Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We Have Ignition and . . .
IT DID NOT
begin on New Year's Eve of '69. By then we were well into the essence of the thing,
confident of scratch in all four gears, even as traction became metaphysical, an esoteric concept
to ponder in still life. But that night shines with everlasting light.
A dozen of us, give or take a few comers and goers through the evening, had gathered at
Marcia Sacks' and Betty Boop's place to celebrate the new decade with spaghetti and LSD. Mar-
cia, our hostess for the evening, was old hat on the psychedelic scene, tripping with moderate
frequency over the previous few years. She'd prepared a great, hardy sauce. A dozen hits of acid
wasn't so easy to come by in one fell swoop in mid-Missouri, but we began a few days out, so by
sundown on the 31
st
we had enough to go around—purple microdots, pink barrels, Owsleys,
orange sunshine and blotters—with a single electric neon Jesus and a few odd extras in case of
late arrivals or acid malfunction.
Betty was gone, off to Boston to visit her fiancée. That was a certain tender subject for me,
since she'd been my main squeeze since Halloween, and sixty days was a stretch of many moons
in college time, in the heart of the sexual revolution. Bona fide beautiful and acutely intelligent
in her personal, parochial way, Betty seemed less than stable on the emotional front, even skit-
tish at times. She wanted acceptance as something other than a spectacular beauty. She craved
recognition for her wit, insight and clever quips instead of her perfect figure. Physical self-con-
sciousness was compounded for her in those days of wild hair and hippy clothes. Betty was
perfect and couldn't help it. Worse yet was her impending marriage to a dolt she did not love
but would marry anyway because he profiled so suitably. Her parents approved of the beau, and
so she went along. Going along with the parental program, she did not fit in and could not find
the words to rationalize such a wrong path. Oh, she tried. She got stuck on self-incrimination
every time. The phrase still in its germinal phase was
copping out
—trading the adventurous
prospects before us for the same sameness smothering our parents in the life-stifling suburbs.
Maybe her last ditch bid for redemption was telling me matter-of-factly that she would cancel
her holiday visit to Boston and cancel her engagement too, if I'd only say the word. She batted
her big brown eyes and licked her lips to show how much she liked me, and I think she did like
me and would have liked me without inclusion at last in a greater whole that she sorely wanted
to call her own. Betty craved the outside but just couldn't fit in.
Of course her name wasn't really Betty Boop; I called her that because she stole my heart on
a single beat, just like her namesake did when I was eight. I don't remember which Betty Boop
cartoon crushed me in a love embrace, whether it was Betty running for President or merely
