On my arrival I passed through the Peter Pan bus station in Springfield like a blur.
Breakfast at Jake's on Main Street.
This is the Babson Library at Springfield College.
Inside the library are these hot antique statues of nude athletes.
I haven't been on the Springfield College campus in years, and couldn't remember where the building was that was donated by Art Linkletter. I asked a student walking by and he had a totally blank expression on his face that made me realize he had never heard of Art Linkletter. I asked another student and got the same non-reply. Art Linkletter was a famous TV personality in the so-called golden age of television in the 1950's and 60's. A popular recurring segment of his show had him interviewing cute kids that was called, "Kids Say the Darndest Things."
Finally I saw someone who looked like a faculty member and asked them. They said that the building constructed by Linkletter has been expanded to become the "Wellness Center."
Despite his generousity to Springfield College, Linkletter felt a bitter hatred towards a well-known Springfield native - Dr. Timothy Leary. Linkletter blamed Leary for the death of his daughter, who after reading one of Leary's books decided to experiment with LSD alone in her room. She freaked out and leaped from her bedroom window, falling to her death. Mad with grief, Linkletter hounded Leary for years, even calling into a talk show Leary was appearing on in order to accuse him of causing his daughter's suicide.
Leary defended himself by saying that Linkletter's daughter must have had pre-existing psychological problems that had nothing to do with LSD. Ironically, Leary's own daughter, a heavy acid head herself, also committed suicide. As Leary was dying of cancer, he actually met Linkletter in person at a charity event, but the bitterness could not be overcome, as reported in Timothy Leary - A Biography by Robert Greenfield.
Not until Tim was wheeled up to the head table did anyone realize that he was now sitting across from Art Linkletter. Tim was no longer the vibrant, grinning drug guru whom Linkletter had blamed for the suicide of his daughter. By now, Linkletter must have known that Tim's daughter had also killed herself. Bound together by the worst loss that any parent could imagine, the two men had much in common.
If ever there had been a moment for mutual forgiveness, or some sort of meaningful communication between them, this was it. Eighty-three years old, Linkletter stared at Tim. "It was such a shock," he later told an interviewer. "I thought it was one of the strangest moments of my life. I was so glad to see him because he was suffering so. It was pretty good evidence about what happens to you when you live that kind of life."
Heartbroken fathers will say the darndest things!
The most beautiful spot on the Springfield College campus is by Lake Massasoit, known to the white man as Watershops.
His star may be fading nationally, but the President is still a hero in the poorer sections of Springfield.
Despite his landslide defeat last month in his mayoral campaign, Bud Williams still has fans, despite the bullethole.
The building that once housed the Pine Point Cafe is now a restaurant called D&G.
Strangely enough, the old Cafe signs are still hanging outside.
Me in the exact same spot in 1993. Photo by Jay Libardi.
When the most prominent billboard in the Point no longer communicates its message in English, it tells you something about how the old neighborhood has changed.
Voices of Inexperience
President Obama will soon be holding a summit on job creation. But who in his administration has ever actually created a job? This graph shows the percentage of cabinet officials who have had private sector business experience before joining the administration, as opposed to those who have had only government jobs.
Back Home
The Jefferson Starship is back from their tour of Europe. Here they are backstage in Edinberg, England: L to R, Chris Smith -keys, Tony Morley -drums, Jeff Pevar -lead gtr, David Freiberg -vocals, acoustic gtr, Paul Kantner -vocals, 12 string gtr, -Cathy Richardson, vocals.
I'm still working my way through Robert Greenfield's biography of Timothy Leary, the Springfield native who ended up in prison with insane cultist Charles Manson. Indeed, as this little excerpt shows, Folsom prison was a long way from Indian Orchard.
Unable to see one another, prisoners in 4-A communicated by talking through the air shafts. It was not long before Tim heard a voice in the darkness. "This is the bottom of the pit. Nobody gets out of here. It is bliss here." The voice added, "I have been watching your fall, Timothy. LSD is like the invention of the wheel, gunpowder and the Chinese." Tim realized that his next-door neighbor was Charlie Manson....
"I knew you'd end up here," Manson told Tim. "I've been wanting to talk to you for years. Our lives would never have crossed outside. But now we have plenty of time. We were all your students, you know. You had everyone looking up to you. You could have led people anywhere you wanted. When I got out of jail in 1965, there were millions of kids cut loose from the old lies just waiting to be told what to do." His voice taking on a slight edge of complaint, Manson added, "And you didn't tell them what to do. That's what I could never figure out. You showed everyone how to create a new head but you never gave them the new head. Why didn't you? I've wanted to ask you that for years."
"That was the point," Tim replied. "I didn't want to impose my realities. The idea is that everybody takes responsibility for his nervous system, creates his own reality. Anything else is brainwashing."
"That was your mistake," said Manson. "No one wants responsibility."
When they talked again the next morning after breakfast, Manson had more questions. He wanted to know what Tim called the moment of truth when you took acid and your entire body dissolved into nothing but vibrations, space and time fused, and it all became just pure energy. Bouncing the question right back at him, Tim asked Manson what he found there. "Nothing," Manson said. "Like death must be. Isn't that what you found?"
Having fielded this question many times before, Tim told Manosn this was a trip someone else had laid on him. "It's the moment when you are free from biochemical imprints," he said. "You can take off from there and go anywhere you want. You should have looked for the energy fusion called love."
"It's all death," Manson insisted.
"It's all love," Tim responded.
