BOOGIE HALL

     Old age allows us to segment lifespan into decades of influence on our direction.  Sometimes, this can be condensed into a year, filled with intensity which is brain-changing.
     Boogie Hall was that, for me.  I shed all contact with chronolgical peers and totally associated with friends decades younger.  The music I listened to, my drug of choice, political viewpoint, attitude about women, it all changed.  I was transformed from a chauvinistic, beer-a-holic, redneck Republican to a freedom hugging, nature loving, might be toking, probably joking, true red, white and blue, color-blind, patriotic American liberal Democrat.
     Boogie Hall isn't a story, it's fictitious in so much as it was fantasy-filling, especially now, all these decades later.  The actual structure is gone and the community which inhabited that corner of two dead-ends is stretched as thin as fog in the wind.  My rendition is one of at least five others.  Mostly it is a series of scenes.  I recall the first time the five of us were firing a bong which somebody's girlfriend had purchased.
     Those chicks were showing more tit with each hit as they bent to bubble the water in the stainless steel tube.  The mix of thc and testosterone was as thick as funk.  These foxes didn't need undressed.   The combination of makeup, jewelry and threads effused sex. The hard legs were getting off just kissing that rosewood, after lipstick lips had drawn on it.  It may have been a major porn scene, but it was casual and low-key and hurried.  Lunch break was over and four of the young ladies had to get back to class.  "Class?" Hawk asked.  "Yeah, we're in high school."
   The nascent quest began at a small bachelor crib with a metal fire escape entrance, two stories up.  A second bachelor had just moved in and there was a chess match going every morning after the late shaft dudes got off work.  Some mornings there would be two boards going.  All hardlegs, all smoking chokes or doobs or both and drinking beer. 
     Gene Whoth rented the place and Harson Maxwell had just requested to move in, after his wife, who had filed, told him about being in a bowling alley bar and talking to his friends while he was working nights.
     Carrol Bobb was Whoth's co-worker at the grinding wheel plant.  He was no-sun white, with a black afro that even the brothers wanted to touch.  He picked it from wet to balloon size and carried it on a stick-thin frame which, by his crouched posture, seemed to be weighing heavily.  Everybody knew him as Fro Bobb.  He was twenty-five and already through a divorce with two kids and an ex in Tulsa.  Had a job and a Camero and places to crash, free as can be and staying high.
     Hooter was Gene's younger brother, a year out of high school, working at the GE plant, still living at home and driving a GTO.
     When the four of them began discussions about getting one big place for all, it was decided to have five guys.  Fro suggested the brother of a female friend, explaining that the kid was thinking of quitting school and getting a job.  "He's really cool, a big dude, gets along with everybody."
      John Track was the baby of the group, although he was inches taller and pounds heavier than any of the others.  They called him John Boy. 
      Gene was back in the factory after attempting college at Ohio University.  He first met Harson when they were neighbors and he and his younger brother were told not to play football in the older man's yard.  Later, they were co-workers in the wire mill
       After the house was located (on a college campus) and leased, the five new inhabitants were deciding on a name.  Whoth asked, "Where does the boogie man live?"  After a brief pause, he answered his own question, "In the Boogie House!"
     Of course, and once moved in, it became Boogie Hall, complete with a Mr. Natural caracature on the hand made sign Tracksie designed.  Five dudes, ages 18 to 35, all factory workers, all chick chasers, living in a five bedroom two-story that was never closed.  Just the sisters and cousins and their girl friends numbered enough attractive females to dazzle; Debbies, LuAnns, Beckies, all stars, fully made-up and ready to party. Harson was nicknamed Hawk and he imagined himself as a drake in a pool of preening pintails, drumsticks within a beak's reach.
     The rules for Boogie Hall were simple.  No dealing.  Period.  You bring drugs to Boogie Hall, you bring them to do, not promote. Somebody is always home, so knock on the door during the day. 
     One time, some obvious narcs knocked on the door and when Fro answered, they asked him where they could "score."
    "You fools wake me up and want to score?  The hoops are over that way, go shoot a few and keep score."  Then he closed the door.

                                                    Stereo  Wars

    Two men's dorms were on the same street, in a triangle with, but slightly elevated above Boogie Hall.  One summer afternoon, the dorms began blasting music from their windows, attempting to drown each other's stereos. Fro and Hooter moved the four Bose 501's outside onto the top of their cars and began cranking behind a Marantz amp.  The dorm furthest away dialed back, the dorm closest shut down and students cheered for the concert volume coming from that townies crib.

                                                     Rock Concerts

     Boogie Hallers never missed a chance to see live rock and roll.  Usually, a group of a dozen or more would congregate at the Hall, prior to driving to a concert.  Preparation included twisting some joints for the road and carry-in.  Snively had just returned from the service and claimed  he could roll as fast as OhNo could lick-stick two papers together.  Back then, everyone used two papers because pot was lots cheaper and enthusiastically shared.  In motion too fast to fathom, Snively rolled and sealed an ounce of weed into doobies as fast as the papers were glued.