Same here. 20+ years with the BlogFather. Loved the backstory.
Coincidentally, Glenn posted about Hampton Sides the other day and he sounded interesting so I checked out the audiobook version of Hellhound On His Trail...which is read by the author...and is the story of "the largest manhunt in American history. For Martin Luther King's assassin. Halfway through and it is excellent. God Bless Glenn.
Super interesting and great story. My dad earned his PhD in Education at the University of Utah in 69-71. We rented a house but some of his classmates lived in married student housing-which looked crazy to me. Utah was obviously not crazy. If you had hair over your ears you were a radical. We drove to SF and down the coast to LA to go to Disneyland. Saw all kinds of hippies and broken down cars with neon paint all over them. I thought it was cool. One time I was in some building and a straight laced looking college kid asked me if I wanted some pot. I was a third grader. I told my father and he was pissed. Went looking for him but never found him, thankfully for the kid.
Fascinating about your father dropping acid and then getting Alzheimers. I read Thomas Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and I wonder how many of them passed from the same. Ken Kesey got diabetes, had strokes, and then liver cancer. Passed at age 66 which is young (considering I am 62)
His father didn't blame Alzheimers on LSD, he said DMT which is a different drug altogether and was not nearly as widespread as acid. I am a child of the 1960s, took acid a few times, but never knew anyone that took DMT. Maybe you had to be at Harvard to be offered that. I only went to Brown.
I never heard that DMT would damage your brain either, so I looked it up on WebMD. There was no mention of any such long-term effect, although admittedly the drug has probably never been studied that closely. I wonder if Glenn's father said that in jest?
If Hippie Boomers are having late-life health issues, I would bet it is more likely from the marijuana that they never stopped using. Many of my friends of that cohort have been smoking for over 50 years.
Personally, I gave up pot almost 40 years ago when I started to have respiratory issues that were mainly caused by being around grain dust. When I quit farming they went away, but I was never tempted to go back to pot.
I actually met Ken Kesey in 1970. Did you know he was a Oregon State high school and college wrestling champion? He was still in good physical shape when I met him at age 35.
I’m a bit older than you, and I was in college in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I watched and sometimes participated in anti-Vietnam War marches and demonstrations in that era.
I’ve watched clips of various recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments, and they’ve made me think: “Were we like that 50+ years ago?”
A big difference is that the Vietnam war had been building from 1963 for six years until 1969 with 500,000 Americans on the ground there. Thus, it had a very direct impact on our age cohort.
I knew a number of people who had been drafted. Several were severely wounded. A college teammate died in action. Indeed, almost everyone knew someone who had served in Vietnam or who had gone to Canada.
Vietnam felt like a real “lived” issue. It altered people’s decision-making. It caused people to change or abandon careers, to stay in college or get married (for deferments).
I thought the same thing lol. I think people kind of rolled their eyes at us, but we were so innocent. And the boys of course were subject to the draft. I will never forget the thrill of walking into downtown, scared as heck of the Chicago PD, and have people in office building applauding us and showering us with confetti.
My boss' kids went to the Agassiz School—I recall the renaming debate well.
I moved from Somerville to tony Medford (sarc) and the summer of Floyd took the Columbus name off of a Medford (!) public school, despite the opposition of vocal and still entrenched Italian-American townies. Apparently one school committee member said he would rename despite what the community wanted. Now Medford wants rent control, and higher taxes, and more bike lanes....
To think, Cambridge is no longer the outlier. The biggest problem the neighboring cities have being that Cambridge always had the tax base to do stupid stuff, whereas these other cities are realizing its expensive to be stupid.
Apr 30·edited Apr 30Liked by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Excellent piece, with the perspective of time past and present, and what has changed — and not. How can this resolve for the best with a very non-serious (about Western Civ) professoriate?
Thank you for writing about your visit, with valuable information included.
I lived in Heidelberg when I was 14 (1954-5), when my parents had a sabbatical leave and did research in their original home country of Germany (came to US in 1930s).
