I first met The Reet in the Spring of 1973 in Boulder. This was just after his stint at the record store with you (Tony Reay) in Denver. We were crashing with Chip Stark, who remains a good friend today. We took turns sharing the couch and floor in an apt. at 1717 Spruce Street. We hit it off immediately and he turned me on to his collection of music which was definitely out of the mainstream for the early 70's. Besies his extensive collection of Dead bootleg tapes, artists such as The Bonzo Dog Band, Jake Holmes, Richard and Peter Sarstedt, Wildman Fisher, Capt. Beefhart, The Goon Shows, Spike Milligan, Roger Ruskin Spear, Lambert, Henricks, & Ross, and many others. Talk about eclectic! This was a strange mix for a kid from Philly who grew up with Doo Wop, the Delphonics, the O'Jays, and various soul, r &b, and Motown tastes. We also used to jam, with Reet on his guitar and me playing an African finger board (kalimba). We more than wore out our welcome at Spruce Street and sublet our own place during the summer of 1973 right across the street from the University of Colorado campus in the part of the student ghetto known as Buckley Land. Our third roommate was Willy Goodwin. We had a strange landlord named Dan who had a weird little senile, yippy dog named Shakey. I was driving a furniture delivery truck for American Furniture at the time. I was able to furnish our place with old furniture that was given to me by customers who wanted to get rid of it when they had new stuff delivered. Willy got a puppy that summer and named him Ralph. Ralph was a husky-mix and was our "family" pet. Ralph was unfortunately hit by a car just outside our apt early that summer. Ralph was a basket case. We had to work around the clock putting drops in her eyes. We also had to do tube feedings approximately every 2-3 hours from a bag directly into Ralph's stomach. Because I was working, Reet took up most of my share of helping out Willy in the doggie ICU which was usually our kitchen table. Another lighter memory of that apartment occurred around the 4th of July. I had a type of firecracker that you could set off by pulling strings attached at either end. By taping them to hinged-objects,these worked well as mini-booby traps. I went around the house rigging cabinet doors, refrigerator, shower curtain, and anything else that needed to be opened. This drove Reet crazy! He became really gun-shy about opening things because of his being easily startled. He would flinch, grimace, and slowly open things, expecting a bang. I'm sure I found this much funnier than he did. We had to move out of Buckley Land at the end of the summer, as the girls who had the lease returned to college. I moved into the mountains with Chip Stark to a place we rented in Nederland (the town suspected as a hideout of Patty "Tanya" Hearst during her SLA days). Reet and Willy got a place about a block away from Buckley Land, which became the hub of our Boulder friends and activities. - Wayne Binns
and then - a little student teaching and a lot of nervous trepidation
4 77 grand junction co Student Teacher at Riverside School 6 77 greeley co Graduated BA, Special Education Major 6 77 greeley co Colorado Special Olympics Volunteer - regional
and state meets. and then, at last..
and now, on to Alaska.
There are so many memories and items hanging around my life from reet. i knew reet from his boulder daze. one story now is all i have time for. a few guys gave a live turkey as a wedding present to be consumed at the wedding. well nobody knew how to do the turkey in. reet and willy were moving out of the house on euclid street, all the furniture was already out so, we put elmo (we named big bird) in his bedroom at nite and shined headlights from my car on elmo thinking that would freeze him like the deer in the headlight trance, as elmo stood there minding his own business with his heading precisely in reet's batting zone, reet picked up a baseball bat and kerplewie, knocked the daylights out of elmo. not a bedtime story,but tastier. love steve eisler After Reet had settled in Colorado, I visited him there 3 different times, with the most notable being the summer of 1975, when I stayed for almost a month and brought my reel recorder along. I remember a summer of beautiful weather, spent mostly recording LP's. We did make it out to Boulder Falls a few times, but almost always returned to Reet's place by 4 pm to catch TV reruns of "Burns and Allen" and "The Jack Benny Show". The general opinion in Colorado was that New York was not a good place to live, and I was convinced by then myself to settle in the west. I ended up in California to avoid the winters of Colorado, but it was the Colorado summer experience that really convinced me - mostly the lack of the east coast summer humidity. - da jeff Shortly after this move, I was out of the loop for a while. I spent about 4 months in Mexico and Central America with Chip and my sister Joyce. Shortly after we returned to Colorado, I moved to Alaska to seek fame and fortune on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. At about this same time, Reet returned to college at University of Northern Colorado in Greely. Somewhat by coincidence, he attended a job fair an got recruited by a rural school district on the Lower Yukon River in Alaska. - wayne binns |
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