"I hang on to death," Manson said.
"I live by life," Tim replied.
Good Question.
Advocates of government control want you to believe that the serious shortcomings of our medical and insurance system are failures of the free market. But that's impossible because our market is not free. Each state operates a cozy medical and insurance cartel that restricts competition through licensing and keeps prices higher than they would be in a genuine free market. But the planners won't talk about that. After all, if government is the problem in the first place, how can they justify a government takeover?
- John Stossel
Free Speech
Here's a video montage by S.P. Sullivan of last night's controversial UMass symposium discussing a leftist terrorist group that was responsible for a string of bombings in the Boston area in the 1970's.
Many local law enforcement personnel protested outside the event because the group's activities were responsible for the death of a police officer. That murder was despicable, but I still defend the right of the leftist professors behind the event to put it on. My only complaint is that in the past when non-leftist speakers were being protested on campus, these same lefties who are now suddenly champions of free speech were deafening in their silence.
Amherst Owl Plus
Amherst photographer John Elder Robison took these photos of an owl visiting his backyard.
John F. Kennedy is probably the most popular president to come out of Massachusetts, although politically one would probably have to say that John Adams and Calvin Coolidge were more influential. Perhaps we like Kennedy more because unlike Adams and Coolidge he was alive in the lifetime of most people now living. But was JFK so modern that he once took LSD? Sounds ridiculous, but the book I'm reading at the moment Timothy Leary - A Biography by Robert Greenfield, actually seriously discusses that possibility:
Tim Leary wrote that before he left Cambridge to return to Mexico by way of Los Angeles, a good-looking aristocratic woman from Washington, D.C., had come to his office. Her name was Mary Pinchot Meyer and she wanted Tim to teach her how to run an LSD session so she could turn on a close friend. Because he was a very important man as well as a public figure, her friend could not possibly make this connection for himself. With Tim, Michael Hollingshead, and a woman to whom Flo Ferguson had introduced Tim in New York, Meyer took part in a low dose LSD session. Meyer seemed to know a good deal about the CIA's use of mind-expanding drugs in a series of disastrous mind-control experiments that have since been well documented.
Tim Leary would write about three more meetings with Mary Pinchot Meyer over the next two years. In 1965, Tim discovered to his great horror that she had been murdered on October 12, 1964, as she walked along the canal towpath in Georgetown. Her body was identified by her brother-in-law, Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post. Tim also learned for the first time that Meyer was married to CIA division chief Cord Meyer, Tim's nemesis at the American Veterans Committee during his graduate days at Berkeley. When it was revealed that Mary Pinchot Meyer had been one of John F. Kennedy's mistresses, Tim immediately suspected she had been killed for giving LSD to the president and then recording this information in her diary, which was never found.
Despite these intriguing facts, Greenfield says that the information is still too sketchy to say that JFK did indeed take LSD. Greenfield concludes:
While Tim did have contact with Mary Pinchot Meyer during this period and probably did supply her with psychedelics, which she may well have taken with someone in power in Washington, there is no evidence the man was John F. Kennedy.
So there is no direct evidence linking JFK to LSD use. However, if I were to guess which of the Kennedy brothers might have taken LSD I would choose Teddy. Despite the fact that Kennedy was hard on Leary when he testified before a congressional committee in the early '60's, the youngest Kennedy brother was not entirely averse to the LSD scene, as evidenced by the periods of correspondence he had with psychedelic pioneer Ken Kesey. Overall I find it easier to believe that the hard partying Ted Kennedy dropped acid than the more restrained JFK.
Meanwhile, a famous Pine Pointer and beloved crossing guard sent me this email recently about Leary's Springfield birthplace.
To make a short story long, they were discussing Timothy Leary's house on the Nostalgia Forum and much to my surprise, I found out it's at my crossing guard corner. I didn't believe that was his house, because the Ferris family had lived there for a century or two. Honestly, city records show it was built in 1854, but I believe it's older.
So, I accosted a neighbor and sure enough, Timothy Leary was born in that house. His mother had been Abigail Ferris. My neighbor knew his sister, who had been a teacher at Myrtle Street School. I've been staring at that house for 7 years and had no idea. Anyways, he most likely hung out at the Indian Orchard Library and went to either Myrtle St or Indian Orchard School. I'm not sure when IO was built, but I know it's very old. Next time I'm at the main library, I'll check the city directories.
So there's your less-than-six-degrees of separation. You know me - I know my neighbor - My neighbor knew Helen Leary - And, well, you know. Now, doesn't that just make your day? Anyways, here's a photo of Timothy Leary's house, maybe his ghost is still hanging around. - Marilyn
Shouldn't some attempt me made to preserve this house as a historic shrine?
In Hamp
More evidence spotted on King Street that the Springfield mafia is moving into Northampton.
The Dunkin Donuts on King Street, one of the Valley's oldest, is undergoing renovations.
The old sign dumped by the side of the parking lot.
Earth flag in yesterday's rain.
Early This Morning
This morning I went into the wild hills of Haydenville to pick apples.
It's actually past harvest time, but there were still plenty to be picked.
A productive and relaxing way to start the day.
We gave away the apples we picked to the Northampton Survival Center, where they will be made into apple pies, although perhaps some would prefer that they be turned into hard cider instead!
Today's Video
I like this psychedelic poster that's plastered all over downtown Hamp.
Hurtling from the future into the past, here's some classic footage of Northampton drummer Brian T. Marchese and his teenage punk band back in 1991.
