Coventry: Coming of Age in 1968

–by Dr. James Michael Nolan

I was 15.

We drove to Coventry,

A neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side,

Maybe with Rick Smudz,

or Gregg Gresko?

I forget.

It was Cleveland’s Haight-Ashbury.

I didn’t know shit,

But I was open to it.

It was 1968,

It was the Summer of Love,

And the world was blowing up.

Coventry:

There were longhairs,

Vegetarian (I did not know what that meant)

Restaurants,

Record Revolution,

Head Shops,

With stuff I did not know the use of,

(and never actually learned…)

There were renegades and hippies

and cultural gunslingers,

And I did not completely get it,

But even so,

Coventry took my entire world,

And dumped it on its ass,

And nothing was ever the same,

And I went home

And told my father,

Fuck this shit,

As soon as I am old enough,

I am getting the hell out of here,

And that’s exactly what I did.

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