In the past, this class of kids had not only entertained me, but had supported and protected me as well, and I them. Positive traits are positively correlated. But the Clinton County kid culture was too primitive and Roman Catholic for informal school psychologists' fan clubs to develop and flourish. Negative traits are also positively correlated. In 1963-64 no sweet nothings or invitations to engage in illegal and unprofessional conduct were being whispered in my ear by any teenage cuties, which was probably the main reason for my boredom, restlessness, and general sense of dissatisfaction with it all.
Little things can mean a lot, after all.
The combination of sensations I felt on reading those first newspaper stories about Millbrook was new to me, although it was something like falling in love at first sight. There are ways to explain it. First and foremost, I had taken half a gram of mescaline, a very heavy dose, four years earlier. I didn't know another person, aside from my wife, much less another psychologist, who had any psychedelic experience at all. Attempting to describe the experience and explain why it was important had become so tiresome and unproductive that I had stopped trying.