A year or two after this incident, I got out of a taxi on 116th and Broadway in front of Columbia University's main gate. When I had hauled my duffel bag across the quad and into my dorm room, I sat staring at the windows, wondering which one Ginsberg had been expelled for writing on. Across the street in the West End I ran my hand across the thick varnish, amber slopped over the red wood tables, carved with decades of initials. Later, when I moved to San Francisco, I hunted through North Beach for the site of the Jazz Workshop. I talked to someone who had seen the great jazz bassist Charles Mingus there.
All old times are good because they are old.
Next docket, please. Christmas lights in the living room, the throated rumble of a V-8. When I reached back in time what I wanted contact with was in no way mine. Tradition' is a difficult term for most who would consider themselves to be part of a broad political Left. I have chanted and sung those words, and meant them.