Home at the Edge (Memoirs of a 1960s Hippy)

HOME AT THE EDGE takes you from jail to the madhouse, an on-the-road and in-the-streets memoir of free-loving, acid-dropping radical youth in 1969. We last saw 17-year-old Ron lying handcuffed over the hood of a car in “Chicago Rage.” We pick up with him entering Chicago’s Cook County Jail, where he and his radical companions are kept segregated from the other prisoners to prevent them from--god forbid--being a bad influence on murders and rapists. He is bailed out only to be admitted to a mental hospital where he bonds with other disaffected youth, fellow ‘freaks’ grappling with their identity and struggling against the status quo. The attempted and successful suicides of his companions and would-be lovers haunt him. He must confront his inner and outer demons and, as he turns 18, the looming military draft, which threatens to toss his whole generation into an immoral war.

His would-be love affairs are thwarted by a shadowy administration. Only Sue, desiring to get pregnant and have a child to avoid being sent to a pig farming convent can share a hurried love before she is locked away from him, SCREAMING THAT SHE IS CARRYING HIS BABY. While his options are bleak, he must not lose faith in his destiny and stay determined rebuild his life on the outside.

You can escape the asylum, but not the WILDNESS within. Take a walk on the wild side with me.