"... never to use drugs or alcohol. In fact, I hadn’t even tasted coffee. However, I had recently gathered from my favorite comic book,
Turok, Son of Stone, that hallucinogens might allow me to see dinosaurs, which I greatly desired. [The person offering it] assured me that this was a near certainty, so I swallowed the LSD, which more than delivered on his promise. Buildings melted like wax candles; trees bowed and swayed on a windless night; bright lights with long comet tails lent Hyannisport the cheery aura of Christmas in July.... Still tripping, I rode into Hyannis with two older kids and struggled in a Main Street diner with
a plate of lively white noodles that squirmed and squeaked as I stabbed at them with my fork. I became suddenly appreciative of the impossibly complex choreography of minute movements required by my mouth and its various parts in order to chew and swallow food. Abandoning that endeavor, I looked up to see a picture hanging behind the counter of my father, Uncle Jack, and Jesus. All of them had their hands folded in prayer.... Two days later I flew to South America.... I worked during July and August as a ranch hand in the Colombian llanos, returning that fall to Millbrook.... My generation was developing its own counterculture. That summer’s Woodstock concert—just across the Hudson from Millbrook—was our constitutional convention.... I... read underground newspapers and Mr. Natural comics.... I thought of drugs as the fuel of the insurrection...."
It was the summer of '69. Perhaps you remember it. RFK Jr. was 15.
Millbrook was the private boarding school RFK Jr. attended, chosen by him because "it operated a certified zoo and several of the boys practiced falconry." The place was the alma mater of William F. and James Buckley. James would go on, in 1970, to win the Senate seat that had belonged to RFK Sr.
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51 comments:
hallucinogens might allow me to see dinosaurs, which I greatly desired. [The person offering it] assured me that this was a near certainty..
and Yet.. AND YET! No Dinosaurs!!!
Does anyone else see a Problem in his logic?
Well, he’s better qualified than Joe Biden to be POTUS.
Remember when Clinton was asked if he smoked pot?
wait a minute...
So "Up until" the time he was FIFTEEN, he had "resolved" against ANY drinking (even coffee)?
WOW! you do NOT see MANY 14 year olds, that are NOT staggering drunk alcoholics! It's just a thing
The COURAGE! of this guy, to ONLY take LSD at that age!!!
</sarc
Of course, we ARE talking about a Kennedy.. So i guess it IS kinda impressive
It was the summer of '69. Perhaps you remember it.
i DO remember it.. Quite vividly. My parents let me stay up late; to watch the moon landing (i was 7)
My dad worked at Collins radio, helping to design the radio equipment on the Apollo Service Module.
It was the summer of '69. Perhaps you remember it.
Those were the best days of my life.
"Two days later I flew to South America"
As is the custom of all American teenage kids even those without silver spoons in their mouths.
“You’re gonna be trippin’!”
We get it. He represents '60s nostalgia.
The Summer of 1969.
We can be certain that Uncle Teddy sure remembers it.
I remember the Summer of ‘69… working for Anaheim Parks and Rec and playing Summer League basketball with my high school teammates before my senior year… meeting the young girl who would one day become my wife…
I’m tearing up now, gotta stop…
It was the summer of '69. Perhaps you remember it.
I had been drafted and was in the army. I pulled KP duty the day Armstrong and Aldrin reached the moon. I was so exhausted when I got back to my bed that I slept through Armstrong stepping onto the moon’s surface.
This is the first time I’ve heard of Turok, Son of Stone since I read that comic until it disintegrated.
"belonged" to rfk senior?
Really? I thought it belonged to the USA or perhaps NY state.
Rfk occupied the seat. He didn't own it.
John Henry
And why this particular quote, at this particular time, I wonder? After all, the book was written some 5 years ago. Warming up the thumbs, Ms. Althouse?
".....I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest"
You blogged this for the noodle tag, didn't you? Good call.
There was another notable event involving the Kennedys that occurred in the summer of 69.
Very young children were drugged with LSD and raped at Millbrook House. That's why Leary and Ram Dass had to shut it down and flee to an upscale commune in Mexico right around this time. Among the Millbrook victims were two of Tim Leary's own children. They later both committed suicide. Another child present there was Winona Rider. She fled to Mexico with Leary.
When I asked Timothy Leary about Millbrook House, he lunged at me, screaming "mindfuck, mindfuck, mindfuck" until they pulled him away.
I would like to know RFK Jr.'s role in this child abuse: did he fail to report it? Did he participate in it? Leary himself admitted it; others confirmed that it was ubiquitous to drug and fondle small children there and "experiment" on them with LSD. Everyone knew.
What did the little blue-blood hero do?
Note I mention Millbrook House because that is where Millbrook boys at the nearby boarding school got their drugs and went to party.
