Wisdom of the Aged by Craig Hattersley - HTML preview

Every story’s got a moral and mine does, too
It ain’t nobody’s business whatever you do
All of us got weird notions of time
The Lord only knows that I sure got mine
I’m public enemy number-one
All because I wanna have too much fun.

—“Too Much Fun,” Commander Cody
& the Lost Planet Airmen

In college I had found sanctuary in the arms of a young lady—Beth, my first love—resuming an on-again/off-again relationship that had begun in my infrequent trips hitchhiking home the ninety miles from Syracuse. It would be giving the relationship short shrift to say she was, in comedian Gamble Rogers’ words, my first pelvic affiliate. In short, it was love as I knew it then. We had each other and that’s all that mattered at the time. For the first time, I felt that a female cared about me. We shared everything—hopes, dreams, political beliefs. It opened my eyes to a new world.

She and her mom lived outside town in a trailer on a plot that contained a giant black-cherry tree, and we’d sit up in the tree and gorge on the wondrous fruit. The only child of a single mom, Beth turned eighteen out of high school and was thus legally an adult, but because of a past transgression her mom was able to invoke a legal ruling that gave her parental control until she turned twenty-one—come into play when she moved briefly into the trailer with Mom and me. This would not stand.

We drifted apart for the time I spent in Texas in 1969, but then she surreptitiously joined me in my second sojourn to the city to usher at the Fillmore, working in a shop that groomed and boarded dogs. When we left the Fillmore and moved back upstate, she had to resume living at home. About then, her mom convinced her that if I did love her, I would marry her—the prevailing sentiment at the time (when divorce had not yet become endemic). So when the band determined to move to Texas, it became a matter of if I wanted her to go, we’d have to go through wedlock.

Ricky V.’s mom, a fave English teacher in our Canandaigua school who had encouraged my madcap creativity in her classes, typified the prevailing notion of love and marriage at the time, despite a decidedly progressive notion of life (and a marriage marred in its own right by dramatic crises). On a visit one time with Beth before we left for Texas, she made some disparaging remark alluding to my wanting Beth to be my “concubine,” reflecting the mores of the time. I let the comment slide by, though I knew exactly what she was saying and why. She had already denied Ricky V. and Gigi a room in her house for their wicked cohabiting ways, and they moved into the trailer with Sis and me prior to the final move to Texas.

In retrospect, I guess marriage to me seemed the final move to respectability, which I had resisted all along—the typical kid thing to go against everything parents wanted and expected of you. I could trot out all the normal excuses: product of a broken home (harbinger of things to come, as half of all marriages would end up dissolving), the “free sex” of the Sixties beckoning, fill in the blank. I just wasn’t ready. I was still at a loss as to what I was or what I’d grow up to be.

It’s not that I had a clue about anything to do with the opposite sex. In my first stint at the Fillmore while not attached to Beth, I spent a totally embarrassing evening one time when Ricky V. and I escorted a couple of interested—and attractive—young ladies home to see the “hippie pad” we lived in. While Ricky and one repaired to the back room for a sexual romp, I remained in front with the other making stupid small talk—until she ultimately fell asleep sitting up. I laid her down next to me on the mattress and fell into an uneasy sleep myself. I was incredibly inept at skirt-chasing, mostly because of my own feelings of personal worthlessness.

And this was in no way enhanced by an episode Ricky V. experienced with a girl he happened upon while we walked home one day from the Fillmore. He was looking back to see that she was looking back at him and they connected. A day or two later I heard Ricky swearing from our tiny commode: His piss burned like hell, and he had to endure the shots that would cure him of the clap. Though not as serious as the STDs that would later raise their ugly heads, the notion of contracting gonorrhea was enough to persuade me that free sex could have its price.

A time or two at the Fillmore co-workers blatantly came on to me, and I had no idea how to handle it, aside from a foolish grin and deflection. One, sidling up close and latching on, remarked how big my shoulders were.

Oh . . . Uh . . . Thanks. Totally inept.

So it wasn’t as though I faced a choice between marriage and a romp through the “free sex” bandied about in lurid tabloid stories of the hippie scourge. I remained mired in a no-man’s land of noncommittal. And unready to make that final plunge, I left solo with the guys for Texas.

And at least initially, our social life in Austin revolved around Bro’s band, as they practiced regularly and gigged hard to ward off thoughts of his ultimate incarceration by the state of Texas. Greezy Wheels, particularly with Sweet Mary on fiddle, could hoedown with the best of them, their up-tempo music also a blend of a cosmic Jesus rock of a sort, blending the hippie consciousness into a recognizable country sound. This played well, and the band’s hard work and non-stop gigs built them a following, which led, in the two-plus years before Bro got sent up the river, to their becoming (as mentioned) the de facto house band at the Armadillo—and, ultimately, recording two albums on London Records.

