I’m not sure how it came about, but planning for it must have taken place as early as February, 1968, because I have a letter from Debbie Miller saying that she hadn’t seen either of the two plays that I was interested in, so I must have written to her asking if she had seen them.

Anyway, the weekend beginning April 12, 1968, four of us took a trip from Penn State to New York City. That was Easter weekend, so I guess there were no classes on Good Friday, which would have made it easier to drive up during the day.

The four of us consisted of roommates, Tim Toward (who drove) and Ed Stutz, Frank Baker, and yours truly.

I had made arrangements to meet Debbie, and I believe I had phoned her at least once. Which raises the question of how did I phone her? I couldn’t have called her from the dorm phone unless I called her collect, I don’t think I was quite that gauche. So I must have called from a pay phone. I do recall calling her, I just don’t remember from where. 

Anyway, Tim parked his car in Queens (he knew a place he could park for free over the weekend), then we took the subway to Manhattan and rented a room with two double beds to keep our expenses low. For some reason we were all exhausted, and all four of us took a nap and when we woke up I realized I barely had time to shower and grab a taxi to Debbie’s and then get the two of us down to the theatre district to see Joe Egg, which was the play we had agreed on. Of course, all four of us wanted to shower, so it was a mad scramble.

I don’t think I had bought tickets in advance, so I had to buy them at the box office, and we ended up in the balcony, although the seats weren’t bad. By a complete coincidence, as we hadn’t discussed it in advance, Frank was sitting on the other side of the balcony with the girl he had gone to NYC to meet.

I remember next to nothing about the play, whose full title is actually A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, other than that it’s about a young girl, a paraplegic, and the young actress who played her just got to sit in a wheel chair and drool for practically the entire length of the play except for the end of the first act, where there was a dream sequence and she got to jump out of her chair and for a minute or two pretend that she was a normal girl. And there was a chase sequence at some point that reminded us of the Keystone Kops. I can’t remember if Joe Egg actually died or not. I think it was a comedy.

After the play, we went back to Debbie’s apartment. Her parents had already retired, but her brother was there. It was the first and only time I ever met her brother. He had recently returned from his tour in Vietnam, and he talked about some of his experiences. I seem to recall that he had a small piece of good fortune in that he had a sympathetic commanding officer.

The next day I was pretty much on my own. I only recall two things.

In the morning I went down to the Village (I think) to the theater where The Boys in the Band was playing. I had read so much about it in the nytimes, I was really curious to see it. But when I got there, the fellow in the box office refused to sell me a seat for either the matinee or the evening performance. He didn’t give a reason, he just refused to sell me a ticket. I assume that they were sold out, but he didn’t say that. He just radiated attitude and seemed to enjoy seeing my confusion at his refusal.

I have no recollection of how I spent the afternoon. Probably just walked around, or perhaps stopped in a museum, but I don’t remember.

That evening I went to see Rosencrantz and Guildnestern Are Dead and thoroughly enjoyed it. (As a postscript, I went to a performance of that play many years later and didn’t care for it at all. Odd.)

Afterwards I took the subway to Queens and arrived at the car a bit late, so Tim was annoyed, but we got on our way, and Tim drove through the night to get us back to Penn State. I don’t remember but I assume we must have checked out of our room in the morning and taken whatever luggage we had back to the car at that time, because I certainly wasn’t carrying it around with me when I went to the play.

On the drive back to Penn State Tim had the radio tuned to a New York rock station, and it is my firm recollection that that was the very first time that I ever heard the song “MacArthur Park”. I think it was played once an hour.

There’s another postscript to that trip.

Tim met a girl while he was in NYC, and well, he was smitten. For days, for weeks, he went around asking anyone and everyone who would listen, “Would you believe in a love at first sight?” Actually, no, he didn’t phrase it like that. He said something like, “Don’t you think you can get to know all about someone just by meeting them one time?” As I said, he was smitten.

This particular girl was from Florida, so Tim made plans to got down to Florida for a weekend as soon as he could.

When he returned, he couldn’t have been more dejected. Apparently, he hadn’t actually gotten to know her as well as he thought he did. She would barely have anything to do with him the whole time he was there.

But he was young, and he soon snapped out of it. Presumably he wouldn’t make that mistake again anytime soon.