This blog continues with my experiences starting in 1970, when I had to do two years of Alternative Service as a Conscientious Objector, working at the Indianapolis Goodwill. I have mentioned how interesting it was working at the Goodwill, because you never knew what kind of things would be donated. One day a whole collection of old classical style theatrical costumes came in. I couldn’t help but buy a couple of them. The photo shows me modeling one of them.
Jim had mentioned to me that the Carriage House had been the headquarters of the Socialist Worker’s Party in Indianapolis. I thought that that was an an interesting coincidence, since it was a Socialist Worker’s Party episode that caused me some friction during my draft physical.
During my university days, I had once attended a speech given by the US Vice Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Workers Party and talked to him a bit afterwards. Months later during my draft physical, we were given and had to read, a long list of “Communist” organizations and check any that we had had any association with. The Socialist Workers Party, was one of those on the list, and so since I had attended the speech, I checked it.
That resulted in an interview with an Army Officer, who wanted to know the details, and I told him I just went to a speech. The officer wanted me to stay overnight to talk to his superior, at which point I started to worry that the Socialist Worker thing might jeopardize the application I had sent to join the Peace Corp.
I pleaded with the military guy, telling him that after all, the man was on the ballot for the Federal election, and I figured it was my civil duty to hear what he had to say. (This was pretty much BS, since I was not yet old enough to vote). However, the officer did finally allow me to fill out a second “Communist Organizations” form and this time, not check the Socialist Worker box, and all was forgotten.
Years later, back at the Indianapolis Carriage House where I lived, and had just heard Jim telling me that the place used to be the headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party, I thought that was an interesting fact and I didn’t spend any more time thinking about it. Then one day, when I returned from work I discovered a bound bundle of newspapers sitting outside our door.
When I picked them up I saw that they were Socialist Worker’s Party newspapers. I took them in, opened the bundle, and began to read through them. When I got the last page I found a bordered section that listed all the headquarters of the party, and to my great shock and surprise, discovered that “The Carriage House” at our address, was still listed as the Socialist Workers Indianapolis headquarters. I figured that if I didn’t have an FBI file before, surely I must have one since moving to the Carriage House.
Bill, one of my good friends and the lead guitarist in the band I was in back in Evansville, followed in my footsteps, first in becoming a Conscientious Objector, then getting assigned to do his Alternative Service in the Indianapolis Goodwill, and finally ending up working in the Pricing Department with me. He needed a place to live, so Jim and myself, let Bill move in with us at the Carriage House.
Later, Jim hooked up with a girl named Carol, and invited her to also move in with us. The Carriage House was beginning to look and feel a bit like a commune. The addition of Carol living in our house really started to change the easy-going relationships we had had. Carol was a stickler for cleanliness and order, and she began nagging at Bill and I over our indiscretions. Bill and I were getting tired of living in the ghetto anyway, and since the arrival of Carol, our house dynamics had changed to the point where we began looking for somewhere else for us to live.
Luckily Bill and I found a nice small cottage beside the White River, just north of the newly completed Interstate Loop circling Indianapolis. While there were other houses around us, it felt like we were living in the country, with the White River flowing slowly through our back yard.
Homelife was again easy going for Bill and I. Bill bought himself an old player piano that had come into Goodwill. While I don’t remember all the details of getting it to our new house, I do remember it was a terrible struggle for the two of us to get the thing up the steps and through the door of our cottage’s enclosed porch. Regular pianos are heavy enough, but player pianos were a lot heavier, making them a lot more difficult to move.
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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