Being 3 years younger than you Bret, I had the opportunity to learn a lot from you... jazz, Lenny Bruce... and I guess I can finally admit this now... at least on one occasion, copying your act (but not your courage... as I never got caught). Last day of Jr. High School, school assembly in the auditorium, and as a member of the AV "Club" a few of us were working the lights and mics... and right before the principal was to make his final comments - we put "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" on a continuous loop, left the projection room, and locked the door behind us... and then just melted into the audience of 14 year olds trying to figure out the changing world of 1967.
Takes me back to the old 'hood. Walking in many of the same places you did, literally. But we all take different routes to get where we eventually settle. I'll guess that your enthusiasm for music and the arts was assisted by your exposure to this at a young age. I remember sitting at our grandfather's house, listening to a national radio broadcast from overseas where we all gathered to hear the military band, with your father as band conductor. A proud moment for all of us. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Oh man, Bret, you touched whichever part of my brain stores 1967 lit up as I read your recollection. I escaped high school and my childhood bedroom in '66; off to Boston and the sea of universities and young people that occupied them. It was such a time of discovery. Jazz had already taken hold of me, thanks to Ed Beach on WRVR, and Jean Shepherd's late night monologues, and of course, WBAI. They all fed into thinking, feeling and especially reading: The Realist, Downbeat, the Voice, and a grab bag of others.
Living in a large city, after growing up in suburban New Jersey (Linden) was part of it. I'd explored a lot of NYC (well, Manhattan, and particularly, the Village), but now I didn't have to catch the train or bus home each night.
My biggest discovery was Otis, Live in Europe. The morning the radio announced his death was as devastating to me as JFK's. It was a harbinger of bad things to come, and the notion that promise could be lost.
I have grandchildren now who were my age in '67, and the world is such a different scene for them, here in Montreal. They have their own discoveries to make, and I have learned to be patient with what their understanding of the world they are coming of age in. I pass on my "wisdom" gently. Some of it they appreciate, some goes right past them as they navigate a world so different from the one I lived in/through so many years ago.
Being 3 years younger than you Bret, I had the opportunity to learn a lot from you... jazz, Lenny Bruce... and I guess I can finally admit this now... at least on one occasion, copying your act (but not your courage... as I never got caught). Last day of Jr. High School, school assembly in the auditorium, and as a member of the AV "Club" a few of us were working the lights and mics... and right before the principal was to make his final comments - we put "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" on a continuous loop, left the projection room, and locked the door behind us... and then just melted into the audience of 14 year olds trying to figure out the changing world of 1967.
Takes me back to the old 'hood. Walking in many of the same places you did, literally. But we all take different routes to get where we eventually settle. I'll guess that your enthusiasm for music and the arts was assisted by your exposure to this at a young age. I remember sitting at our grandfather's house, listening to a national radio broadcast from overseas where we all gathered to hear the military band, with your father as band conductor. A proud moment for all of us. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Oh man, Bret, you touched whichever part of my brain stores 1967 lit up as I read your recollection. I escaped high school and my childhood bedroom in '66; off to Boston and the sea of universities and young people that occupied them. It was such a time of discovery. Jazz had already taken hold of me, thanks to Ed Beach on WRVR, and Jean Shepherd's late night monologues, and of course, WBAI. They all fed into thinking, feeling and especially reading: The Realist, Downbeat, the Voice, and a grab bag of others.
Living in a large city, after growing up in suburban New Jersey (Linden) was part of it. I'd explored a lot of NYC (well, Manhattan, and particularly, the Village), but now I didn't have to catch the train or bus home each night.
My biggest discovery was Otis, Live in Europe. The morning the radio announced his death was as devastating to me as JFK's. It was a harbinger of bad things to come, and the notion that promise could be lost.
I have grandchildren now who were my age in '67, and the world is such a different scene for them, here in Montreal. They have their own discoveries to make, and I have learned to be patient with what their understanding of the world they are coming of age in. I pass on my "wisdom" gently. Some of it they appreciate, some goes right past them as they navigate a world so different from the one I lived in/through so many years ago.
Thanks for jogging my memories, Bret!