Uploads from Vermont Ferret, tagged 60s

Sarah and Kate 1967

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:53:22 -0700

Our friend Jim Gilliam took this picture of Sarah Latham and Kate while we sat watching a football game at Episcopal High School. I was a freshman at Davidson College that fall; Sarah and Kate were high school juniors, Sarah at The Madeira School and Kate at a high school in Baltimore. This was Kate's first visit to our campus home since our return from England, but not her first to the campus - her brother Jimmy had graduated from Episcopal when she was a little girl, and her uncle was headmaster from sometime in the early 50s until spring of 1967. This picture was taken in October, the perfect time to visit the campus; by mid-October the autumn leaves are pretty vibrant.

Sarah and I grew up together on the Episcopal campus where our fathers were faculty members. We’d met Kate and her older brother Charlie during the summer of '67 when we were all attending Corolla-in-England, the summer school my dad started in 1963. Kate and I started dating almost the instant we met.

I was cleaning up a closet last week and ran across this picture. It was among several letters I'd written Kate from 1967-85 that she'd found a few years ago and returned to me. The most surprising thing about them is how consistently retarded they are. On rare occasions I'd get on a really funny roll, but not often enough that I'd want to share them with friends; so I won't be posting any here at Flickr.

Kate and I continued to date for two more years, but we struggled to maintain a long-distance relationship beyond that. And I was starting to get into drugs, something she abhorred. Then and now. She continues to be one of my best friends ever

Kate and I reunited in June 2007 for a memorial service for Ruthie. Sarah Latham was unable to make the trip; but another Corolla friend from '67, Kay Herbert, came up from Richmond with my friend Calhoun.

This is one of just a few pictures of Kate that I have and it's probably my favorite. More pictures of her are on the way.

Ruthie With Her Dogs 1961

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:24:06 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Eleven year old Ruthie poses with her setters Shakespeare (greatest dog ever) and Remus (a Gordon/ Irish setter mix) outside our last home at the Episcopal High School. Behind her is the bright orange Willys jeep Daddy bought to drive on the beach in Corolla, NC, where he headed a summer school, and was the vehicle Daddy used to teach Ruthie and me how to drive; and the blue 1960 Bel Air station wagon that served as the family car until Daddy died in '68.

Daddy planted azaleas along the edge of the treeline behind the jeep, occasionally finding odd Civil War artifacts while digging around. When Shakespeare died, we carried him into the forest just deep to the azaleas and buried him there with the Purina "Eager Eater" bowl Ruthie had bought for him.

A few years after we left the campus, the school constructed more housing where Daddy had developed his garden.

I don't know if anyone's bothered to look for more Civil War artifacts on campus, but they should. The school's been around since 1839 and was a Union hospital during the Civil War.

Ruthie at Rollins 1969

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:40:07 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Ruthie was in her freshman at Rollins College in Florida with Sherry, a friend from high school, who's leaning on Ruthie's shoulder; I don't know the identity of the girl on the right. This picture was either part of some sort of 'pledge' thing for Pi Beta Phi, the sorority Ruthie and Sherry pledged; or some sort of ad for publication.

A former Rollins student, who's a Flickerite, wrote me recently that she, Ruthie, and Sherry were all on the same dormitory hall at Rollins their freshman year. I'm hoping she can identify the 3rd girl.

I'm not identifying the Flickerite who wrote me, to avoid the possibility that my sister Alicia (who reads my photostream) will endlessly pester her since she has nothing better to do with her empty life.

ADDENDUM: Thanks to "Annie":

WIll, The third girl is Janis Hirsch. Janis lived on our same floor Freshman year and was a good friend of Ru and Sherry. The three of them lived in the same Pi Phi house their Sophmore year. I don't keep up with Janis but I've seen her name on TV! She is now living in the Los Angeles area and has been a writer and producer on TV, writing/producing for Frasier, Designing Women, Square Pegs and probably many others. She was originally from New York City and I think she may have written for Saturday Night Live in the beginning. I remember she was a funny, funny girl... Very smart, very nice. Too much info?! Best to you, 'Annie'

No that's great! I think I may have met her at Rollins in 1969. My friend Rick and I attended the Palm Beach Rock Festival (post-Woodstock and a week before Altamont) for four days and hitched to Winter Park to see Ruthie. I think it was Janis who let us in the house they shared. She let us shower, and she and Ruthie fed us our first meal all weekend. The campus police had already picked us up once for looking like big hippie trouble, so we hid out there for a day before returning to Davidson.

