A View From The Potomac

I was in Washington when Martin Luther King was assassinated.  From the back fire escape of the barracks on the South Base of Fort Meyers, Virginia, formerly the estate of Robert E. Lee, and soon to become an extension of Arlington Cemetery, from our part of the base which was situated almost next door to the Pentagon, we watched Washington burning from the riots.  

Also during that time I was able to attend some art classes at the Corcoran School of Art which was next door practically, to the White House in DC.  Every night the same bum used to sit on a hot air grate in front of the school entrance like a sphinx.  He never said a word.  The facilities of the school were excellent for me to do work I otherwise would not have had the room to do on base.  

Orosz and I used to run from Fort Meyers, south base, to the National Art Gallery on Sundays, running up and down the steps of the Washington Monument on the way there.  We spent a lot of time at the National Gallery and often the Corcoran Gallery as well.  Don was also an artist, who would later help me out with a place to stay in Oakland, California during my subsequent Oakland period of my art career.

It was Orosz and another artist, Deihl, that talked about going to L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where you could walk across a footbridge (since torn down) across the Seine to visit the Louvre, one of the best art museums in the world.  Later I was to live just next door to it at the Hotel Des Archades on the Rue Saint Honree where I was singing my songs in the Paris Metro to raise the funds to go to Indonesia.