Thursday, May 14, 2020
I don’t remember exactly when I first met David Morton, but it was at the First Unitarian Society on Mount Curve Ave. in Minneapolis. It was 1954 and Erik Storlie, my best friend and I finally were in 9th grade and we joined Channing Club, the Unitarian high school youth group. Morton was a year older than Erik and me, but the three of us became friends, going to each others’ homes, staying over, eating meals, and doing whatever mysterious things young teenage boys do.
In the summer of 1956, the three of us decided to drive to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to attend the Liberal Religious Youth national conference. I had a car that might make it, a 1949 Austin A-40. We all piled in, threw our rucksacks and sleeping bags in the “boot” and headed off to Wisconsin. We got to Lake Geneva the day before the conference started, and spent the night in a farm field. We shared a Seven Up bottle of mixed booze which I had poured off my parents’ liquor bottles, just a bit off the bourbon, scotch, brandy, vodka and gin, so that it wouldn’t be noticed. No mix. It was rough!
At this point, Morton had a crew cut, and was clean cut. I no longer can find the picture I had of him, but he had on a white shirt and had a single lens reflex camera around his neck. I remember that his hobby in high school was photography. There was no indication of the future Beat, anarchist that he was about to become.
David gave me a great gift when I was sixteen, in 1956. One which has lasted my entire life. I was hanging out with him at his parents’ house, near Valentine lake when David started playing some of his parents’ jazz L.P.s. It was a revelation to me. I had grown up in a home where both my parents sang and played only classical music. My mother had a degree in voice and piano and I had never heard jazz before. The small groups were improvising new music right before my ears. Amazing! And then he played Thelonious Monk with Milt Jackson on vibes. I was a goner! To this day, Monk is still my favorite, and I owe David for this lifelong love. Thanks, David Kerr Morton.
Fred Hoffman
CALL Minneapolis (612) 200-2777 or duluth (218) 208-0377
Call Us
