Outpost of Humanity: 1978

In the fall of 1978 I left the friendly confines of the 340 Club and moved east about eight blocks to a small, modest, urban, starter home on Howard Avenue in Lancaster. The home cost me about $9,000 if memory serves me and a 15 year mortgage even at Jimmy Carter stagflation interest rates was about half of the 340 Club rent. A roommate, therefore (do the math), made my mortgage the same level as my 340 rent. My roommate was former 340 Club member Jimmy Shay (and his lady Vicki). We were different, different drugs, different education, different cadre of friends but united in familiarity, dependability, and shared little pointed corners. Jimmy could move in to my house tomorrow. Counting his 340 time, all in all Shaybert spent not quite two years as my roommate. 72 Howard was a one and ½ story, frame house, that featured a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, basement (with dirt floor), and a nice size yard.

The neighborhood was poor, minority and said to be gentrifying. While there has been improvements in housing conditions, the neighborhood – today (2008) – has, by & large, resisted the so-called gentry and is still, as then, crime ridden and among the poorer census tracts in the city by any measure. All of the above characteristics meant, if you watched your back, it was a great place to be young, single and alive in 1978-80. With 340, the party was always there inside; at 72 – at the Outpost of Humanity – the party was inside and outside.

I lived in between a drug store and a tavern but there was no pharmacist or PLCB regulation, if ya know what I mean. My neighbor to the left was Willie, a product of the turbulent late 60s, who was surviving anyway he could. His product was nickel bags. The smallest size; highest profit margin of marijuana sales. Cars would stop all night long, drop a passenger off, cruise round the block and pick up passenger and packet. The bar was actually a corner store run by Pedro. This is Pennsylvania after all; no legal beer sales were permitted then or now. However, with hours similar to Willie’s, beer, liquor and food, were plentiful at the corner spot.

More to come from the outpost, meanwhile Phil will detail the final evacuation of West King Street and his next abode.

98 days till 340 Club reunion