What a wild time! You see your Life as bright shiny segments for the next adventure! You prep the events that you feel need to be recalled.

Suddenly the Time is Upon You! I have received great support and help from Casper at Word Press and his team. They have helped me renovate my site of 20 years because finally Technology’s advances Triumphed. My wonderful website was built for me by M, my Love and Partner of 32 years because my dear friend Dick Richards gifted me the domain name in the year 2000.

Life is a fire that burns with physical prowess and the tuning of the brain. Some folks do not make it past young adulthood.

The first time I met Death was when my school chum Julia Meimarides, who was with me in Switzerland at St. George’s, died of a fast-acting leukemia, called microvitch.

We were prefects together and studying for our A levels. Julia went to the surgery and was never seen again. WE kept going to question Miss Bamford, the senior matron at our school. She had been a military matron and so she had no problem shooing us away and looking stern.

We kept asking for updates. That was on a Thursday and by Monday morning she was gone. I was 15 and Julia was 17; she had a beautiful smile and a winning manner, a rare humor that rolled Western and Greek, French and British experience into a delightful and charming companion and compadre of sports and debating, discipline and responsibility and soulful understanding. She introduced me to her brother Spiro and I imagined how fun it would be to go out with him. Spiro was at Le Rosey. Julia’s passing was in 1965.

By 1966, I had taken my History, French, English and History of Art A’Levels. I was accepted in College in the US by several places, but not in England. Every college in England were unanimous in their chorus: “Come back and apply when you are 18. We’d love to consider you then.” Not much affects you at that age. Optimism and Hope, Chaos and Confusion hold court in your mind with equal disdain for Clarity, Resolution or Consequence.

I plunged forward, I asked George, my Dad if I could wait a year and try again to get into college in England. I called my  parents by their given names when I became 16. George, who was a retired colonel and  mining engineer, thanks to the GI Bill, replied with a resounding Negative!

“You must continue studying while you are in the mode and get out of Cyprus.” The Boys and young Men had started clustering in 1964 so George valued his job and life in Cyprus too much to allow my behavior to intrude on his finely tuned life-style. He would not allow some youthful indiscretion or a scandal to upset his apple-cart and I understood completely. I am very proud of my father and the decisions he took morally and politically by working outside of the United States and giving me the opportunity to grow up on an island colonized by the British and given their independence in 1960.

I opted to accept a successful application to Connecticut College for Women, because it was on the East Coast near to the UN and New York. After3 months, I was tired and confused. I had an affair with a girl, I didn’t like the teaching methods, the classes were too big and I had no interest in a strange culture which required my fellow students to get very excited about dating and travelling to watch boys in sports events, as if these were required and part of the college experience.

A Guy from the Coast Guard Academy, made a pass at me in the Arboretum at Conn College. I was pretty sick of college life in America!

‘The college authorities/medical prison wardens’ came and made me accompany them to a nurse’s and psychiatric wing at one end of the college but not too far from my Dorm Katherine Blunt where they were holding the girl with whom I had the affair.

I didn’t care for the way they were talking to me and once the nurse left the room, I noticed the door was locked. I inspected it and found an open window it was December and I Crash-landed on the lawn outside the college’s surgery/holding tank, legged it by cab and train to my parents’ friends the Heucks and within days I was on my way back to Cyprus.

On September 25^th 1966, I was 17 and all I wanted was to go to college in England. My father was very upset with me, as usual my mother talked him down and promised, that she would make sure no scandals upset his life.

She took me to London and we lived at the White House in Regents Park, serviced apartments for those doing business or travelling to London, while I waited to start college in September at Kingston Polytechnic.

My Mom was the greatest diplomat I ever met.

She talked me into attending the London School of Speedwriting on Oxford Street and my mother came to classes just like my father had accompanied my Brother to College so he didn’t mess up! Can you imagine having to take your college degree with your father? And my father was a big deal, a decorated and revered military hero who because of the ROTC and just being in the Philippines working at a mine and mill when all the Overseas staff working there were caught when the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor in 1942.