I grew up in inner-city Philadelphia. The neighborhood went from majority white to majority black in less than a year. One Saturday there were 4 moving trucks on my street at the same time. Strangely no one announced they were moving ahead of time. But there was no denying when the truck showed up. All my friends, except one, moved away that summer. My remaining friend left and my father died the next summer. I and my 8 siblings just tried to survive. Then the terror started. I got beaten up and chased wherever I went. Stores closed after the riots. We had to take a bus to get a loaf of bread. It was a total shit show. We went from playing guns, like Glenn, to running to and from school to try to escape the beatings and bottles thrown at us.
The war was a sideshow for me until it was my turn to get a number. That's pretty much all I thought about through high school after my own personal safety. We all knew the war was coming to an end and didn't want to be the last one killed for something our elites had lost interest in but couldn't bring themselves to stop. Fear and dread were my only childhood emotions. Many guys went to Nam thinking 'how bad could it be' compared to the shit hole they lived in. Many never came back. I live near the high school that has the dubious distinction of having the most Viet Nam dead of any American High School - 63 poor and working class KIDS - Edison High. Some came back as drug addicted zombies others never came back. My brother "still" lives in the same house. Many of the troublemakers of that era are dead or in prison replaced by a new, better armed, breed of troublemaker. In my era the bad boys just used you as a punching bag. Now they shoot you. You have to keep your head down and do your business early in the AM or on rainy days. Like cats the criminals hate the rain. To this day I love the rain (and snow) because it was the only time I could walk and shop or just walk to school without getting a beating. You now have to stay away from large groups of people because they always fire into the crowd - for fun and practice I guess. Never stand right at the bus stop under the enclosure. Stand 15 feet or so away from the crowd even if it means you'll have to stand on the bus. When I see these children of industry titans and foreign potentates trashing their beautiful campus, country and the working class police who keep them safe it truly saddens me. If I had what it took to make it to the Ivy League; if my life were not so chaotic; I would like to think that I wouldn't throw it away. I'd like to think that I would treasure every moment and take advantage of every opportunity. I'd like to think that I'd be grateful for a normal - no extraordinary - life. But perhaps I would just be another ungrateful shithead marching around trying to rhyme words with genocide or fit Nazi into a Haiku. Please say a prayer for all the kids who didn't return and ask G_d to forgive the ungrateful.
Fascinatng trip down memory lane. As I get older these trips become more important. In my 8th decade I get nostalgic as I vistit my childhood, and that of my parents separated by oceans and wars and a world that has changed and is changing, transformed in front of us.
Thanks for the ethnography. Larry (Postcards from Epstein Island) Summers was last seen complaining that the administration had let a *Palestinian* flag be raised over John Harvard ... all the while swearing his fealty to Joe Biden. Ask not for whom the icepick cometh, Larry Trotsky .. .
I walked by the encampment today, and it has grown since these pictures were taken and now cover much of the green grass that was in these pictures. I can corroborate though, that the whole thing has mostly been quiet over the last week.
The biggest difference between sixties protests and now is the organized funding. Today, these are Soros rent a mobs where the NPCs can be programmed to shout any slogan. In the 1960s they were mostly grassroots and sincere, of misguided.
Nice story but I don't understand the 'asylum' in the title. Was Harvard 'protecting' you from violence back in the 60s or is this a metaphor for something else?
Great story (and hands on reporting). Been reading Instapundit for 20+ years and never knew about Glenn's upbringing at Harvard.
I didn’t know either. I knew his dad had Alzheimer’s and I was worried it was genetic, as it can be sometimes. Never knew about the acid.
I didn't either. Thanks Glenn for the story.
Same here. 20+ years with the BlogFather. Loved the backstory.
Coincidentally, Glenn posted about Hampton Sides the other day and he sounded interesting so I checked out the audiobook version of Hellhound On His Trail...which is read by the author...and is the story of "the largest manhunt in American history. For Martin Luther King's assassin. Halfway through and it is excellent. God Bless Glenn.
