Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Hamburger Visit t< BY BOB CRAFT Twelve miles west of Greenville, just after 1-26 resumes being a dirt road, there is a small compound of white buildings that glisten in the sunlight looking very much like the institutional buildings they are. The lawns are neatly kept and a small concrete fountain bubbles soft and invitingly in the middle of a gravel traffic circle that lies in front of the main building. Here and there, the staff in their im maculate white uniforms and lab coats crisscross the emerald lawns with clipboards in hand, ducking from this building to crisply but unhurriedly enter that one. Sunning themselves in the wheelchairs are some of the patients. In their uniform blue pajamas, the old people seem to sprinkle the lawns like chives in cottage cheese. Only the small sign as you enter the compound's guarded gates gives away the secret that this is not just any old folks home. The sign states: "WARNING! U. S. GOVERNMENT INSTALLATION. HAVE PROPER PAPERS IN ORDER. YOU HAVE NOW PASSED THE FREE ZONE. TRESPASSERS COMMITED." This then, is the highly secret, but much whispered about SDS Old I" Kris A Special, Caro Se~ Studer Non Univer :the S[ Bob Craft Folks Home. The story of this amazing facility has never been officially con firmed or denied by either the Government or SDS, but Paul Krassner did slip Ed Sanders a note about it once in the bathroom of Warner Bros. records in LA. The story, at least unofficially, is that after the Kent State incident, the leaders of The Movement coalesced at a point in Vermont for r- e ris toffi added Attraction rita Co< lina Colis< ptember: 8 P.M. it tickets 2"-3 Students 4"-4 wity Union Preseni )S od a conciousness raising session. Unfortunately, the person who had scored for the Underground bigwigs had done so from a Government agent who had sup plied the luckless revolutionary with a supply of LSD-65, a new strain of acid that is also combined with a super strain of am phetamine (speed) so that the subject ages as much as 40 years in as many hours. The Government had been developing it for use against the Viet Cong but after a crash 34 million dollar budget, they were told that the Viet Cong didn't use LSD, only the Western countries. It looked as though the miracle weapon LSD-65 would remain in the drug company vaults awaiting perfection in water soluable form for contaminating drinking water until the Rand Corporation Think Tank came up with the idea of using it against Western sub versives, i.e. the U. S. student movement. And so, in one fell swoop, the movement was effectively disabled because all the leaders were senile or near to it. The head of the facility, Colonel Richard E. Bascombe greeted me with, "It's Jerry. He says he has to talk to you. He wants you to have Brson >lidge 00400 50550 ation oIks hc the story. He wants to give it to you because of the Don Troiano in- I terview." The colonel ushered me across i one of the lawns where a once k familiar face, now aged and drawn ' sat nodding, drooling into a copy of v ZAP Comix No. 3. "Yes, Yes. Do it, Do it!," the t voice cackled. % He looked up quickly then c stashed the book under his blanket i and picked up a copy of Rolling t Stone. "Hello Dr. Bascombe. I'm a F wily old Yippie, hee, hee, hee. C You've brought him." Bascombe nodded at the old man il but made no attempt to go for the o ZAP. "You can see him for a little V while, try not to tire him." p I promised I wouldn't. fi "You know why I asked you to come don't you?", he said as he to edged the ZAP out from under his G blanket. "Yes, the Troiano interview." T The old man giggled, "They v thought you wouldn't come. They V thought you would think it's all a hoax, but it's not. They thought you A would come up here and find a so blithering old man and that you L wouldn't write about it." He h beckoned, "Come closer." The H smell of jasmine incense clung to tt his hair. 01 ime "I now know the ultimate )olitical act. You see, when they ,ave us that acid they thought it vould get us, but it only got our odies and they forgot I think best vhen I'm stoned," he smiled visely. The twinkle in the eye and the inmistakable ring of truth in the vords made me draw closer. What ould it be? Dynamiting the nauguration polium? Running hrough the Senate with machine runs? Holding Nelson Rockefeller r Teddy Kennedy for ransom? He listened to each suggestion ndulgently: wisely smiling, verriding each with his smile. Vhen finally I had exhausted my ossibilities, he asked if I was inished. I nodded. He looked around and whispered keep from shouting, "A vote for reorge McGovern." "You're endorsing McGovern? 'hat's the ultimate political act? A ote for McGovern?" My disbelief as complete in its perfection. "Don't you see? It is the ultimate merican political act because it is >useless," he smiled as the Dalai ama must smile. "That's all I ave to say. Think about it, son." e turned his attention from me to ie ZAP. He giggled like a senile Id man should. He giggled.