My little band mostly tagged along as best we could. We found that the music we wanted to play—old-time rock’n’roll—had few fans in Austin in the early Seventies. The Texas hip scene, such as it was, leaned decidedly to the cowboy western. This evolved into cosmic cowboy, progressive country, redneck rock, and, ultimately, outlaw country (devolved, in some estimations, as r&b singer Delbert McClinton once opined that cosmic cowboy sucked, and not very well). We also didn’t put in the long hours of practice, hampered as we were by day jobs required to keep us afloat that left us spent, often working the only jobs available to hippies at the time—construction. If you had long hair, no one would hire you for the office jobs with the state or at the university. So we were mostly just along for the ride with Greezy Wheels, trying hard to ditch cover tunes played in small-town Canandaigua and pick up on some country tunes to make our music more palatable.

As we were family, they let us open for a number of these gigs. We played shows with the Wheels at the Hungry Horse, as well as signing on for the innumerable benefits put on at the Armadillo. Then, of course, we’d set up and play at any party that would have us: at Red River Motors (a shade-tree amalgam of mechanics that kept half of Austin’s hippies mobile); at a gathering in the country of the local spelunkers club; at soirées hosted at one of the two hippie enclaves on 33rd Street, one east and one west of Lamar Boulevard.

We had enough minor successes to keep us believing in what we were trying to do—one on a huge stage at the university in front of hundreds of students (Ricky V. seemed a hundred yards away, though a good sound system helped), another a raucous party at the Lake Austin Inn. The success of one particular show kept us going for a long time. We booked a gig at the funky One Knite club on Red River for a Sunday evening, not usually a very big night for turnout—and generally for meager pay in the pass-the-hat format of the joint. But come to find out, unbeknownst to us, it preceded a Monday state holiday, and the joint jumped. The rock’n’roll worked that night, the beer flowed, and at one point a comely young lass joined us onstage and danced topless—though I was so intent on rocking that I was totally oblivious to that and groaned when later informed of it. Last call came and went, and the revelers locked the door (making it into a “private party”). And the band played on, finally caving in the wee hours of the morning. For at least a short time, we held the record at the One Knite for Sunday-night beer sales. This kind of show carried us through the bad ones of old guitar strings that wouldn’t stay in tune and sparse audiences in the few club dates we managed to land on our own.

The minor successes and then my job as “bouncer” at the Dillo gradually seeped me into the Austin social scene. Bro and Nance, at first believing I needed to settle down with one “old lady,” sought to make me connections with various girls in the family orbit, one a waitress in a club date we shared. I demurred, resisting the thought of settling into anything, as muddled as my life seemed. And besides, I became aware of a steady stream of young lovelies pouring out to sample the budding nightlife, many from the university and on the prowl for their first experience in the other-worldly.

Gradually I had come upon a new sense of self in the struggle with my own inadequacies. I regularly practiced yoga still (when the reality of temp jobs to keep the beans from getting too thin didn’t impede) to clear my thoughts and quiet the inner noise. And where once I’d felt the need playing in a band up north to pop a pill to get out of my head and perform, I gentled my mind to the point where I’d come to accept—and sometimes even relish—my role onstage rocking out. I was just part of the whole going on. And in the heat of a Texas summer, I’d even taken to imbibing a beer or two (just to share in the revelry, mind you) and relished immersing in the ever-expanding social set revolving around the burgeoning Dillo scene. I’d left behind the stuck-in-the-mud introvert for a much more comfortable fun-loving persona (“hail fellow, well met”).

The family of folks hired on at the Dillo as shows got bigger in 1971 and ’72 nurtured the bonhomie inspiring us all, and in this time like no other, I found myself quite happy and settled. Years later, in the beery aftermath of another softball game for yet another team with Jon, a longtime Austin friend and a restaurateur of some note in the capital city, we reminisced about the decade, allowing as how a window of opportunity had opened in the Seventies and soon slammed shut. Women had gained the pill, allowing for personal experimentation, and the specter of diseases such as herpes (let alone AIDS) had not yet reared their ugly heads and cast a pallor on this country version of the “free love” of the era.

And truth be told (as boorish as it may sound today in the “Me Too” era), in that brief window of time, the girls were every bit as eager to partake as well—they were just as horny as the boys. Not those suspect big-city girls of unknown provenance that once had me so skittish, but rather a host of fetching, clean-living Texas girls out for a good time, a steady stream of new faces cycling through to see all the different bands playing at the Dillo. For those attuned to the tenor of the times, it became a time of no-fault fun: no attachment intended or implied.

Living the life of a bon vivant, I became all too adept at readily discerning a young lady’s carnal intents, settling happily into a life of constant carousal. (I’ve often felt that those of the era who didn’t partake became the dirty old men of my generation’s dotage, trying to capture what had so long eluded them.) Did she just like being around you cause you’re fun to be with, or is she just interested in a roll in the hay? Either would serve, as all became friends in a widening circle of acquaintances, including many fellow Dillo workers of the female persuasion. In general, you wouldn’t sleep with people you worked around, as it could possibly create unforeseen entanglements, as I discovered with one aborted attempt at navigating an “open relationship.”

