Beatnik Plague

The Missing Page in the History Book Dept.

Just as the Flu Epidemic of the early 20th century seems to have faded from the public consciousness, the Great Beatnik Plague of 1958 seems to have been forgotten. Yes, it's true -- For years, hidden in smokey basement coffee houses, away from the prying eyes of the general public and authorities, the Beatniks had multiplied with hideous abandon, till their swelling ranks burst onto the streets of an unsuspecting America. To the sounds of bongos and poetry, this black clad horde spread across the land like a beboppin' cloud of locust, causing panic among the straight-laced uptight citizenry.

Fortunately, the spread of this scourge was eventually stopped -- but not by some great plan out of Washington or some University think tank, no, the solution came out of an ordinary school gymnasium in a small midwestern city, where a simple gym teacher, steeped in the traditions of humiliation and embarrassment, found that even a Beatnik can feel stupid when hit in the face with a volleyball, and then laughed at by a group shorts & t-shirt clad youths.

Across the nation, led by screaming over-weight sweatsuited coaches, thousands of volleyball armed students turned back the Hipster Tide, driving red faced Beats back into their dimly lit coffee houses -- there to skulk in dwindling numbers till they devolved from worrisome anti-establishment cool cats into neighborhood "characters"and finally into faded memories.

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Pics from a foggy night, 10/2/07