Larry Merritt:
CLASS OF 1968
Lincoln High SchoolClass of 1968
Yonkers, NY
Larry's Story
Had aspired to the US Foreign Service while applying to Colleges. Was inspired by Mrs. Weill's worship of Woodrow Wilson (the somewhat naive, it turns out, architect of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia after WW I. Tribal hatred and ethnic nationalism was so over. Right? Wrong!) Wanted to foster world peace working at the UN but had been told this was the way to go. Did we even have guidance counsellors? Can't remember mine. Didn't know squat about non-governmental organizations and their hiring. Could have gone to Georgetown Foreign Service but got cold feet about my prospects at a Republican State department as a closeted gay who was opposed to the Vietnam war, along with all kinds of other past and present foreign policy stupidities. So I went to the University of Wisconsin, very radical school then, and ended up deep in the counter culture. Dropped out during a semester that saw the deaths at Kent State and continuing student strikes at UW. Came out with the Gay Liberation Front in 1970. Started work in a Collectively run Natutal Food Bakery. Did the Timothy Leary followed by the Babba Ram Das. Went west looking for a livable city with a larger population than Madison in which to search for a gay hippy lover who was also getting in...Expand for more
to meditation. Went to Vancouver rather than San Francisco on the advice of a friend who had lived in both places (but he was straight). Likely saved my life. Found a guru but not a partner and was celibate till the early eighties (which is why I've survived, still HIV neg.)Worked as a baker and Vegetarian Chef into the eighties. Left my first, Indian spiritual practice and became a Tibetan Buddhist in 1985. Around the same time I became interested in health care and tired of cooking. Did the kind of jobs that many intelligent compassionate types without degrees were doing: home care, personal care, hospice care, working with various special needs groups including the developmentally challenged and those living with psychiatric illnesses. Managed a small muffin bakery staffed by the developmentally challenged. Later worked as a housekeeper and lifeskills instructor and supervisor in a group home for young adults with serious psychiatric illnesses.(Ananda House - great name for a place for a Buddhist to work - Ananda was the Buddha's companion and housekeeper)Moved back to New York State after getting laid off in Vancouver and offered a staff position at KTD, headquarters in this hemisphere for my lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
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