Roy 1969

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:53:06 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Roy Lange was the only student at Davidson to wear a Nehru shirt for his yearbook picture. Maybe the only student to do so anywhere.

I liked Roy. He used to hang with us all the time at Ricky's house in Cornelius, NC., where he introduced us to "TOUCH", the eponymously-named first album by a 60s California band that contained arguably the most profoundly psychedelic song ever recorded. The song is called "Seventy-five" and is worth a listen sometime just for its awe-inspiring psychedelicness.

"Seventy-five" immediately follows some very jazzy piano work on the cut that precedes it and continues on for a mind-blowing ten minutes or so. Best heard with headphones and some decent weed - I don't think I ever heard it otherwise, I was too scared to hear it on acid - the song's studio-created effects are just astonishing. Sometimes you're not sure if you're hearing the singer's voice or the guitar. We'd put it on for a roomful of hippies and have to listen to it about five times in a row.

I found a copy in a bargain bin back in the 80s and sent it to my college roommate Calhoun so we'd each have our own copy. I'd visit him in Richmond every year or so, usually with some excellent weed or mushrooms, and we'd always play two albums once our IQ's were cut in half: Buddy Guy and Junior Wells' fantastic "Hoodoo Man Blues" record and Touch's "Touch".

Those weed-drenched days are behind me now >sniff< and I never listen to "Touch" anymore; for all I know it won't hold up as well without a chemical boost. And until I ran across Roy's picture in the 1969 Davidson yearbook, I hadn't thought of it in years. It might actually be out on cd. I still have my lp version, though, with its psychedelic gatefold cover and trippy band photo. I'll have to hunt it down and take some pics to post here.

Vermont Ferret 1968

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:56:06 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

I picked up the 1968 and 1969 Davidson College yearbooks online a couple of weeks ago - cheap! - and Maggie and I have been having hysterics over the different men's and women's hairstyles and clothing. Let's face it, North Carolina was hardly on the cutting edge of fashion back then, and these books are exhibits A and B. I'll post the choicest pieces from these two yearbooks another day.

I hadn't yet shaken my prep school look. The yearbook pictures were taken in the fall, so this is me from October 1968 for the '69 yearbook.

Ruthie Sally and Sarah 1964

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:15:27 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

My beloved little sister Ruthie on the left with two of our longtime EHS campus neighbors: in the center is Sally Walden, whose father "Sleepy Syd" Walden coached Varsity football and baseball and taught Ancient History to freshmen. Mr. Walden never said much or smiled that I can remember. He threw me out of Ancient History class one morning for correcting his pronunciation of "Medici". During football games he'd walk up and down the sidelines screaming at individual players for fucking up -- in-your-face profanities that made you feel like utter shit. Or so I'm told -- I decided early on not to bother with trying out for the varsity squad. I played junior varsity football two years and had a fantastic time; plus, my dad was the defensive secondary coach for the jv's and I loved playing for him.

Sarah Latham's father "Uncle Bob" Latham had been teaching at EHS since the 1920s, finally retiring around 1970. The best thing about Uncle Bob was his family -- his children Penny, Joe, and Sarah were among our best friends on campus (as was Sally Walden) and his wife Ella was my mom's best friend.

Ruthie and Sally are both around 14 years old in this picture, Sarah 13. I love Ruthie's dress; the pattern is made up of brown dachshunds.

Daddy Teaching 1965

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:39:35 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Another of Ruthie's photos, this was probably staged for the school yearbook, where it appeared in 1965.

EHS was a small school, so Daddy's Senior English classes were limited to about 8 seniors per class period. He always wore a coat and tie when he taught; students wore ties and dress shirts to class, adding a coat for more formal fuctions, such as daily chapel services and meals in the school dining room.

Daddy and Sarah 1968

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:39:33 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Sarah Latham, the 16 year old daughter of one of Daddy's colleagues on the EHS faculty, joined our family at our home for a dinner celebrating Ruthie's 18th birthday. That's the back of Ruthie's head in the foreground.

This was taken the same evening as these two pictures of Sarah.

I sure do miss Sarah. She was such a good friend of Ruthie's. And really easy on the eyes.

She went to the Madeira School while I was at EHS. I was at a mixer at Madeira one night my junior year in 1965 and slipped into an office to call Sarah at her dorm. I sat under the office desk in the dark talking with her for about fifteen minutes when a chaperone came in and busted me. She demanded to know who I was talking with, but I wouldn't tell. I regarded her as some sort of low-level functionary -- a secretary who's office I'd trepassed -- and she picked up on this.

