Me and Alan Watts

[Lightning Rod]

I was seventeen. I had just read The Way of Zen by Alan Watts. Having already been through Sartre and Ayn Rand and Hegel and Kant, Watts' approach to philosophy seemed refreshing and intuitive to me.

The mother of one of my girlfriends was the librarian for the Dallas Community Colleges. She had corresponded with Alan Watts and invited him to come and speak at the school. Watts accepted and arrangements were made for him to stay in the librarian's house for the duration of his visit in Dallas. This gave me the rare opportunity to rub shoulders with a man whose work I had read and admired.

I spent most of a week with him. I was slightly star-struck at first but he soon dispelled that with his humor and self-deprecation. He was intensely human. He presented me with Zen tea service. It was a magic moment in my life. He was also a fun-loving rascal who liked to smoke and drink and chase skirts.

Watts was about sixty when I met him--the age I am approaching now. He was a professional house-guest. The man was so charming and witty and such a superb raconteur, and he brought such treasures of teaching with him that he was welcome in many places and for extended times. I should be so lucky.

[WIREMAN]

The Way of Zen...changed my path LRod......I always imagined him a partyer on his sausalito houseboat, hangin with the hippies....this is even cooler than playing captain beefhearts harmonica.....

[sooZen]

Alan was a huge influence in my life and likes...still is...along with Gary Snyder and Paul Reps. Alan gave some great insights which this airhead congealed into rivers of thought which keep on flowing. Thanks for the memory.