My "Rite of Passage". No ceremony. At age 19 I packed up was remained mine and on a warm rainy night I said good-bye to my parents and moved into my own apartment, and on what I thought was a new road, my road in life. I couldn't have been more mistaken.The "excitement" was just beginning. The adventure, discoveries, knowledge I was about to experience were far beyond anything I could have dreamed or imagined.It was the mid-1970's... the hippies were gone, and no name ever was invented to describe their benefactors - Me and My Generation.
We were different, and as it turned out - hippies didn't just disappear into a legend born of the 60's, they evolved. After all, "WE", grew up and became aware during our teenage years of the hippie movement. Free love, equality, peace, self-awareness, freedom, and oddly enough, patriotism, as in we lived through the Viet Nam war... seeing the tragedy, hearing the shouts of those opposed. WE expected to join the war as it was the kind of war that seemed without end. We were all affected, either through personal tragedy or fear.
Yet, WE continued to believe in the principles that created our country, and although we mis-trusted politicians, we believed that truth would be the victor, and it almost was, when Jimmy Carter was elected President. But our hopes, our work at equality, our dreams were destroyed by the 1980's... the introduction of disco - of the real "ME" generation.
WE were second generation hippies, for all practical purposes. We continued to carry the torch. We felt we learned a lot from generation one. What we hadn't learned, or didn't see coming was the tenacity of the moral majority to see to it that change did not happen. Ah, the moral majority, a myth perhaps. "They'd" prefer to be called the status quo, the "way it is". That if you don't conform, or you don't accept the "rules of engagement in conservative society", you are not one with society.
Many of us held out as long as we could... pushing for truth, justice and liberty for all". We couldn't take credit for ending the Viet Nam War, that was generation one's accomplishment. But we could take free love, the establishment, inner exploration of who we were, and other controversial subjects like nuclear power and the rights of women and minorities to new levels.
And where was I in the midst of all this? Ironically, this shy, conservative, lonely kid who'd been either the underdog or the victim of bullies for years found himself in the forefront of the WE generation.
Based on a book I'd received at age 8, "R is for Rocket" by Ray Bradbury, and many other books after that, I realized after moving out on my own that what i really wanted to do was "get inside". One and 1/2 years of college was not working out... and I knew it. It was an extension of HS and I hated HS. I quit college and decided that what I wanted was to work on "the inside", in a support capacity, at the heart of the educational community. And how could I accomplish that? By getting a job as a custodian at the college. I vowed to apply, and visit the college everyday if need be to get the job. But I didn't have to. I got the job within the month of moving out. Not only did I get the job, but the job was set at the Fine Arts Center. 3PM to 11PM M-F.
If there was a chance of buying into the idea that there is a God, it would have been then that the fact would have been obvious to me. The job was a dream come true, which for many they might find that difficult to comprehend as I cleaned toilets, mopped floors, and essentially was responsible for washing the old building top down.
It was a humble job, with good pay and excellent benefits. I thought my family would be proud of me. I at least thought they would respect the fact that I was working, and not just working, but a full-time employee of a community college.
No such luck!!! Almost immediately my mother made it clear that I was a disgrace to the family, that I going nowhere, that I was someone no one could like.
Amazingly, I took it in stride... sure, it hurt, bad, but I wasn't living home anymore. It was my life. And it's what I wanted.
In the next post I will describe why... but I'll conclude now with the following:
What happened, what my life became, what I aspired towards:
IT wasn't All About Sex!
IT wasn't about any one thing, nor was "my motivation" a deal with the Devil, as some have suggested.
IT wasn't about "being a disgrace to my mother"!
IT wasn't about a "lack of motivation".
IT wasn't about "Drugs".
IT wasn't about "Rebellion".
IT was about being free and living my life and becoming someone. IT was about letting go of the past and moving on. IT was to find happiness and my true love. IT was about finding and embracing me. IT was about helping others!
To be continued...
Happy Christmas!!!
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