As mentioned earlier, I had some problems with my roommate's friends as a freshman at Anderson College. Thankfully, I had some great suitemates. Our suite consisted of 4 bedrooms and a bathroom. Three of the bedrooms had two beds, and one room was a private room. Lenny, Louie, Steve and Mike were my friends. Louie walked around nude a lot, as he was a hippie. Lenny was into music. Steve was studying religion. Mike was going to be a doctor. Steve and Mike took me fishing once near the school. We didn't catch much, but I did see a snake. One Sunday afternoon, we were bored, so we decided to form a band. Steve played the recorder; Lenny played the kazoo; and Mike played two garbage cans like drums. We called ourselves The Walter Durst Orchestra, and I sang two songs that I had written--"Hey Mr. Sun" and "Albert Frankenstein". The first was just me and Steve. The second had everybody. We had a short rehearsal, and then we did it, and I recorded it on cassette. The tape exists somewhere. During the second song, it got so loud in Steve's room where we were taping that I had to literally put the microphone down my throat in order to be heard. We had fun.
Louie had a friend named Jeff who was a basketball player. Jeff had a fast car, and he would take us going out into the country to drive fast. It was like "The French Connection". I was in the back seat and scared for my life, but having fun too. A year later, another guy took the same road with two girls. He wrecked. He survived, but the two girls were killed. I'm glad Jeff didn't wreck.
There was a concert at Clemson that Louie, Jeff and I wanted to attend. It was Goose Creek Symphony, Canned Heat and Mountain. I adored Woodstock, and they bestowed upon me the hippie name of "The Woodstock Kid". Canned Heat and Mountain played at Woodstock. When Canned Heat came out to play, they told the audience that half of the band got lost in the mountains coming here. They were good anyway. Mountain was loud. Goose Creek played, and there was a lot of dancing and Boone's Farm Wine was passed around, along with some other stuff. I didn't partake, but I really like the music. It was my first real concert to attend. Afterwards, I was supposed to meet up with Louie and Jeff to go back to school. They had met a couple of girls, and we all went back to the girls' apartment. I stayed in the living room, while they hooked up in the bedrooms. I finally left and tried to find a place to stay for the night. There was a hotel on campus called The Clemson House. I only had $3 on me, which would not cover a room, but the desk clerk let me sleep on a sofa in the lobby for $3. That was fine until the next morning, when the janitor came in to clean. When he cut on the TV in the lobby to watch a gospel show, I woke up and made some noise. I frightened the janitor. I am sorry whoever you were.
I had missed my ride back to school, so I began to hitchhike. It was 20 miles back to Anderson, and it was Sunday morning. I had walked a couple of miles, when a car came along, and picked me up. It was 3 high school kids in a Cadillac. I talked with them for a while and found out that they had stolen the car from one of the kids' grandmother. At that point, I didn't want to be in the car with them, if they got stopped by the police, so I asked them to let me out. They did, and I walked the rest of the way back to school. Fun times.
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