Forth of July 1976

At the time I was living at my Aunt Iva Mae's house in the country. It had a Micanopy address but the house was probably ten miles outside of Micanopy in the country. Aunt Iva Mae's house was only a couple of miles from my Grandmother's old house, the house my father grew up in. My Grandma talked of the old Jim Mixson house and I remember for many years passing by the house on the way to or from my Grandma's house. The road it is on is now called "Mixson Road". So in living there I had a unique feeling of being somehow being connected, connected to my roots, to my grandparents, to my father's childhood. I had moved there sometime in '75 and come Forth of July 1976 I had been living there for about a year. Sometime during that year my off and on "girlfriend" needed a place to live and she moved in with me. By the time the Forth of July had come around she and I were once again "off" and she had moved to her own bedroom in the house. We would often go a week or more with out speaking to each other. Also during this time I was deeply involved in dance. What had started out as a kinda challenge "try it" from Wendy, grew into taking dance classes three or four nights a week. One of my dance teachers and I had developed a friendship and I grew to really like her.

 At the time I also had another friend, Michael, and he and I decided to have a Forth of July party at my place. We made up a  brochure titled "Bacchanalia" and which we passed out to all of our friends. Come Forth of July we had quite a turnout, I don't remember how many but there were cars parked all over and the next day my aunt Iva Mae called and asked what it was all about. My dance teacher also came. We had a keg of beer and I cranked the stereo up and it was a party to remember. One of the unique things about the country of Florida was that there were mushrooms, mushrooms of the psychedelic kind. I remember a couple of women asked me if they could go find some, I said yes and went with them. These particular kind of mushrooms only grew on cow patties which there was a plentiful supply of for all around the house was cow pastures with cows. It didn't take long to find some mushrooms and we took them back and passed them around. This was not the first time I had done mushrooms so I took a few myself. What an evening it turned out to be. One thing that always happened in Gainesville was the University did fireworks at the stadium. When it got dark I announced the party was over and then went with the dance teacher to see the fireworks in town. Who knows if the people stayed or went. My dance teacher and I watched the fireworks and then afterwards we went to her house and made love. The next day I got up, rented an UHaul trailer, went home, packed up everything I had and moved to Indialantic Florida.