Life is great, baby

The age of miracles is not yet passed I thought some time ago, on hearing news of Billy Rolands, a former schoolmate. Nothing had distinguished his time at school, nor mine. We belonged to a group possessing the happy knack of being there but seldom noticed, and whose real education began the moment we left school. A group where quite a number, on discovering we had talents and abilities not even hinted at in all our school reports, surpassed the drab existence of our former teachers and did surprisingly well. Billy Rolands was one, apparently. I say apparently, because from the way I see things now, there is a most interesting kink in his story.

When we'd both left school I found employment in the office of solicitors Whist, Crew and Udgeon, or to give them their full title, Freeman Tremain Whist, Sanford Crew, and Barry Lee Udgeon. Billy on the other hand, left New Zealand and worked his passage on board a ship bound for good old U.S.A. The hippy movement breezed into world history, its adherents eventually padding along our streets with simple smiles sandalled feet and flower power.

Two years later I left the lawyer’s office, which by then I'd renamed Twist, Screw and Bludgeon, and began a twelve month break on my OE (‘overseas experience’). A letter from Billy Rolands a few months previously had drawn me to start in San Francisco, to take in the hippy scene and look him up at the same time.

My introduction to the city was per the Gray Line bus tour entitled, The Happy Hippie Hop’. It was in keeping with the driver's message and its drawled delivery:

'Yew are now a-seein the largest hippie colony in the world as we pass threw what's known as the Smokey Curtain Collective. Marijuana is staple diet hea. They yews it to stimulate their senses. They injoy paradin, deminstratin, seminarin and discussin, especially tellin us what's wrong with the quo of the status. Malingerin is injoyed and wide spread, along with self expressionin, strumin gueetars, suckin and blowin pipes and bangin away ... on bongo druums that is'.

If you recall those days you'll remember they didn't just blow their own minds, they blew the world's mind as well as they smiled, danced, got high and loved everybody from one hip happy day to the next. Billy, I found, was well into it. He sure looked the part with his ample body enveloped in flowing robes, teeth smiling through the mass of fuzz around a face framed in flowing shoulder-length peacock-coloured hair. A most acceptable guru informing folks how to get hip and blow their mind and savings all at the one time. I do believe it was his Kiwi accent and casual take it or leave attitude which endeared him to the folks who sat at his feet and paid him his considerable financial dues.

The hippie movement was not for me. I wished him well and meant it, as I left on the next leg of my OE heading for England. Our family, being high Church of England, included candles on the table to illuminate dinner on Sunday evenings. I'd promised my parents that I would get the real oil by dipping into things ecclesiastical, which meant staying a few weeks with a friend of my parents, the Vicar of a church in Cambridgeshire. The persuasive softly spoken chappie talked me into a weekend spiritual retreat, isolating me at Martin Abbey close by the east coast of Kent, where the wind blew cold and with nothing to view but the headstones of sailors and travellers drowned nearby. For the next 36 hours I was subjected to singing, chanting, fasting and long readings from religious books delivered in voices bereft of all save a few dreary montonous notes.

San Francisco and all things hippy beckoned very strongly from the stone cell where I was expected to sleep. Strange really, everyone else there seemed to accept it all as normal. But I'd fulfilled my ecclesiastical duty within those cloistered C of E walls, and I left the place to the Abbot, his followers and all things Kentish.

I returned to New Zealand, completed a Pyschology degree and started a counselling business, getting people to unburden themselves as they relaxed on a couch in my consulting rooms. For the next five years things went well, except for a handful of regulars giving me a difficult time helping them overcome problems of gross immaturity, deep insecurity or an excessively aggressive attitude. Living in Wellington was fine, but too many genuine customers were put off by MPs and top government executives cluttering up my waiting room.

Installing a locum, I took six months leave and set off for San Francisco to check things out again with my old school friend, Billy. Alas, there was no sign at the place where he should have been. I asked for help from a middle-aged man intent on enjoying a few evening drinks. He'd already started I discovered as he put his arm around my shoulder and breathing foul methelated vapours full into my face, coughed and spluttered:

'Billy is now the Right Reverend Brother William, yes sir. He done got hisself blessed by a Kuru. None udder dan Hari Krispa, a true Guru and a Yogi. Dat Brother William, he been filled and is singing the praises and tellin it like it is, man'. I managed to break free and left gulping deep breaths of fresh air and a host of fleas who reckoned they knew a good home when they saw one. I also had Brother William's new address.

I really wasn't prepared for what I found a few kilometres out of town.

Billy had found an old abandoned Mexican styled ranch-house and, with the flower power gang, help converted it into a monastery. This was some new Billy, more a William in fact. Certainly, with his beard and moustache trimmed, hair neatly tonsured and wearing a creamy white robe with golden sash around his middle, he looked magnificent. His new position as Abott of the monastery suited him, I thought. I also thought it would be run along the lines of the monastery I'd stayed at in England. It was as well my parents were not with me, nor the dear Vicar from Cambridgeshire.

Once inside the grounds my senses had to grapple with their world of hip colouring, hip music and hip terminology. Abbot William was now Abbey Baby, a with-it hip cleric whose favourite blessing was:

'May all your visions be incandescent auras suffused with the brightness of seven heavens'.

As far as I could see, the brothers were kept in a state of expanded but fuzzy consciousness by consuming dope-laced cookies washed down with home-brew. The brew looked innocent enough but contained a delayed eye-wobbling wallop with a built-in automatic repeater at 60 to 90 second intervals. Everything was: 'Beautiful man', as Puff the Magic Dragon wafted through the air waves in sound and smell. Brown rice, sprouts and lentils served by a large earth mother borrowed from a nearby women's prison, ensured a steady movement to the men's room.

Four hours later, when it was time to leave, Abbey Baby offered lavish inducements to stay, which I declined. When Abbey Baby left to answer the phone, I discarded the habit loaned to visitors and hit the outside pavement running.

I returned to normal civilisation courtesy of Air New Zealand. I do confess to sneaking through customs a small memento of my trip: the recipe for Abbey Baby's cookies. I've made a few friends from the drone house in Wellington, who have access to all the cookie ingredients. As a consultant counsellor, I enjoy groovy sessions with a handful of our country's kaftan-clothed top drones, along with a six figure annual fee. And yes. Life is great, baby. Have another bickie.

 Dennis Crompton © 2000
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)