16,071. HAPPY HILL HOLLOW

HAPPY HILL HOLLOW

That's what they always tried to call

it on that far-flung Ithaca hill. The

name never really stuck, but they 

tried and always said 'It will.' It 

was over in two years : a stumbling 

mission on a monastery hill. For

a while, it almost seemed like a

house filled with stumbling

vagrants; a rehab-center and

a rest-home combined.

-

Someone must have paid their bills,

or maybe not - and that's why they

closed up shop after merely two

years. Adults selling pies they made

on their own? Weaving stitches for

colorful knit hats? Pottery and urns,

all 'sold' out front like a gift shop in

some Hell of misdirected energy?

-

No one often even talked  -  just

the shaved-head monks or Krishna

dudes who ran the place. And the

name was a contradiction of sorts,

all by itself.  A hollow, on a hill? 

What's that tell you? It was quiet

all the time, and I always wondered

if someone was just crying out for

discourse rather than living within

themselves as they had to do. 

-

It was1972, after all, and people had

things to do, and the world was changing

fast. Was there nothing to be said?