Personality crisis

It was a late autumn afternoon in Guelph sometime in the mid 70′s. The New York Dolls had just come out with an album that, I recall to this day, was pegged by one of the top rock & roll writers as a collision between the Rolling Stones and a semi-truck. I think it might have been Lester Bangs, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, I was so exquisitely drug-addled on that autumn afternoon that I decided, then and there, that I was heading to New York City to make my mark, come what may.

I was off to New York City!

Stood in front of my house out there on Hwy 86 with my thumb out and a knapsack slung over my shoulder.

A couple hours later I’d made it as far as the corner of Hanlon Expressway and College Ave. The drugs were wearing off. It was dark by now. Cold too, and rapidly getting colder.

Soon I was cold sober, ten miles from my house but still 500 miles from New York City.

That’s when I remembered that my pal Higgins lived just a couple of blocks from that intersection.

Long story short, after I got cold enough, I made the fateful decision to walk a couple of blocks instead of hitch-hiking my way to NYC, unlike the protagonist in a famous Lou Reed song.

Higgins’ place was warm! I pulled the forty pounder of CC out of that knapsack and me and Higgins made a night of it.

So if you’re wondering why I never made it big in the NYC underground music scene, blame Higgins.