Flowers For Socrates

by James Knauer

Overture

“For everything, there is a first time, Mr. Saavik.” – Captain Spock.

These matters concern my real life experiences as a television addict during the years 1973 to 1977. The location of these events took place at the end of a small dead-end street known as Winters Court in Jackson, Michigan. It was a full two-story farm house, unlike any of the smaller craftsman style homes around it. Nor did it begin life at the end of the street; it was deliberately moved there to make way for a new road, and in this some of its original sturdiness was lost.

By the time of my arrival in the Summer of 1973, its front porch was sloped downward away from the front door, and faded white foam drop ceilings cut the original twelve feet down to about seven, replete with lurid buzzy fluorescent lighting. In that hidden world above the tiles, between the wires which held it fast, the true roof of the world was revealed in small glimpses of some forgotten crown molding, extreme filth, and perhaps spiders of Tolkienian appetite. When it came crashing through the false ceiling at various times, the plaster work was revealed to be hand-carved reliefs of vines, leaves, and florets, painted a faded green, and other colors below that. But mostly that art laid perilously hidden.

There were three T. V. stations at the time, two on cloudy days, and in the Summer of 1973, if one was going to nurse a television addiction, one watched the only thing these channels had to offer. And that meant Watergate, mother of all -Gates, the real one, and this is what I saw.

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