We got to New York in early fall and headed straight out of the city into Long Island where we stayed in abandoned houses that had been slated for use by students of World College. They had just been given a hundred acre estate on the sound in the country. The estate had several houses and out buildings that could be used for student housing and classrooms.
The abandoned houses were filled with furniture, record players, records, suit cases, clothes, linens, pots and pans…essentially everything you would need to live. There was a vegetable garden out back that was still producing end of the season produce. We found jars of rice, unopened pasta, spices, even root vegetables that were edible. I couldn’t believe that students would just abandon everything like that and split for all parts of the world. They even left behind a medicine case full of typical pharmacy drugs; ie: Tums, aspirin, birth control pills, Pepto Bismal, Vaseline, feminine hygiene, etc. It was just like a whole house full of people just left everything and vanished.
Other students began arriving and we held political discussion meetings, received group lectures on culture, reports from students returning from different parts of the world, a protest by female students in Mexico who were requested to wear brassieres and culturally appropriate clothing in third world countries, a warning about gay students going to parts of the world where their behavior could lead to arrest, warnings about drug use, protests by female students who accused males in African countries of using their wives and children like slaves, etc.
We rode motorcycles into town to see a movie or buy pizza. We went as fast as we could racing down the curvy hills with no helmets because we were immortal and crazed. We took row boats out into the sound and raked up clams for clam chowder. People got out guitars and we sang and cooked huge vegetarian meals together all pitching in to help. We slept in pairs here and there or on a couch, the floor, in clumps around the fire. When we woke up we sang and cooked and smoked and drank wine out of a jug. We chopped wood, raked leaves, cleaned, talked politics, read, wrote, sat quietly and thought.
The World College philosophy was somewhat based on the Summerhill approach. Let the students choose their path of study and they will learn what they need to know along the way. Traveling was a major part of the curriculum and you were expected to go to a different campus each year.
They had campuses all over the world including England, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Mexico, India, Kenya, etc. Even if they didn’t have a campus somewhere you wanted to go you could arrange it for yourself and submit your plan to your advisor. There were students with focuses on creative writing, journalism, social work, religion, music, theater, history, health, political science, philosophy…the liberal arts.
I became a World College groupie, hanging out on the Long Island campus, meeting with the students and even the advisors…but I was never formally a student, although I probably learned as much or more than anyone that year. We stayed in New York for about six weeks and then traveled to England.
Being from California, I was so unprepared for fall and winter weather in more northern climate. As we got off the plane in London, I quickly opened my suitcase and put on another pair of pants over the ones I had on, added another shirt and two pair of socks. One of the first things I bought was a second hand fur coat that I wore all winter and finally gave away when I returned to California some four or five months later.
I began singing in a pub in Norwich called The Jolly Butcher. It was run by a woman we called “Black Anna”. She wasn’t black, but she always wore black because she was in life long mourning over all the soldiers she said a final good-bye to during World War II. She learned to sing all the old blues songs and standards from the American soldiers she knew during the war years. Her pub was a popular hangout for college students and old timers during the time I was there. Sometimes we’d have special luncheons and Anna would make us mushy peas and lamb stew with mint sauce.
I stayed with a combination of American and English students at an old farmhouse in Scoulton. We cooked vegetarian Indian style food together and hung out in various pubs throughout the English countryside. We did the tours of the major castles and museums and froze our asses off.
We lived in the middle of a sugar beet fields where each little town had a quaint little bridge, a quaint little graveyard, and a quaint little green, and a quaint little pub. chocolate shop, tobacco shop, and a fish and chips place. We called the fish and chips “How to make tracing paper” in fake English accents. The fish was wrapped in old newspaper and the grease turned it translucent – hence- “tracing paper”.
One town had a hamburger place. They served canned hamburgers with tomato sauce (ketchup), chips (French fries), and baked bean and butter sandwiches. We got the air let out of our tires there once for being boisterous Americans by a group of “tuffs”. We laughed about it. Witnessed our “ugly American” behavior and were thankful they didn’t slash the tires like they might have back home.
We learned that bathing was not something to be taken for granted as we had to buy coal to stoke the water heater in order to take a bath in a really cold bathroom upstairs with no lights – only a candle. A guy named Cory and I shared a bath one night and we were so dirty that we had to change the water twice. We had fun splashing and singing at the top of our lungs completely disrupting the entire house.
We seriously did not bathe much while we were there. It was so cold that you didn’t want to undress. We just washed up a little here and there in bits and pieces. My habit is to bathe or shower everyday, so this was quite a change for me. They also had wax paper for toilet paper…very weird!
We walked and walked and took the bus. We celebrated Thanksgiving inviting the Brits to dine with us and we had a huge Christmas feast together. We drank beer and laughed and sang…and froze our asses off.
About three months later… just when the weather was beginning to spring, I came home alone. Landed in NYC with $17, stuck out my thumb, and made it home to California in three and a half days. Half of that time was spent in Texas.
(First published 8/9/11)