"I can make a lot of trouble for you, young man," she told me.

"What, you're going to rat me out to the headmistress or something?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What's your name?' she asked me in a very cold voice. I told her. She gave me this grim smile of triumph; something told me I'd just made a huge error in judgment. "My name is Barbara Keyser. And I am the headmistress. Now, who did you call? One of the girls' dormitories? Because that phone wouldn't have given you an outside line."

"Sorry, I can't tell you that."

"In that case I'll be talking to your chaperone. You can leave."

Big trouble. Ten demerits on my return to school, which meant being resticted to campus on my day off from school and working off my demerits in some faculty member's yard.

Big Sis later worked for Madeira when Jean Harris, who'd succeeded my friend Barbara Keyser as headmistress, shot and killed Dr. Herman Tarnower. My sister tells me that she spent hours every day fielding calls from parents and alumnae as soon as Harris was arrested. Harris was later convicted, much to everyone's surprise, since it was clearly a crime of passion -- Tarnower was a rat who'd treated Harris like dirt.

Ruthie's 17th Birthday Poem 1967

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:39:35 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

This second of three annual poems that Daddy wrote for my sister Ruthie's birthday has no pictures to accompany it that I'm able to find.

I Photoshopped Big Sis' name from the poem to preserve her anonymity.

Ruthie's 16th Birthday Poem 1966

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:42:51 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

My dad composed this sweet poem for Ruthie's 16th birthday in which he included the names of Ruthie's friends who would be there -- Sally Walden, Susie Wallace, and Sherry Adamy -- and signed it "Edgar Guest R-" (last name redacted by yours truly). Edgar Guest, in case anyone asks, was a widely-read writer of doggerel that Daddy often used in his English classes to describe truly awful, unabashedly saccharine poetry.

Also mentioned are Remus (Ruthie's beloved Gordon setter) and Nell (Daddy's hunting dog); Ruthie's dog Shakespeare had passed on by this time.

"L.T." is Lloyd Thaxton, who had an afternoon teenage dance show; he was also the editor -- I think -- of the teen-oriented Tiger Beat magazine.

Ruthie loved this, of course; and, as she did her other treasures, she passed it on to me when she died last May.

Ruthie's 16th Birthday 1966

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:39:08 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

The guest of honor tells a story while her friends Sarah, Sally, and Susie wash down birthday cake. One of Ruthie's gifts -- a distended Pepsi bottle -- sits atop the portable b&w TV. Beary, my childhood teddy bear, has joined the party, sitting next to a portable record player. That red vinyl chair was actually pretty comfortable.

That large square dish on the table in front of Ruthie is an ash tray! My parents got it in the 1950s to accommodate all the smokers who visited and sat on the couch.

Kate 'n' Will 1967

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:21:57 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my dad headed a summer school in England in the 60s. The last summer our family made the trip (my dad died early the next year) I'd just graduated from high school. Recently-turned-sixteen year old Kate -- smiling at the camera in the photo above -- was my girlfriend. Along with our best friends Frank and Dee (seated behind us); Carrington and Kay; and Kate's brother Charlie and his girlfriend of the week, we sat in the back of these school buses -- Smiths Reading Coaches -- and made out all summer. It was bliss. There were teachers seated in the front of the bus, but nobody gave a shit. In fact, the only person ever to give me shit about it was my sister Alicia in '65 when I was making out on the same buses with my girlfriend Kitty.

This picture was taken on our last ride from the school to Heathrow Airport, where we'd later take a plane to Paris as a side trip before heading to Edinburgh and Glasgow and, eventually, Dulles Airport and home. You can see one of the other two coaches parked behind us.

This is a xerox I made years ago of Kate's much better photo. She's trying to hunt down the original.

Kate and I stayed together for about two years. I started taking drugs in college, and she understandably wouldn't put up with it. We remain best friends to this day.

In June of this year Kate and Kay (mentioned above) and I were reunited at a memorial service for my sister Ruthie. Kate's still ungodly beautiful too.

Ruthie's 18th Birthday Poem 1968

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 08:49:20 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

My dad wrote Ruthie a poem for her 16th and 17th birthdays; for her 18th, just three months before he died, he sent her this letter with another poem. My dad was the best.

They really loved each other, clearly. Ruthie saved all of his poems and left them to me when she died last May.

