Memories...

My mom remembers the weirdest stuff. I wonder how those sorts of things get stuck in the memory banks. This past evening, she brought up an event from 32 years ago. I had just graduated from high school - Andover (my browser says this is misspelled...) - not my greatest moment or fondest memory. It is, though, fairly indelibly etched in my brain. Talking with my mom, though, I came to a realization. I am pretty darn awesome. :) Though this may not be evident from the following narrative - please stipulate it as a possibility...

Anyway, this is the gist of the story - parties, parties, parties - in New York City in the late Spring, early Summer of 1979. A whole bunch of us had graduated and survived high school and our hormonally amped years. And we celebrated like the end of times was nigh! I don't recall how many parties I attended that evening. But it was a few. And they weren't your parent's parties. They were your parent's dealer's supplier's backers parties! And more. And this went on for hours and hours and hours. This was the first day of the parties - just to put it in some kind of perspective.

Anyway - 'round about midnight, I left one of the house parties, stuff in tow - stuff being a backpack - one that I still think about to this day - a blue backpack, made out of parachute material - that collapsed to a belt packet sized item - stuffed full of most of my high school prized possessions: a galabeya and a shirt from Egypt which I had gotten just the previous summer (1978), my favorite striated juggling balls and Burnt Bear - which is a story for another time...I went to a bar that had been mentioned by the cool kids as the place to be. And sure enough, the coolest of the cool were there. DO, and JT were in attendance (as well as SW and JK...). And me. Me who didn't really belong to any of the groups. A floater. An "also was there." Or maybe not. Who the heck knows...We did shots of 151. I am pretty sure that I did at least three before deciding that the time was right for me to head back to my crash zone.

No fanfare. No farewells. I am surprised that anyone escaped that evening unscathed. I found myself awake, in a gutter, as my mom is happy to say, at around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. It was summer, so the days were long and the nights were intense! The crystal on my wonderfully geeky watch was broken - there was a bit of vomit in my hair, and my backpack and Burnt Bear were not readily visible. Being practical and not particularly maudlin, I decided to head to where I was guaranteed a place to rest my head. The door man, though not amused, was also not surprised or distressed, and buzzed me in. At around 10, my friend stumbled out of his room and exclaimed "You are alive!" and went to get himself some coffee, some orange juice and a bagel. And I slept on...