Stream of Consciousness Saturday -August 23, 2025

At the pad

I was ( and guess I still am!) a card-carrying Folkie. Now I know that the “straights” always assumed that we hip ones would pad on over to our pads and do groovy things. Just to set the record straight, neither I nor any of my friends ever used groovy or pad except in derisive imitation of how “straights” imitated the way we talked.

In fact, one of the ways we spotted Narcs, finks, and undercover pigs was by the phony way they tried to fit in by speaking nonsense. Nothing spelled phony as much as a diatribe spiced every other word with pseudo hip lingo misused. Someone would walk into the bathroom while we entertained John, flush down the stash, and innocently rejoin the round robin of playing guitar and singing. The most intoxicating substance to be found was some of the awful Narragansett beer we bought cheaply.

The would-be infiltrators were further befuddled when the gathering broke up at eleven. Even those among us who numbered in the ranks of the Pius Itinerants had day jobs and had to earn a living. After all, unlike the Hippies who came later, none of us had rich mommies or daddies who would support a dissipated life. Only on Friday and Saturday was there the extravagant round of parties and hedonism which Hollywood and popular culture attributed to us.

Well, so much for the jotted notes on the Stream of Consciousness pad for the day.