Kenneth Carson:
CLASS OF 1968
West Seattle High SchoolClass of 1968
Seattle, WA
Kenneth's Story
Screw the Story Wizard.
I'm encouraging my younger son to do a draft of his personal essay for college applications this summer, so I should be able to do one.
My wife and I met in college back here in Cambridge. She was part of the Great Co-ed Experiment, when brave souls at Radcliffe and Harvard changed places, creating the first co-ed housing at the university. One of our more memorable dates ended in a return to the dorm avoiding tear gas and state troopers enforcing the peace after protests of the bombing of Cambodia. Our sons were horrified to learn that back then there was co-ed nude swimming in the dorm pool. The pool has been converted to a small theater space, now. Progress? Not sure.
After graduation we spent a year in Seattle (we shared a wonderful Arts & Crafts house in Madrona w/ Russ Taylor; I did some landscaping w/ Merritt Mage and Sally worked for Frederick & Nelson in sporting goods). Then we came back East and never left. It's not an accident we're within walking distance of Fenway Park. Sally secretly hated the fact that the Seattle team played on astroturf.
"What if" - we all do it. Many of my "what ifs" are about how things would have turned out if we had wound up in Seattle, not Boston. Both my brothers are still in 98116. Matt was M. C. for his reunion last year. His daughter is staying with us here in Cambridge this summer.
I practiced law at a small litigation firm in Boston for 20+ years, and Sally has worked in marketing for IBM for longer than that. I had gotten interested in the Internet as it got going, and took a chance to join a start-up in '99. The thinking was that even if it tanked, the experience would be invaluable. The alternative was to stay at my firm trying cases for another 20 or 30 years...Expand for more
, which I didn't relish. I got the plan half right. The start-up did tank, but refugees from crashed Internet start-ups were not a scarce commodity. Eventually I made my way back to working for Harvard.
Before I came back here for school the farthest east I had ever traveled was to Calgary, when my family went to see the Stampede rodeo. But I still remember the Sunday afternoon I arrived. I shoved my trunk in the room and walked over to Cambridge Commons, where I'd heard music playing. It was a free concert by the Youngbloods, a good beginning in a strange place.
One of the constants from James Madison Jr. High to now has been music, not that I ever learned how to play an instrument or carry a tune. Hours were spent lying on the living room floor listening to '45s and LP's. Incredibly, the Sonics and Wailers (but not Merilee and the Turnabouts) have cred on local college radio stations around here even now, as exemplars of early Northwest Garage Bands. Particular high school music memories include crashing the Stones / Paul Revere / Patti LaBelle concert at the Coliseum and hitchhiking out to the Target Ballroom to hear Them; wouldn't have had the nerve to do either without Merritt.
During college, Russ Taylor and I made it out to the sorry Woodstock imitation at Satsop; can't remember any of the bands that played. Why would that memory have gone missing?
It's a comfort to know that our kids will play Ray Charles, Van Morrison, Dylan, the Dead and Paul Simon even when they are by themselves. It's a greater comfort to see them immersed in the excitement of this election cycle. It would be grand if they could come of age as the Bush era gives way to a new era led by Obama, with a first principle being "If it's stupid don't do it."
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