I guess he means a real insurrection, not a pathetic pretence of one, which is taken seriously mainly by its enemies. I think Bobby Jr. is a good example of a boomer who thinks for himself, and is amazed that so many boomers and younger people are now abjectly obedient to the whims of the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and Swampers with white collar credentials. How could this happen? If you had to give the elevator briefing to the person from Mars, you might say: they tried communes, blessedly free from most of what their parents admired; this didn't turn out very well; so they go to the opposite extreme of begging for help from a mommy and a daddy much more powerful than the "real" ones. Agencies that can really fuck up bad guys, just like in the movies. Childish and stupid. A generation that supposedly had an unprecedented chance to become enlightened. And of course they have taught the woke, who are likely to have less exposure to anything like a book, and may demonstrate again that IQ doesn't in any way save one from doing very stupid things.
Please no more Kennedys. Or Bushes, McCains or Cheneys. And will the Clintons, Obamas, Bidens, Romneys and Trumps all please go away as well.
That story was so much more enjoyable when narrated by John O'Hurley for the Summer J.Peterman catalog.
I’m gonna need a show of hands on how many commenters have “dropped acid”
It’s it’s impossible to speak with authority on the harm/benefit while standing on the outside looking in.
And I’m not making an endorsement of the activity.
I spent my summer of '69 living with relatives in Alexandria, VA. My cousin Tommy had gotten me a job at the CFSTI in Springfield where he and his girlfriend worked.
Watched the moon landing with Tommy and his dad, the civilian two-star at the Pentagon. Other than that nothing much happened. Tommy and his future wife were six years older than me, and frankly pretty goofy, so it was a long summer.
I was treated like a narc at work initially, and had to prove I was only 16 since I looked a lot older.
I was glad to get back to Memphis!
"I thought of drugs as the fuel of the insurrection."
American value! Lesson learned from his family!
Lance: "Please no more Kennedys. Or Bushes, McCains or Cheneys. And will the Clintons, Obamas, Bidens, Romneys and Trumps all please go away as well."
Hmmmmm.
One of these is not like the others.
If I recall, one of these is precisely the cause of the Clintons, the Bushes, the Cheney's and likely the Romney's going away.
Leary was Ryder’s godfather. She wasn’t at Millbrook.
"And why this particular quote, at this particular time, I wonder? After all, the book was written some 5 years ago. Warming up the thumbs, Ms. Althouse?"
As I've said before, I am reading this book because, in a recent NYT interview, which I blogged, he stressed that he wanted people to read this book.
Don't you ever read books that are not brand new?
Since I am reading it, I have a chance to pull out things that other people wouldn't have seen. I go by my interestingness standard.
"Warming up the thumbs..."
I'm 72 years old. If you're picturing me thumbing letters into a small phone, you're getting it wrong. That's so not me.
I spent the summer of 69 enjoying a cruise of the Mediterranean with hundreds of close friends.
We learned about the moon landing from a telex sheet tacked to a bulletin board.
John Henry
“What did the little blue-blood hero do?”
RFK Jr. is as repulsive to me as Trump was/is. Red lights and sirens going off warning about the dangers ahead with someone like them in a position of great authority. Makes me wonder why people don’t have better instincts regarding cultish leaders. What the attraction to such people is I don't understand. Both RFK Jr. and Trump have put forth mixed up, fucked up ideas that somehow seem like genius to the vulnerable.
I also did LSD before I did coffee. I have something in common with RFK Jr.
She was at Millbrook and the Mexican commune they fled to.
I turned 3 years old in the summer of 1969- my only truly tangible and confirmable memory of that year was my father and I picking up my mother and my new baby sister at the curbside of the hospital. I have a vague memory of watching the moon landing 3 days later, but I can't be sure I am not remembering a later Apollo mission rather than the first one- I do clearly remember the very last one in 1972.
Thread music.
"...If you're picturing me thumbing letters into a small phone...".
No, I was being snarky about the members of the Kommentariat that seem determined to take everything that RFKJr says and twist it into an unfavorable and unflattering light - putting their thumbs on the Presidential Candidate scale, so to speak. Not that I really put you in their group of course, just being cheeky.
Reading old (or contemporaneous) books is far more valuable than reading the dull hopey swill that candidates publish once they've declared.
I recommend reading RFK's Framed, his book defending his cousin's conviction for murdering Martha Moxley. It's all over the place, dishonest, and obsessed with settling old scores. It also features writing about blacks that was hardly acceptable at the time.
Then, just in case you believe any of RFK's lies, read the Dominick Dunne Vanity Fair article about the case and Mark Fuhhrman's Murder in Greenwich.
If you are considering voting for RFK Jr., read his own pre-campaign words. He is a despicable liar, like most of the Kennedys. He defends murder and rape by his relatives. Let his own sordid books and associations introduce you to the real man.
Christ, I just realized that I was doing LSD before I took up coffee. Just the coffee for me these days, thanks very much. I certainly had some entertaining times on acid though... I was also 3 years old in the summer of 1969, and I don't remember much about it.
Levi wants to know who among has passed the acid test.
I liked pot, a lot, but when I heard a psych-major friend describe tripping as a temporary psychotic state I decided not to leave it alone. My three brothers, OTOH, all did LSD--one of them claimed hundreds of trips--and it didn't seem to have helped them (in my outsider's judgement).
