During the November 1969 Moratorium in Washington I was living in a small townhouse on Virginia Avenue with two GW buddies. We signed up to let visiting protestors crash at our place during the event. Half of New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, and California took us up on our offer.

It was a small townhouse, and there were bodies everywhere. One guy brought a giant chunk of truly excellent hash, which warmed the place up quite a bit. I also managed to get laid, which hadn't happened for months; only an immediate end to the Vietnam War would have been a better outcome.

On the minus side, somebody dripped candle wax on my Crosby Stills & Nash LP. And the phone bill the next month was psychotropic in its own right. In those days Ma Bell dinged you for every call outside the District. I mean, the bill was like 14 pages long. At which point "Willie Mays" called the phone company and requested service at that address.

So, great dope + casual sex - damaged LP - huge phone bill = successful event! True, the war continued several more years. Details, details...

For rent:

College dorm room in downtown DC, complete with (dirty) bathroom and kitchen. Short walking distance to the Mall and Pennsylvania Ave. Noisy construction outside. BYOB. Price: TBD

Yard, are you a GW alum?

Rozie,

I dropped out after a couple years. Began a cross-country, Palin-esque educational odyssey that resulted in a B.A. in the early '90s, by which time I was older than most of my professors.

While at GW I did manage to attend class when I wasn't working on the Hatchet and eating mescaline. I still have fond memories of studying poly sci alone on balmy evenings on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with Abe sternly looking over my shoulder.

Spent my first year in Mitchell, although Thurston will always have a special place in my heart, seeing as I lost something there once and for all!  ;)

You're certainly not the last to say that.

I've always had mixed feelings about GW and Washington. It's a great place to study politics, history, public policy, international affairs etc. It's also one of the most insular environments I've ever been in. One mistake I made while going to school there was not getting away from the place often enough. It ended up burning me out.

My advice to anyone studying anything at any DC college or university is to get the hell out of Dodge as often as possible. And I mean get away, to environments as different as possible from inside the Beltway. Small towns. The mountains. A friend's farm. Someplace with lots of sand, or critters, or plants--Rock Creek Park doesn't count. Resist email and the Internoots, while you're at it.

My head exploded 'cause I didn't feed it right. Too much economics, not enough learning to fix my beater's electrical problem the hard way. Too much U.S. history, not enough shooting pool with Mexican immigrants sharing their mom's home-cooked tamales with me. Etc.

Does any of this sound familiar, rozenson?

Are these wankers for real?

"This home has a beverage center and if fully equipped with all of your kitchen needs including a beverage center. "

Tell me more about this "beverage center".  Oh - it's the fridge?

williamyard:

Ahhh, the good ol' hippie days of yore, with hash and poon tang freely available.  One begins to understand what happened to that lost generation.

One begins to fear for this current generation, until watching 18 -19 year old US Marines in the full face of combat, never betraying an ounce of fear on their face as they dodge bullets crackling by, feet from their body.  Elitist jerks may think that protesting a war or marching down some stupid street makes them "special" or "brave. "  But I would cast my lot with a US Marine anyday versus some effete latte-sipping vegetarian Whole Foods shopper.

jwl:

Are you talking about me? I've been in a Whole Foods exactly once, because it was the only place open and I needed some half-and-half. I don't drink lattes but I do eat meat.

As for being lost, I'm so lost that I currently make my living helping develop drugs to fight cancer. What do you do for a living?

Before you start throwing around ad hominem attacks, you might want to learn a little about the object of your attacks.

What else do you know about me, that you would disparage me so? How about the volunteer work that I've done in my community (four years feeding elderly shut-ins, seven years feeding the terminally ill)? Excuse me, but I don't believe I know exactly what you've done to help your community. What kind of volunteer work do you do? Which branch of the Service were you in?

The reasonable course of action is to do your probing thoroughly.