Me and Ruthie 1967

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:11:28 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

From 1964-67 my dad headed a summer school in Reading, England, for American high school students called Corolla-in-England. The faculty, hand-picked by my dad, was drawn from private boarding schools all over the East coast; the students came mostly from the South, though there were several from NY, Massachusetts, and from elsewhere in the Northeast.

I met my first real girlfriend, Kitty, there in 1965. She was two years younger than me; and each of us was the other's first person to kiss (I first practiced on her girlfriend Terry on the busride back to the school before kissing Kitty later that night).

I sat out the summer of 1966 to work as a counselor at a camp in North Carolina; but in 1967 I returned with the family to Reading.

I'd just graduated from high school, but I took a course in Art and Architecture that summer to keep from being bored. And that summer I met Kate, a 16 year old from Baltimore. We enjoyed an intense romance that summer that lasted another two years.

All summer long we were always heading somewhere on buses leased by the school -- to London or Stratford or Canterbury or Salisbury or some other place -- to tour a cathedral or to attend a play or whatever. Kate and I (and two years earlier, Kitty and I) and the other couples would sit together in the back of the bus and make out between stops. For a repressed teenage boy who had never gone to school with girls, this was heaven. It was probably the best summer of my entire life.

This photo of my darling little sister and me was taken in London that year. It was to be our last summer together in England; our dad would die suddenly just weeks before Corolla-in-England's 1968 session.

When Ruthie died in May of 2007 my old girlfriend Kitty called me from Santa Monica to console me. She really loved Ruthie. And Kate came down from Maryland to Alexandria to attend Ruthie's memorial service in June with all the other people who adored my little sister. It was really good to see her.

Girls' Romances 1968

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:00:57 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Once the single most popular postwar comic genre, romance comics began losing their audience to Marvel and DC superheroes in the 1960s. The writers began to switch the focus of their stories from stupid and very conservative, marriage-obsessed couples falling in love to stupid, beautiful, hip, and angst-driven sex-obsessed swingers agonizing over everything you can possibly imagine: race, politics, drugs, money, and loneliness.

Naturally the "hippie" in this story is an artist the girlfriend's parents despise for being poor. The girl's forced to choose between this poor--but talented--artist and her parents. True love wins, as usual; and as it turns out, the guy's not only successful as an artist, but filthy rich all along. Just like in real life.

This cover's begging to be photoshopped.

Varsity Track 1966

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 22:13:10 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

High School.

Apart from creative writing and the surreptitious publication of my "underground" paper The Strobis Weakly, I loved sports. I was too underweight to play Varsity football, so I spent my last two years in school as a safety for the Junior Varsity football squad. My dad was the defensive backfield coordinator for the team, which lost only one game in two seasons. And playing for my dad was great fun for us both.

The other two semesters I ran track. The head coach was an arrogant narcissistic shithead who ran me in every scheduled track meet from my freshman year on. I was pretty good though. I ran a decent half mile, averaging 2:03 my junior and senior years; and a pathetic mile, getting slower and slower every year.

My dad loved that I was a good athlete, and on our spring vacations he'd take us all to Daytona Beach for a week, where I'd train twice a day with my best friend Carrington (who's discussed here in another era of my life) and get a good tan.

The Spring Track team photo for the yearbook was always taken after spring break, and you can see that I still have a tan (I'm on the far left).

Just before Winter Track began at the end of the 1966 football season, I was involved in a drinking scandal at the school. I was on my official "Fall Weekend" which began immediately after the last Saturday football game and lasted until Monday evening. I spent Saturday night getting roaring drunk at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia, Sunday morning and afternoon getting sick every half hour, and Sunday night back at the school. Since I was still on my "weekend" I didn't return to the dorm; instead I spent the night in my own bed at my parents' house on campus.

Early Sunday evening I had dinner at Albert's Restaurant in Alexandria with the guys I'd partied with in Charlottesville, then we took a cab back to the school. We decided to check up on some friends in one of the dorms and discovered them drinking beer and smoking cigarettes in their rooms! Apparently there were no faculty on campus and no student monitors either -- like me, everyone in authority had chosen this weekend to be off campus.

I was the only student monitor now on campus. The question was: was I going to report the widespread drinking and guarantee everyone's expulsion from school? As a student monitor, one of only 12 or 13, I'd signed a pledge of honor that I would; but there was no way in hell I could possibly do such a thing. I convinced myself that since I was still on my "Fall Weekend" and my home was on campus and not ten miles away, I wasn't technically "on duty". So I kept my mouth shut.

