Confessions of an Early 1970s Hippie – Places to Sleep at UNB

The 70s were a great time to change the world, seek alternate realities, question authority, protest the American War, indulge in free love, hitchhike to God-knows-where, and talk like Bill and Ted, “Hey, man, pass dat sucker over here, man.”

They were also a good time to sleep at UNB.

This is the Lord Beaverbrook Room in the Harriet Irving Library. The chairs are huge and leather and there’re tables in front of them at just the right height to make great footstools.

It was one of my favorite places in the world to sleep. The backs of those chairs were a safe little barrier between me and the outside world. The leather and the books muffled the occasional snore. It was a quiet place, more so than other rooms in the library. I think it had something to do with the big slab-like tables, the red leather and brass finishing, the tall dark bookshelves with books from another area.

I had a strange dream one day. In the dream, I was curled up in one of those tall chairs in a twilight world somewhere between here and there when I heard someone muttering quietly. I opened my eyes and saw a man bent over the table my feet were resting on looking at the bottom row of shelves. He seemed agitated. He looked around at me. It was the Beaver himself. He told me to get my feet off his table and to turn to page 80 in my Soc textbook and read about the hobo.

I woke up in a cold sweat. But I had this overwhelming sense of a benign presence chuckling in the ethereal distance behind the books and the passage of time.

Or maybe it was just Bob messing with my head.

This was another great place to sleep.

This is an art gallery in Memorial Hall. It was an art gallery back in the 70s as well, but back then it had big windows and lots of big easy chairs and coffee tables and soft classical music. The paintings were on the walls between the windows. It was a relaxing place. There was a piano. Nobody ever played it that I can remember, but it lent the place an extra dimension of culture. Sometimes, aspiring actors would perform impromptu plays just for the hell of it. One day a couple of guys – I think their names were Bob – dressed up like tramps and performed Waiting for Godot. They even brought along others to play the bit roles. There were no announcements, invitations, or warnings. They did it just for the hell of it and went about the rest of their lives when it was done.

There was a lot of that in the early 70s.

More recently, this was the scene of a haunting: It Was A Dark and Stormy Night in Mem Hall and In the Dread of the Night.

This is a study desk at the end of a line of shelves in the library.

These haven’t changed an atom since the 70s. Oh, maybe a few more dried boogers under the metal slab desktops, a few more lines of graffiti, a few more puzzled thoughts floating in the air. But I tried one of these the other day and it was just like 1971.

However, these were never my first choice for uninterrupted sleeping. There were always people looking for books, and maybe it had something to do with the closeness of the place, but they always seemed to breath loud enough to wake me up. Plus, my friends could find me easily here and talk me into straying away from a good sleep and into a trip to the SUB which always turned into a party.

But they said it was a great place to meet women. And sometimes, you could even get in a few z’s.

This was another good place to sleep.

This is the chapel in the Old Arts Building. I could stretch right out and get some great power sleeps here, and nobody ever disturbed me. I don’t think many people know about this place. The day before I graduated, I carved my name into the wood along with those before me. Unfortunately, in the thirty-two years since, I haven’t been able to figure out where I carved my name.

Years later, I was married in this chapel. It was at least a hundred degrees and everybody was sweating so hard that when I kissed my new wife, I sweated all over her face. On the video, it looks like she’s wiping my kiss off her mouth. It was much like the ensuing marriage. She left me for a man named Bob.

Next: Freak outs and something magical