Lorain County Community College Round 2

After a couple of days’ rest, I went out to the college and enrolled in classes. I stood in the ‘drop-add’ lines all day and had to pay a late-fee for my late registration (student loans, grants, and student work assignment after brace and sling came off – more on that later). Classes had started the previous week. When I got home, I just dropped onto my bed and slept (Dad had turned the front porch into a spare room, which he set me up in. It became my room for the next couple of years). Note-taking was a problem as my right arm was still in a sling. My right shoulder had been dislocated, and the colar bone broken. So writing with my right hand was pretty painful… Yes, I’m right-handed. So, I started training myself to write left-handed. It was slow going, but I got pretty good at it with a couple of weeks of steady note-taking.

My classes included English, Philosophy, Psychology, Russian history, and choir. I needed to keep myself busy. I also joined the student government’s program board. Some there remembered me from the Kent State Folk Festival and asked me to oversee the coffeehouse and open-mic they were trying to get started. The coffee house became my major extracurricular activity. No girlfriends or women of interest at that point. But not all those who attended the open mics were my admirers. One redheaded girl, Linda C., who was doing photography and some writing for the student newspaper, was frequently in my face about one thing or another. We didn’t see eye to eye on anything coffeehouse related. And my evenings were made on the nights she didn’t show up. We held it once a week in one of the lower level rooms in the main building. I think it was either Wednesday or Thursday night. The program board supplied coffee, teas, creamers, paper cups, and a set of speakers and mics. There was a snack machine outside the room in the hallway. I maintained the signup list of performers and MC’d the show. It’s where I met and became friends with Dale K. and Paul C. (who will play roles in my future endeavors), both fine musicians. After my brace and sling came off, I also played there to either start or end the show. Most who signed up to play wanted to play earlier rather than toward the end of the night. There was generally more of an audience there earlier.

Joe S. was a sitar player who played a couple of times at the open mic. He and I got together and experimented with improvising some fiddle and sitar pieces similar to Yehudi Menuhin and Rave Shankar’s album, East Meets West. We tried them out at the open mic. They were appreciated, but not overly so. Dale and I teamed up after that with better results.

To be Continued

–LE