granny glasses that looked very cute on her.
I was instantly attracted to her. She gave me her number and I went to see her at her parent’s house on Capilano Road up Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver. Her folks worked day jobs, came home and went to sleep, then got up and played all night at the prestigious Press Club on Beatty Street. Her dad was a talented jazz guitarist and her mom a singer. I hardly ever saw them. When I did run into them, her dad seemed to like me, probably because I was a musician but her mother hated me, probably because I was a musician.
Trisha and I really hit it off. Before I knew it we were fooling around on the couch in her den several nights a week; whenever I could borrow my dad’s 1967 Toyota station wagon. (The ‘64 Impala had been stolen one night from where it was parked right under my parent’s bedroom window. It was never found.) Trisha came on with some experience. Although not as explicit as my make-out sessions with Liviana, I sensed that I was finally close to ascending the top of Mt. Eros. I was optimistic that she may finally be the one.
Things were not going well at school. The Seeds of Time were gigging constantly and I was smoking a lot of dope. Someone would bring a chunk of hash to practice and Geoff would break off a piece, stick it on a pin and light it up. We‘d take turns sucking up the smoke through the bottom half of a pen. John didn’t like it. He’d say, “I ain’t gonna smoke that mouse turd!”
I was also enjoying frequent acid trips including one day when I dropped at lunch and came to my Biology class peaking. My very straight lab partner picked that day to start lecturing me on what happens to people when they take LSD.
“They go into a coma and see visions,” she explained to me knowingly.
I tried to concentrate on her face but her mouth was gulping like a fish out of water and her eyes were shooting starbursts at me.
“Yes, and sometimes they freak-out and jump off bridges and stuff like that,” she continued.
“Oh I don’t think that happens very often,” I assured her.
“Oh, how would you know?” she scolded me.
“Well, because I’m on acid right now,” I confessed.
Her whole head began pulsating and her eyes bugged out like a demented frog. Suddenly I was aware that something was wrong. What was that noise? It was nothing. It was silence. I looked up at my teacher. She was standing over me with her hands on her hips. She said something that sounded like a foghorn and stood there waiting for a reply. Every student in the room was staring at me. My lab partner had slowly backed away from me as if I was a ticking time-bomb. I tried picking up my books but they kept falling through my fingers like soup. I gave up. My only hope was a desperate dash for the door. It looked miles away and my legs did not seem to be making any progress. I tried to stay calm and reassured myself thinking 'keep moving, whatever you do, you must escape – or die!' After eons I finally reached the door and fumbled to grasp at the doorknob as it darted from one side to the other like some character out of Alice in Wonderland. When I caught hold of it, it felt like mush and would not turn. I grabbed at it with all of my hands, I suddenly had quite a few, and thankfully it gave way and I broke through to freedom.
That was my last day of school. The next day I announced to my poor suffering parents that I was quitting school. They were devastated and to appease them I agreed to finish school by correspondence.
It was strange to be so abruptly thrust into a new life of leisure. The first few days I felt guilty. My friends were at school while I was home watching game shows and reruns of I Love Lucy on TV.
I would get over that feeling very soon.
The Seeds of Time travelled to Victoria for a weekend gig at a club there called 9 In The 5th Place managed by Max Anderson who also ran a light show called The Ecto-Plasmic Assault Light Show. This was an exciting road trip for us. Victoria is the capital city of the Province of British Columbia and is located on Vancouver Island. We had to ride a big ferry boat to get there and then we were put up in a motel near the club. It was only two rooms between the six of us but that was luxurious to us. It was better than sleeping under the van. Steve was sick with Mononucleosis. He was wasted but insisted on making the trip.
On the second night, Steve could not continue so he lay down at the back of the stage. John turned up the bass control on his Eco-Sonic organ and played the bass parts with his left hand. It was like an explosion! Suddenly, John was free to take the music anywhere by playing certain bass notes against the chords; changing the triads and creating exotic new chords and discords and nuances and whatever he wanted.
Lindsay took flight. Soaring solos flowed out of his fingers. He was a crazed genius weaving magic from the strings of his guitar. I just bashed away underneath it all, making as much noise as I could. We were jamming in ways that we had not dreamed of before. Geoff even jumped in with improvised lyrics and melodies. It was like playing spontaneously constructed songs with verses, choruses, bridges, middle-eights. We were blown away.
John was the only one of us with any formal music training and that was limited. None of us had studied composition or arranging. We didn’t really understand how important the bass was until that moment. After that, John and Lindsay worked with Steve on the bass lines. This may have been elementary to other more accomplished musicians but it was new to us and we were flying high. Of course, I likened it to sex ... When it first happens to you, you can’t believe the pure ecstasy but to others who are already doing it, it’s old hat and drops to a level of basic rapture ... As I was about to find out.
Back in Vancouver I returned to my lethargic life as a high school dropout. One morning, after my mom and dad had left for work, Trisha came over to visit. There was only one purpose in mind ... this was the day!
With Paul Mauriet’s tender harpsichord instrumental, Love Is Blue, wafting from the radio, Trisha and I began our first pre-mating ritual. Kissing, petting then awkwardly disrobing. She was naked on my bed, the site of so many nocturnal wet dreams, eager to fulfill my carnal desires. I wish there had been more romance but, even though we as a species are driven by lust to mate, copulate and procreate, each of us must find the meaning of romance on our own; some do - some do not. I would, but not today.
I was beside her, my heart pounding in my chest; then she pulled me on top and guided me home. Immediately upon entry, as soon as I felt her hot, wet juices engulf me I exploded in her. It was nothing like masturbating, this was some kind of mutated super-orgasm. It was so intense I just about blacked-out. After, I hovered over her, propped up on my elbows gasping for air, looking down at her face. She seemed so composed like she knew this would happen. I felt I had to say something. Surely a moment like this required some pearl to express my love, my passion, my relief - but what? Trisha had an axiom that she said when embarrassed. Tragically, I chose that saying to utter now.
I looked into her eyes and expressed tenderly, “you old sod.”
I wasn’t even sure what it meant but I wanted it to mean, 'you are a beautiful woman. Thank you for making such sweet love with me, it was really, really special', but I don’t think it sounded like that.
She was cool. She purred sarcastically, “how romantic.” Then she smiled and pulled me back in for an encore.
The box score and wrap up sounded something like this:
After going O-fer in his previous at-bats, Rock
Wanstall finally broke out of his slump with a
two home run game, although the first blast could
have been scored an error-assisted in-the-parker.
After that day I was racing up the mountain to Trisha’s house every chance I got. Neither of us every used the term, 'old sod' again.
On April 5th Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee while speaking at a rally for striking garbage workers. A small-time white criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested and convicted of the senseless murder. Canada was somewhat removed from the deep-rooted racial problems