Memory bites

So this whole blog is one long memory. And being such, it is filled with inaccuracy. Just sayin'. Nothing purposeful, but the old gray matter ain't what it used to be.

Anyway, back at the Arlington Street Church. I never did join the theater troop. I believe they were on their way out of town, to do a road tour. They planned to attend other sanctuaries, rallies, protests and similar gatherings across the country. Or so I think. The memory. I know this. I continued to live in the house on Grove St. sleeping on the couch, with my sometimes boyfriend Kenny, who was real cute and also a real folk singer.

This was after Rick the Actor, so it had to be after the Theater group in the basement. Or so logic would dictate. With Kenny, I would go to all night hootenannies at a little coffee house on Charles St. (I think. Maybe it was on Revere? Note to self, find the menu I saved for the sake of my old age memoirs and see if the address is there. Not that anyone will care, it's just that I care).

Better than the menu, I found an article with a drawing from 1967 of the club, definitely on Charles St. Already in 67, they were lamenting the end of folk music.

Sword in the Stone, circa 1967, by S. Grosso

I think there was a curfew in Boston and no one was to be out after a certain hour. Keep your rabble indoors! Otherwise they might get roused up and, I don't know, throw some tea into the harbor.

Everyone was very stoned in those days, so anything could have happened in the wee hours.

Maybe there was no curfew and the guy who ran the coffeehouse, who was tall with short cropped hair and I think used to be a drill sergeant in the Army, he was the most unfolk like folk proprietor I ever met, maybe he just liked to make you stay and listen to all the performers, even the really bad ones, so he locked the door, kinda like my high school did the night of our prom, when we had to stay up all night and watch Sound of Music.

Kenny sang "My name is Jimmy Brown, I am the newsboy of this town." He was my true love until he discovered beer and started hanging around with the other guys out back of the Coffee house.

Then came May 20,  the Arlington Street Church sanctuary and the New England Resistance office on Stanhope Street next door to the Boston Police sub station, with the marijuana plant in the window. There I discovered Jim Havelin about the same time I finally got my turn to claim the closet as my own private room.