The Third Door

THE THIRD DOOR

I was a part of the Third Door when it moved to Washington Street East. I hung out there daily and will never forget the night I stayed up till dawn, painting the Blacklight Room with some girls eyeliner brush. I was using glow-in-the-dark paint, and the room looked like it was full of stars the next morning.

I never felt that the Third Door deserved the bad publicity that always seem to follow it. We literally werent doing anything except dressing like hippies and trying to find ourselves like all teenagers. We mostly listened to music on the juke box (Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Great Mandella (The wheel of life)" seemed to be playing constantly and we talked mostly about the opposite sex and the war. I never saw drugs passed around... ever. Most of us were too poor to buy drugs anyway. It was just a place to meet and hang out. And that's all we did. Could a few have been into drugs? Of course. They were always talked about but none ever materilized in front of my eyes. So whoever was holding weed.... well, let's just say they held it so tight that we never saw it.

Third Door

The Third Door

Many years later become the Sheriff of Kanawha County

The Third Door

Third Door

The Third Door

Third Door

I still have the Love Beads that I bought at the Third Door

FINAL THOUGHT

As kids, we all went through phases. Those of us with more freedom experienced more than others. Every kid, as he grows older towards adulthood, must decide which way he's/she's heading. We look around at others and ourselves. We decide if what we're doing is the best road to travel. For some of us, these phases are little more than fads. Something to be involved in for a period of time until something tells us it's time to move on.

My Hippie period was just that... a short experiment just to see where it led. I enjoyed the time, but something inside me (I call it the "Spark") said it was time to get to work. Did I want responsibility? No. Life was too much fun. But your environment has a way of pointing you towards something that you might be avoiding. (being poor for instance) Others spend a lifetime transforming themselves from Hippies to "back to landers" or whatever you want to call them. They eventually come to like electricity and indoor plumbing as they get older. As for me, I went to work and never looked back. I never did drugs or drank. I had other fish to fry. My Hippie phase was over in a year, and a decade later I would unfortunately become involved with the Disco phase. I'm not sure now which was more embarrassing, but one things for sure, these were all pieces of the puzzle that make up a persons life. Some people fall by the wayside in this process because they dont see the big picture, while others like me move on and say.... "it was fun while it lasted."

All of the articles on this page are from the Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail in 1968

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