By Monday evening the entire school knew what had happened. Another monitor -- who had evidently learned something about the on-campus drinking as well and didn't report anyone -- and I were called before the Honor Committee that week to testify against our friends. It was the worst week of my life. Honor Committee meetings took place in the afternoon and I was told to make myself available to testify.

Winter track practice began that very week during the same hours I was testifying or waiting to testify; so I couldn't attend practice. The problem was: I was one of the two co-captains of the Varsity team (Carrington was the other).

One day after lunch our head track coach, Mr. Seidule, cornered me outside the school's dining room and asked me when the hell I was going to show up for practice. I explained that I was in the thick of a school scandal and having to deal with the Honor Committee every day and couldn't be present. He said I'd better find a way to show up or he was going to strip me of my title as co-captain. Then he stormed off. That's when I decided high school was completely, utterly, and irredeemably fucked up.

I survived the week, but I was stripped of my monitorship and its privileges; and 25 students were expelled at the end of the week -- about 10 per cent of the student body. And even though I'd personally seen only a handful of people drinking, I felt like shit about it for all of them, and I still do.

As for my coach: that spring I read Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, a fantastic book and one of my favorites (the film is brilliant as well), and I really related to the ending. In Sillitoe's story the protagonist is an inmate of Borstal, an English reformatory for teenaged boys, who decides to finish a crucial cross country race with a local boarding school -- one that he's winning handily -- by stopping 10 yards from the finish line and letting all the other runners pass him by. It was his way of sticking it to Borstal's warden, knowing full well that there would be serious repercussions. I decided I was going to do that -- stop running at the end of a race I was winning, preferably during one of EHS's invitationals -- and look Mr. Seidule in the eye while everyone passed me to the finish line. Classic revenge, served cold. But I told Carrington about my plan, and he begged me not to do it, reminding me that in retaliation Mr. Seidule could and would fuck things up with my Fall admission to Davidson College. He was right, the bastard would have done just that. I got my revenge another way late in the season, though, and did really piss off the son of a bitch. It cost me, but didn't stop me from going to college.

More Original Romance Comic Art

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:30:47 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Another unframed page from my collection, this one comes from a 1969 issue of GIRLS ROMANCES 149.

Fred reserved a room for her at the Y? How many red flags does Marcy need, anyway?

Her street clothes really aren't too hip for '69, so I have to agree -- grudgingly -- with Fred on this one; because it looks to me that Marcy reads VOGUE just for the horoscopes. And her party clothes are no improvement -- at least the girl in the miniskirt and ponytail has the right idea. Same goes for the chick in the bell bottoms and "fall", who's worked harder than anyone else not to clash with the decor.

But were guys still wearing hats on the street back then? In 1969? I don't think so. And dig the dude in the sunglasses and matching ascot and pocket handkerchief in the bottom panel -- something tells me it's his party and he's poised to save this poor clueless chick's soul.

Girls' Romances #144 (1969)

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:55:24 -0700

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

Page 3 of an original inked drawing from "I Couldn't Be Faithful", published in the 1969 DC comic GIRLS' ROMANCES. Pencils by Ric Estrada, inks by the legendary Vince Colletta. It's a very large piece I haven't framed yet, so I thought it would be a good idea to scan it and post it here for my Flickr friends to enjoy.

Lots of great dialogue, as usual, written by some middle-aged man who has no idea what young women sound like when they talk. Or does he?

Click on the largest version to see it properly.

My Love Comic 1970

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:30:36 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

I bought this for the cover, obviously. Before I had a computer I xeroxed it, cut out the boyfriend's picture, then inserted my own photo. Now that I have photoshop, it's almost too easy.

I think John Romita did the cover for this one, though I'm really not sure.

A Kiss For Teacher

nobody@flickr.com (Vermont Ferret) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:07:52 -0800

Vermont Ferret posted a photo:

I'm not ashamed to admit I love romance comics from the 60s and 70s. The cover of this one intrigued me, to say the least.

Sorry to report that in the story inside, which reprints this cover, she is the teacher, not the dude in the tweed jacket. She teaches an adult education class at night (basic arithmetic, according to the blackboard: 127 X 8 = ?) and the guy is one of her new students. He stalks her and beats up another guy on her behalf; by the end of the second class, he proposes marriage in front of everyone and she accepts, just like in real life.