jimi hendrix

Back in 1967 – 1968 in Washington DC was a time that I hope will always be mine to remember. Any of the years of my life in Washington are memorable and always stuck in my memory because they are my life. By the time I had reached high school and realized that was’nt going to be the place for me I was hooking from school and spending my days in the city.We lived a local bus ride from there and it made better sense then going to school did at that point.

I don’t really know how it came to be-but someone had handed m,e a ticket to see Jimi Hendrix at the Hilton Hotel near Californis Avenue in Northwest DC-the very place Reagan the prez met John Hinkley. The concert was in the banquet hall with limited seating for 250. It was my first real introduction to Jimi Hendrix live…my second other time was in Baltimore at the Colosium with ‘Buddy Miles and Cat Mother and the all Night News Boys’-who knows?

They flung albums out that night at the Hendrix concert and I managed to catch one and toted that around like I had the olympic torch in my hands.

I was skipping alot of school in those days and got stopped by a cop and he took me to the high school and turned me over to the boys dean and soon I was way-layed into class.

I stilll had my album. The class was being taught by a student that morning-a senior in school that was taking classes at the nearby junior college and Mr.Moran-the usual english teacher was gone so this student was teaching the class-her name was Francis. The class was doing book reports-stuff like ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Ann of the Green Gables’…and there I was with only my record. So I played the tune ‘Purple Haze’ on the class record player and gave my report on what I thought it was about-I had’nt read a book and was’nt a class player-so it was the best I could do. Francis-the student teacher was  enthralled and stopped me after class to find out who I was because I never attended classes-I left her with the point I was snottey and un-interested in her interest…mainly because she was a teacher-I was just me.

That night the phone rang and my dad always got it- and he was talking and talking and off and on he’d look at me and there’d be this hesitation..and the the phone call was over and he came over to me and said this student teacher was offering her free time to tutor me. I thought that was a poor idea…I hated it.

The weekend she arranged to come-my dad had fixed the kitchen table like a school desk all complete with pencils and scratch paper ,which he had an abundence of…and since we lived in the DC area he had decided to take my brothers to the city for the museums while I got taught the way of the english language.

Francis came and thanked dad for his efforts-but she had different ideas and was going to take me to the upper counties of Maryland and show me an old farm – I think her family owned it. I hated her for her being there and her plan and for her being in the way of my being a teenager. But-off we went.

She was my first piece of ass-my first time …and probrebly the only pure time of my life. Yup…the only pure time. I remember her asking me to collect wild flowers. We were at this huge field where nothing but wild flowers were gowing-so I’m out there collecting these flowers while she’s getting a little nest together on a blanket in this field. I had never seen a real naked woman before then.

Things at school were more interesting after that day-I know I was more commited then ever after the way school was in  Richmond…but soon that was over.I never saw her again-although I heard she had a child , I never saw it-and never knew.