1973 stands out in my mind among many of the years I have stomped through. Life was very good. I was in my second year working as a full time volunteer at a community center, for $40 a week, mostly doing draft counseling, writing some grants, working on the crisis/help hotline of The Sixth Chamber, handholding people on bad acid trips, referring people to doctors, and talking people out of committing suicide until they could actually talk to someone who knew what theywere doing.I was living at a new apartment complex east of Kent, Wash., with another fellow worker at The Sixth Chamber. He was on public assistance, and had a welfare aparment--two floor, two bedroom. We split the subsidized rent of $37.50 a month. Although I did kick in my $18.75 a month, along with me came my dearest friend, Scooter. Scooter was broke, jobless, probably depressed, and parked himself on our couch for the three months between college terms.
Scooter didn't work that summer, but somehow scraped by. Once a week, however, there was an escape. The Sundowner Tavern, virtually located within our apartment complex, ran a special on Thursday: all the draft beer you can drink for $2. The doors opened at around noon, and the special continued until closing time (2 A.M.). You can imagine the potent forces that coalesced sometime around midnight. A gigantic welfare complex where no one worked, and a fair number of the denizens were on "mental disability." Endless beer, virtually free, and wackjobs with time on their hands, and a grudge against the world. Considering how bad it could have been, I don't remember that many fights or arrests, and the ones I do remember usually involved another friend of ours, Mel. Somehow Scooter survived the couch, the lack of mon and food, and still succeeded in having at least a couple of girlfriends on the line. He would serve one more term surfing my couch in utter poverty--in the fall of 1978, when he joined us in New York City, a city where he still rests his bootheels.
I am hoping Scooter is lurking here and can amplify this story. I know it has to be better than I am telling it. There must be some juicy anecdotes that have slipped my mind...
