I knew Jordon for 50 years, John for about 40. My memories of Jordon and John come from their long encampment in Puerto Rico (that's the correct word) during the 1970's. All those memories have overtones of peacefulness and pleasure, nothing of the turbulent dramas experienced by their patient and loving friends during their days in Florida and other interesting locations.
I met Jordon during our youthful times as carefree art students in Philadelphia. Jordon was at Tyler School of Arts and I was wasting time at the Philadelphia College of Arts (now a University). We floated through life as part of a small, energetic group of broke bohemians (later to be called hippies), not trend-setting, just joyful wine-drinkers and talkers.
We grew up. The decades passed. With advanced university degrees, I came to teach America Lit. at the University of Puerto Rico in 1967.
I lived, after deciding to stay in P.R., in a multi-residential complex with modern architecture not far from the university. One day, headed for work I entered the elevator and standing inside was Jordon Meinster.
We both gasped. Then I learned that he and John had moved to Puerto Rico and had opened a shop selling souvenirs in Old San Juan. They lived in the same building where I had settled, and had a car.
We saw each other often. One strong memory stems from what we thought would be a daring experiment with absinthe. We were familiar with the Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec paintings of besotted Parisians staring into space in seedy bars, and with the world-weary literature of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, among others. We felt the urge to join in the spirit (make that “spirits.”)
First disillusion: absinthe is prohibited outside France, so we had to settle for a close substitute, Pernod. The absinthe so loved by Lautrec and friends for its stupefying effects contains wormwood, “a strong-smelling plant of the genus artemisia” which gives a dark-green oil used as the base of the exotic drink, and considered much too intoxicating for anyone who isn’t French.
Accepting the substitute, we sat around their coffee table one evening studiously mixing the Pernod with water, the required procedure that weakened considerably our feeling of unity with Belle Epoque Paris. we mixed and drank and waited for euphoria or stupor, non of which occurred, so that session ended quietly, without objects being hurled against the wall.
Another pleasant experience comes to mind. Jordon and John had done well with the souvenir shop, and were able to buy (or rent) a massive parcel of undeveloped land in the country miles from San Juan. Winding roads, cows munching the grass, and a river flowing from a waterfall pulled them out of the city every weekend for a few days of quiet, with me in the back seat. The land held one ordinary concrete house with a bath, where they stayed and an old, typically Puerto Rican wooden house, painted yellow and blue and set along the banks of the river. Beautiful. I stayed there.
One day, I heard that Pete Seeger was in Puerto Rico. I had known him from my days in New York, so telephoned him to meet me (with his rented car) for a day along the river. J and J were already there, Pete Seeger and I arrived with his wife, Toji, and two children, both pre-teens. That day was magnificent. We walked up the river in the shallow parts, the sun beaming, overhanging trees giving shad, birds and various insects whizzing around, until we reached the waterfall. It cascaded into a deep pool that immediately attracted Pete’s son. He did the swimming while we watched high up on the rocks. That day, decades ago, remains as one of my most enduring memories of the easy relationship I enjoyed with J and J. And Pete Seeger is still living! Age 94!
Last year, I was with friends driving toward a marina on the far eastern tip of Puerto Rico. we were on the high-speed expressway, the ocean to our left and to the right the thick foliage of hills and mountains where, hidden among the trees, J and J and I used to spend carefree weekends; sunny days and nights when the only sound outside as we tried various wines (no Pernod) was the heavy plopping of dung from cows who had strayed up to our concrete patio to leave their gifts.
Looking to the right during that drive, I saw that the trees were no longer there. The view from te expressway reached straight through across miles of empty terrain to the inner clusters of hills that formerly lay hidden and covered by greenery. Now I was stretches of raw, red earth, stripped of nature. And along the ridges of the hills were rows and rows of small, rectangular houses. Hundreds of them, all the same.
I didn’t weep. But I thought of Pete Seeger singing Malvina Reynolds’ satire, “Little boxes on the hilltop, little boxes made of ticky-tacky....all the same.” I’m relieved that J and J and Pete Seeger never saw that desecration.
Vincent Jubilee/ 13 Sept. 2013, San Juan, PR