Likewise, and I am grateful for the glimpse into more of his backstory.
Super interesting and great story. My dad earned his PhD in Education at the University of Utah in 69-71. We rented a house but some of his classmates lived in married student housing-which looked crazy to me. Utah was obviously not crazy. If you had hair over your ears you were a radical. We drove to SF and down the coast to LA to go to Disneyland. Saw all kinds of hippies and broken down cars with neon paint all over them. I thought it was cool. One time I was in some building and a straight laced looking college kid asked me if I wanted some pot. I was a third grader. I told my father and he was pissed. Went looking for him but never found him, thankfully for the kid.
Fascinating about your father dropping acid and then getting Alzheimers. I read Thomas Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and I wonder how many of them passed from the same. Ken Kesey got diabetes, had strokes, and then liver cancer. Passed at age 66 which is young (considering I am 62)
His father didn't blame Alzheimers on LSD, he said DMT which is a different drug altogether and was not nearly as widespread as acid. I am a child of the 1960s, took acid a few times, but never knew anyone that took DMT. Maybe you had to be at Harvard to be offered that. I only went to Brown.
I never heard that DMT would damage your brain either, so I looked it up on WebMD. There was no mention of any such long-term effect, although admittedly the drug has probably never been studied that closely. I wonder if Glenn's father said that in jest?
If Hippie Boomers are having late-life health issues, I would bet it is more likely from the marijuana that they never stopped using. Many of my friends of that cohort have been smoking for over 50 years.
Personally, I gave up pot almost 40 years ago when I started to have respiratory issues that were mainly caused by being around grain dust. When I quit farming they went away, but I was never tempted to go back to pot.
I actually met Ken Kesey in 1970. Did you know he was a Oregon State high school and college wrestling champion? He was still in good physical shape when I met him at age 35.
Great article Glenn!
Good stuff, Glenn, very good stuff.
I’m a bit older than you, and I was in college in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I watched and sometimes participated in anti-Vietnam War marches and demonstrations in that era.
I’ve watched clips of various recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments, and they’ve made me think: “Were we like that 50+ years ago?”
A big difference is that the Vietnam war had been building from 1963 for six years until 1969 with 500,000 Americans on the ground there. Thus, it had a very direct impact on our age cohort.
I knew a number of people who had been drafted. Several were severely wounded. A college teammate died in action. Indeed, almost everyone knew someone who had served in Vietnam or who had gone to Canada.
Vietnam felt like a real “lived” issue. It altered people’s decision-making. It caused people to change or abandon careers, to stay in college or get married (for deferments).
And it lasted for a really long time.
I thought the same thing lol. I think people kind of rolled their eyes at us, but we were so innocent. And the boys of course were subject to the draft. I will never forget the thrill of walking into downtown, scared as heck of the Chicago PD, and have people in office building applauding us and showering us with confetti.
My boss' kids went to the Agassiz School—I recall the renaming debate well.
I moved from Somerville to tony Medford (sarc) and the summer of Floyd took the Columbus name off of a Medford (!) public school, despite the opposition of vocal and still entrenched Italian-American townies. Apparently one school committee member said he would rename despite what the community wanted. Now Medford wants rent control, and higher taxes, and more bike lanes....
To think, Cambridge is no longer the outlier. The biggest problem the neighboring cities have being that Cambridge always had the tax base to do stupid stuff, whereas these other cities are realizing its expensive to be stupid.
You had great weather for your visit!!
Wish I'd known you were in town--I'd have popped across the river and said hello! Appreciate your commentary.
Excellent piece, with the perspective of time past and present, and what has changed — and not. How can this resolve for the best with a very non-serious (about Western Civ) professoriate?
Thank you for writing about your visit, with valuable information included.
I lived in Heidelberg when I was 14 (1954-5), when my parents had a sabbatical leave and did research in their original home country of Germany (came to US in 1930s).