This involved a co-worker with a captivating accent who happened to be involved with another Dillo employee. I found her quite engaging, as we played ping-pong in the office area of the club (another employee benefit). She expressed interest, and allowed as how in her understanding with her partner, he himself had dallied with another and caught the clap in the process, passing it on to her. We hit it off on many levels, so she opined to said boyfriend that she too might like to experiment outside their relationship—with me (after undergoing the cure). That apparently didn’t sit well with him, and he flipped out at her and became quite sullen and morose around the shop. That kind of experimentation worked for him, but not for her? I see. So much for open relationships (and intra-office diddling as well).

But opportunities abounded, and I found myself “dating” a lot (the euphemism Sis used to describe my fancy of the times). And dating became a happy pastime as comely young lasses from the university area ventured forth to sample the moment. I admit to the addictive nature of the readily available sex and plunged in wholeheartedly.

Gone was the elaborate, scripted romantic interplay of an earlier age, the careful tiptoe to a semblance—or even a hope—of any kind of intimacy. One instance on a casual evening at the Soap Creek Saloon, a popular club outside town, should illustrate. On encountering a young lady I hadn’t seen in a while—what? weeks?—we embraced warmly and savored a moment.

“You look good.”

“You do too.”

Backing slightly away but maintaining touch, if not caress: “You feel good too.”

“Mmm. So do you.”

“You wanna ball?” (the innocuous term then serving as coin of the realm for a not-so-innocent invite for sex).

“Sure!”

What was not to like?

Occasionally, though, you might encounter a woman you felt could be the one with whom you’d like to settle down. Then it became the age-old conundrum: You commit too much of your feeling, she might reject you. Or too-ardent interest might just chase her away. She might have the same problem with you, with the shoe on the other foot.

When that happened to me, I usually ended up reverting to a bumble-brained idiot spouting nonsense and going against everything I’d learned in cozying up to women—freaking them out with my ineptitude. So it went, every so often encountering someone and getting burned in the experience, making me more cynical about the prospect of settling down. Why bother? Why put yourself through the heartburn when so much fun was there for the having?

At some point I lost a sense of immediacy, an importance in what I had to do with my life. A lack of any sustained success in “making it” as a rock’n’roll star challenged any expectations I had in that regard, suffering irreparable damage when bassplayer Spud suddenly announced he was leaving the band. He had become infatuated with a Canandaigua lass visiting Austin, then left with her when she longed to return to her roots in Upstate New York.

We had one final gig booked at the Hungry Horse, a last hurrah attended by a small collection of couples, and we played better than ever before—those present pushing the tables aside and dancing the night away.

That should have led to a retrenching, given us confidence in our potential and a desire to press on. But instead it led to a sad sequence of cycling through bass players, never achieving any sort of cohesion, beset by the struggling musician’s pecuniary torment: no sound system, a deteriorating collection of failing amps, old guitar strings. This ultimately resulted in a declining interest in a band that for all intents and purposes had hit the wall.

This, of course, was ameliorated in part by a new fascination with the fairer sex. And when in 1973 the legislature lowered the drinking age in Texas, a whole new slice of Austin music enthusiasts flocked to the Dillo for shows.

As the big shows became more numerous, I took up post on the entrance to the backstage, holding back adoring fans from the sanctum of the green rooms. This became more of a problem as the size of crowds grew, and I finally had to agree with Bobby that I knew too many people—who could take advantage of my friendship to gain admittance. Bobby gave me my choice of other stations to repair to, whereupon I opted to work outside in the parking lot, where some sense of decorum had to be maintained to keep open the entrance to our neighbor’s lot, Doug Scales Body Shop, as well as allow for cars coming in or leaving.

Any car blocking the body shop when a wrecker needed into their yard wound up being unceremoniously towed within the confines of the fenced-in compound, to be bailed out in succeeding days. On the strength of his Fillmore experience, Ricky V. hired on as well, and the two of us assayed bringing law to the untamed masses of cars crowding into the lot, a sprawling moonscape of potholes and gravel. With hundreds of cars wedging in, searching for any unclaimed spot, the job required constant vigilance to prevent the Scales entrance from being impeded—as well as cars from being trapped by hippies in a hurry.

At times this meant helping early departees blocked in, which entailed recruiting other bouncers to grab hold of one end of the offending vehicle and on one, two, three, hump—bouncing the car over a bit at a time, first one end then the other, to clear a way out.

And in our newfound bailiwick, we became friends with the affable old Mexican dude hired by Doug Scales to protect their entrance. From him, we learned our first Spanish, as his remarks always seemed to include his main preoccupation with the music fans: mucha panocha (“much pussy”).