Auld Lang Syne

It's not New Year's, but the events of the past few weeks evoke "the days gone by" or whatever translation of Robbie Burns' Scots you prefer. I know several, but the connotation is the same, remembering old times.

Bishop Eustace Prep School awarded it's Excalibur Award to a good friend from my class of 1972. That impetus caused a reunion of sorts with many friends from that stage of my life. Simultaneously, a small circle of friends from Siena College starting reaching out. So in the course of 10 days, I reconnected with two pivotal links in the chain of my existence.

In June, I begin my seventh decade on this big, blue marble. Reawakening these relationships has paradoxically disrupted my aging process.

I met up with several of my Eustace alumni, and while greyer and less spry, our irreverence and zany humor survived. So did our enjoyment of imbibing sundry potions and herbal treatments. Within minutes our conversations harkened back to those four years, 1968-72. Our class was transitional. We were the last all-male class to graduate Bishop Eustace; the last freshman class that went through hazing (yes beanies, stupid chores dictated by upper classmen, etc.) The Vietnam war raged; college campuses were aflame. We all faced possible conscription. All the while listening to what I consider the best soundtrack ever. That was music to remember.

In August 1972, I entered Siena, a Franciscan college on a small, bucolic campus outside Albany,

NY. Little did I know the phantasmagoria that would emerge. While I stayed for four years, I did not graduate. Some Franciscan canon that your GPA had to be higher than your blood alcohol content.

But alcohol was not the only alchemical elixir with which we experimented. The sirens' spell of Kerouac, Burroughs, Thompson, Kesey, et. al. beckoned me.   I embraced the libertine lifestyle of Rimbaud and Verlaine. Envisioning myself as an artist, I attempted to make myself mad and so truly experience joie de vivre. I was an artist without an art; emboldened by the words of Neal Cassady, "Make your life your art."

Sometime around sophomore year, collegiate activities took a backseat to Fallstaffian debauchery. I saw myself as the Ringmaster, creating misadventures each more daring and droll than the previous.

Examples:
Taking hallucinogens before partaking in the pre-computerized hell that was class registration. That

semester I enrolled in metaphysics, epistemology, Eastern philosophies, late-19th century British writers and contemporary American literature. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Or the hitch-hiking trip from campus to Dayton, Ohio for St. Paddy's Day. Or stealing car batteries to keep a friend's GTO running until he could afford a new alternator. Or, wandering through an ROTC mixer joining into conversations muttering nothing but inane utterances: "Mergle, merglewert, fleegelphilmpt..."

Looking back on those days, I'm not sure if I was exploring bohemian lifestyles, or running away from the specter of responsibility. Mayhaps both motives existed on the same thoroughfare. Be that as it may, the exceptional phenomenon of those halcyon days were the bonds of friendships we forged. They have withstood the strain of time. For that, I am truly thankful. As ever - BB 

"The poet is a madman lost in adventure." - Paul Verlaine