I grew up in inner-city Philadelphia. The neighborhood went from majority white to majority black in less than a year. One Saturday there were 4 moving trucks on my street at the same time. Strangely no one announced they were moving ahead of time. But there was no denying when the truck showed up. All my friends, except one, moved away that summer. My remaining friend left and my father died the next summer. I and my 8 siblings just tried to survive. Then the terror started. I got beaten up and chased wherever I went. Stores closed after the riots. We had to take a bus to get a loaf of bread. It was a total shit show. We went from playing guns, like Glenn, to running to and from school to try to escape the beatings and bottles thrown at us.
The war was a sideshow for me until it was my turn to get a number. That's pretty much all I thought about through high school after my own personal safety. We all knew the war was coming to an end and didn't want to be the last one killed for something our elites had lost interest in but couldn't bring themselves to stop. Fear and dread were my only childhood emotions. Many guys went to Nam thinking 'how bad could it be' compared to the shit hole they lived in. Many never came back. I live near the high school that has the dubious distinction of having the most Viet Nam dead of any American High School - 63 poor and working class KIDS - Edison High. Some came back as drug addicted zombies others never came back. My brother "still" lives in the same house. Many of the troublemakers of that era are dead or in prison replaced by a new, better armed, breed of troublemaker. In my era the bad boys just used you as a punching bag. Now they shoot you. You have to keep your head down and do your business early in the AM or on rainy days. Like cats the criminals hate the rain. To this day I love the rain (and snow) because it was the only time I could walk and shop or just walk to school without getting a beating. You now have to stay away from large groups of people because they always fire into the crowd - for fun and practice I guess. Never stand right at the bus stop under the enclosure. Stand 15 feet or so away from the crowd even if it means you'll have to stand on the bus. When I see these children of industry titans and foreign potentates trashing their beautiful campus, country and the working class police who keep them safe it truly saddens me. If I had what it took to make it to the Ivy League; if my life were not so chaotic; I would like to think that I wouldn't throw it away. I'd like to think that I would treasure every moment and take advantage of every opportunity. I'd like to think that I'd be grateful for a normal - no extraordinary - life. But perhaps I would just be another ungrateful shithead marching around trying to rhyme words with genocide or fit Nazi into a Haiku. Please say a prayer for all the kids who didn't return and ask G_d to forgive the ungrateful.
Spent 1967 and 1968 at Dover AFB. Volunteered. Felt a duty to the country we migrated to. At the time there was a flight to Viet Nam every 15 minutes
Was there a GI Joe Action Figure in your household?
Yes, also a bag of those little green army men that my grandfather bought me, which my father tried to make me return to the store.
I favored the little green warriors
Fascinatng trip down memory lane. As I get older these trips become more important. In my 8th decade I get nostalgic as I vistit my childhood, and that of my parents separated by oceans and wars and a world that has changed and is changing, transformed in front of us.
I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, in the 60s and 70s. Same shit except with drier air and a better view.
Thanks for the ethnography. Larry (Postcards from Epstein Island) Summers was last seen complaining that the administration had let a *Palestinian* flag be raised over John Harvard ... all the while swearing his fealty to Joe Biden. Ask not for whom the icepick cometh, Larry Trotsky .. .
I walked by the encampment today, and it has grown since these pictures were taken and now cover much of the green grass that was in these pictures. I can corroborate though, that the whole thing has mostly been quiet over the last week.
The biggest difference between sixties protests and now is the organized funding. Today, these are Soros rent a mobs where the NPCs can be programmed to shout any slogan. In the 1960s they were mostly grassroots and sincere, of misguided.
And a firm thumbs up for “encysted the tumor”.
Nice story but I don't understand the 'asylum' in the title. Was Harvard 'protecting' you from violence back in the 60s or is this a metaphor for something else?
It's a reference to the already much-quoted Taylor Swift line, "You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where I was raised."
Wow Glenn! Quoting Taylor Swift? You really are with it!
Yes, I'm a master of middle-aged white women lyrics.