My mother said her old shorthand wasn’t as useful nowadays and she wanted to study speedwriting and that would be useful for me at college taking notes, Rightie Ho then! OK MOM!

But I drew the line at learning to type, to her horror! I had also refused at St. George’s to take typing. Helen, my Mom found it highly amusing that for someone who aspired to be a writer, would refuse to learn to type. Helen knew what a great story-teller I was and she was right I did become a writer, but she laughed and let it go when I told her my reason.

When asked and I am always the master of the one-liner I replied, “Mamma, I will never be the girl whose purpose is defined by transcribing the vision of some man. I have my own vision and it is not being a secretary.” Its hard to call your Mom, Helen when you are trying to score points!

Before there was time for anymore discussion I had to get my hair cut!

London was hopping! Times were changing. One of the reasons for the feeling that everything was new and unlike the tired war-ridden years of the first half of the century, was the Music! There were so many notable bands and the cross-over from America and Britain, the way the Music industry was handled by the two countries, the two allies, in fact, was fascinating!

The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Spencer Davis and ‘Keep On Running,’ The Animals, The Byrds, The Troggs and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, emphasized the differences between us: Youth and Them, them were the tired and old warmongers. Music and its proponents, the musicians the writers, the record business companies, the studios, the shows, the touring and everything about the Music business, their Look, Performance, Expertise.

The Message was  Clear!

Adults make Mistakes.

Adults and their dictatorial policies were continuing the saga of warfare. Fear was their currency. Carnage and invading countries their shopping. The threat of Russia and China, the proliferation of hydrogen bombs led to murderous engagements all over the planet. Racism was running in the streets. President Johnson and the Democrats were elected in the United States and still the machinery and economic gains of manufacturing for war led them to uphold the Korean and then the Vietnamese wars. Was there no end to their folly?

In 1965 Churchill died and I guess we thought, with his passing, the Torch of World War would be extinguished and the Champions of Freedom who fought the Nazis and Fascism would move on.

Malcom X was shot in New York City. Martin Luther King led 4000 Civil Rights demonstrators from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to deliver the Negro Petition. In Washington students demonstrated against the bombing of North Vietnam. The Warmongers were either dead or near dead. The threats to our safety and security and peace on the planet were of our own making. The world was now in possession of the atom bomb and nuclear weapons soon followed. The world would now get revenge for using such weapons to end WII.

The Space race between the United States and The USSR was considered a useful competition to curb the more hostile elements of press and politicking. Russian and American astronauts made brief space walks and soft landings were accomplished on the Moon without Humans in 1965. France launched their first satellite and in the US politicians and the electorate demanded anti-pollution laws be written into law.

In London the General Post Office tower was opened in 1965 and its architecture and purpose heralded the MEDIA AGE. The US pushed for education and by 1965 out of 3.52 million High-Schoolers 2.63 million graduated from High School. And, in London British Newspapers, the Express, the Mail and the Mirror sold more than a million and half – 5 million copies daily. In 1966, the Tories were defeated and Harold Wilson became the Labour Prime Minister. We saw the future as the time to repopulate the planet, lose the warmongers, end racism and war-mongering would be abolished through education, In France, Charles de Gaulle was elected to his second 7- year term.

Meanwhile India jumped in front of the times and elected a woman Indira Ghandi as their Prime Minister. It was not lost on many of us that India emerged from their time under the British Empire’s yoke in better shape than most of the other colonies though at what cost and how many lives were lost to achieve their independence, we saluted their struggle. India emerged a Champion of communication and diplomacy. Their mythology and religion, their ancient and fully grown civilization was a Voice of Reason at the UN and a healing Voice of Peace in  negotiations.

Politicians darted around visiting Russia and China, forging ties and making friends, seeking allies where there had been little progress in that area during the bad old times of nobility permeating government in Europe. Soon the Youth of the World used Popular Music as the soundtrack for the struggle for their discontent in 1966. 2,000 students at Madrid University battled the police in demonstrations. The discontent was felt all over the planet and there was plenty to protest. It was a fatigue of being on the alert, of being at war and famine.

