gave the pets some reason to be cautious.

But in general, there is not a lot of action around here. It’s just the way I like it. Quiet.

My life was different “back in the day.” To be kind, it was disturbingly dis-functional to the extreme. For much of the sixties, I was a peripatetic occupant of a crashpad on Boston’s Beacon Hill. I’ve called it the Folkie Palace and less flattering things in my writings. Half the people there were known only by nicknames: The Teahead of the August Moon, the Monk, Mike the Vike, The Canary, the Sadist, and me, Wes Carson. 

The use of nicknames makes writing about it more manageable. No real names get used to besmirch the reputations of “pillars of the community.” 

At the Folkie Palace, we did not need the excuse of it being Friday or the weekend to have a blowout party. A friend blowing into town from the “coast” was sufficient reason. All normal activity stopped. We scrupulously invited the neighbors—if they came, they couldn’t call the cops and complain.

We were cagey about our messes. The next day, we’d send a work detail to wash and clean so the rental manager wouldn’t see any signs of wrack and ruin. We were dissipated, not dumb!

Yup, it was no little gingerbread make-believe house we lived in. We were all royally pissed when the movie “Animal House” came out. 

How dare they use us as a model and not give us credit in the title roll!