As for young RFKj, as the twig is bent . . . and it looks to me like he endured a lot of bizarre bending by supposed adults.
"RFK Jr. is as repulsive to me as Trump was/is. Red lights and sirens going off warning about the dangers ahead with someone like them in a position of great authority. Makes me wonder why people don’t have better instincts regarding cultish leaders. What the attraction to such people is I don't understand. Both RFK Jr. and Trump have put forth mixed up, fucked up ideas that somehow seem like genius to the vulnerable."
Another comment going into a folder just on the small possibility that RFK Jr. is the Democrat nominee.
Levi Starks said...
I’m gonna need a show of hands on how many commenters have “dropped acid”
As the politicians say, I experimented when I was young. I think you're also required to say that you didn't like it.
And as with a couple others above, coffee came later. Caffeine is potentially dangerous, ya know.
Inga, I write it up to many different people's different frustrations with the political status quo. We are all vulnerable. I wish there was someone on whom we could agree, but I doubt any such person would stick their toe in politics.
"to leave it alone" NOT "not to leave it alone."
Stupid computer.
Hey Yancey…
Didn’t Althouse just admonish Chuck in the overnight Cafe thread for using bold face in a big block of his comment?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
By the way, never use boldface like what you see above. Use your words to be compelling. You're stealing from my control of the visual aesthetics of my blog. I will delete things like that in the future. It's okay to boldface a word or phrase, but to boldface a big block of text is obtuse and wrong.
7/18/23, 7:04 AM
"It was the summer of '69. Perhaps you remember it. RFK Jr. was 15."
The same age I was when given two hits of strawberry acid -- unaware -- in 1972. Hell of a trip.
"I'm 72 years old."
How do you feel about that? Serious question.
I was 17 in 1969. I too failed to see dinosaurs.
Are we done with this guy soon?
belonged" to rfk senior?
Really? I thought it belonged to the USA or perhaps NY state.
Rfk occupied the seat. He didn't own it.
You're right about RFK's seat. It was from New York, and merely rented by the Kennedys because Teddy was already in the one from Massachusetts that the Kennedys did own...at least from 1953 until 2009 with a two year exception while Teddy was too young to be a senator. Now Warren occupies it. Henry Cabot Lodge (31 years) and his son Henry Jr. (6 years) also held this seat, as did John Q Adams and Charles Sumner.
A Democrat called David Walsh held the other Massachusetts senate seat from 1919 to 1925, and this seat from 1926 until 1947. Henry Cabot Lodge jr. also sat in both seats. The "Kennedy seat" from 1947 until 1953 and the other one from 1937 to 1944 (he resigned to serve in the military in WW II).
The only notable person to serve in the non-Kennedy seat was John Kerry.
Russia Collusion Truther and Hillary/FBI Hoax Dossier Dead Ender Inga: "RFK Jr. is as repulsive to me as Trump was/is. Red lights and sirens going off warning about the dangers ahead with someone like them in a position of great authority"
(Morgan Freeman Narrator Voice): It took Inga 3 full years after finding out Joe Biden showered with his adolscent daughter and sexualized her early for Inga to offer up her first weak tea criticism of Joe.....and she only did it just once, after much prodding. And now? Back down the memory hole.
"Very young children were drugged with LSD and raped at Millbrook House. That's why Leary and Ram Dass had to shut it down and flee to an upscale commune in Mexico right around this time. Among the Millbrook victims were two of Tim Leary's own children. They later both committed suicide. Another child present there was Winona Rider. She fled to Mexico with Leary. When I asked Timothy Leary about Millbrook House, he lunged at me, screaming "mindfuck, mindfuck, mindfuck" until they pulled him away. I would like to know RFK Jr.'s role in this child abuse: did he fail to report it? Did he participate in it? Leary himself admitted it; others confirmed that it was ubiquitous to drug and fondle small children there and "experiment" on them with LSD. Everyone knew."
Millbrook School is in Stanford, NY, which is 20 miles away from Millbrook, NY, the location of Millbrook House. What connection between the 2 places are you hypothesizing?
I was living in L.A. in the summer of '69. The Manson family killed Tate+ on my birthday.
I grew up nearby and know a great deal about both institutions. The boys from that private school and everyone else in the area had access to LSD because of the Millbrook commune. What was done there was notorious. It loomed large in the local news, where I discovered it when I got older. I met some of these people later, in college.
I noted the Millbrook connections in a previous comment. I've been studying Leary and his cohorts and the damage they did to academia and society for decades. If you like biographies, there's a pretty fair and well-written one about Leary by Robert Greenfield. The scenes in Algeria with Elridge Cleaver are grimly funny.
But Leary, and Cleaver, and Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn, and Assata Shakur, all raped or directed rapes and torture, all murdered people (except Leary), all tried to murder many, many more people (except Leary), and all should have died or die in prison. Instead, they became professors and judges and celebrities. RFK Jr. is a vile defender of murderers in his own family. He has no business running for president for that fact alone. Uncle Teddy should have died in prison too.
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