Two World Wars at the beginning of the 20^th Century had devastated  life and Infra-structure. The Marshall Plan brought some relief to Europe but philosophical blackmail drove many countries to friends and allies in dangerous places. Nothing was off-limits and the allies from the Great wars still tried to shackle the behavior of emerging countries and to influence the youth to use Fear of repercussion as a way to draw the newly emerging nations to them. The Chinese Red Guard denounced the influence of the West. Now the focus of fear was communism and socialism. The World was in a flurry. Mao Tse-tung published “Quotations of Chairman Mao.” Billy Graham undertook his world tours spreading some kind of Christian religion.

‘The Valley of the Dolls’ was a best-seller by Jacqueline Susann. Women all over the world identified with their need for employment, health care and sometimes sedation because their lives were not their own to live as they pleased and the inheritance of half a century of war gave them the right to demand a voice. Women helped win these wars and with the return of their soldier partners, they were expected to give up that freedom of being employed and fulfilled using their brains and not just birthing children and being the property managers to their husbands’ employment. They clamored for freedom from men determining their reproductive rights and much more.

At last the need for Mediation, Diplomacy and Talking instead of Rage and Tantrums turning into war became the benchmark for civilized discussion. All over the world Folks rallied to Rebuild the war-torn countries, save the Art, replenish the activities that spoke of peacetime and all the new ways of seeing our future in 3 Dimensions, singing and dancing, writing and poetry reading, festivals and everyone deserved to be a part of this new PEACE. The new toast was to the Working Men and Women, the middle class and working classes were to be honored for their heroism. That led to the establishment of the National Health Service in England and rebuilding the bombed cities and replacing some of it with low-income housing so everyone could afford a home.

Soon, that included the desire to express Love and Affection without clinging to old Gender Stereotypes. Music, Television and Films provided a tool for social engineering and rallying the thoughts and fears both for consumerism and politics.

Cassius Clay fought Henry Cooper twice and won. The British usually get cranky about that kind of victory, but in the new age of media and the deep desire never to have to return to World War, Cassius Clay won their hearts and when he embraced Islam and was rename Mohamed Ali, a light went on amongst the disenfranchised and we all felt the relief that perhaps finally we could embrace the freedom of Choice, Religion, Spirituality and Love the folks we loved regardless of Gender, color or creed. We, the working class, had been the peons of the privileged and entitled and we were not going to repeat that stupidity.

We accepted that our wartime ethos could now be retooled to fight discrimination, marginalization of folks for their color or creed or sexual preference and it was time to rethink the definition of gender. These,  were substantial aims for us all to take up arms with communication and not violence and accomplish something HISTORIC! 1966! Oh what a year it really was.

Now where we? Oh about my haircut! So with all this Equality promised by our songwriters and inherited from half a century of ‘Scuffle and Push,’ Western Youth was on the road to Freedom and we promised to spread it all over the world.

I took my pocket money and went to Leonard’s, a fabulous hairdressing establishment in Mayfair, London. It was time to cut the unruly mass of blonde hair, it became a long page-boy and I loved it. As I was leaving and getting into the elevator I met a very tall man Lou Reizner, who asked to take me out to dinner. My introduction to Lou, led me to meet Calvin, Dr, Calvin Mark Lee and the other folks at Mercury Records. My mother remarked – I was still attending the Speedwriting School with her – ‘Isn’t he a little old for you?’ I replied, ‘I have no intention of kissing him or going out with him Mom, He’s American and he and Calvin are working here in England and I want to know how they accomplished that.’

My mother said, ‘Just like your father did. You find a job and they will acquire your permits to be employed.  You have to have qualifications and be of value to a potential employer. You’ll find the right job, right now you need to concentrate and learn how its done.’

Episode 2 will follow next month, my birthday month!

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