In Downtown Indianapolis, I generally would spend a few hours at the Central Library and usually borrow a biography, a history book, a novel or an anthology of plays or an individual play to read. Perhaps because fewer people in Indianapolis seemed to be interested in using the central library downtown in the 1960's (long before most U.S. central libraries no longer were places that people visited to use books and were transformed primarily into computer centers, study halls for students with laptops and a place for homeless people to hang out in during the winter months, etc.), than the number of people who used the New York City Public Library in Midtown Manhattan, teenage high school students who entered the central library in Indianapolis were never harassed by any library security guards.
Yet less than two years later, when, as a teenage high school senior, I walked into the reference room of the New York City Public Library's central library in Midtown Manhattan one afternoon, an Afro-American library security guard, ironically, immediately escorted me out of the New York City Public Library central library reading room; while saying "You're not old enough to be allowed in the Reading Room."
Despite being disgusted with being forced to leave the reading room for ageist reasons, I saw no point in getting into a loud argument in the then-card catalog area for the central library's reading room with the security guard or with his supervisor at that time. So I just then quickly made my exit from the library and walked out the front entrance and past the lion sculptures, with disgust. But I imagine the 1964 or early 1965 incident in Manhattan did help increase my consciousness, somewhat, about the injustice of ageism and youth oppression in the 1960's USA society.
Taking the bus alone that went east on 52nd Street until it reached Keystone Avenue and the Jubilee City discount department on some weekdays in the summer of 1963, I would usually spend my time in the store mainly examining which long-playing vinyl records were on sale that week. In the summer of 1963 I was still mainly into buying vinyl records of Broadway musicals or Hollywood movie musical versions of Broadway hit musicals, to listen to on my cheap, single speaker, hi-fi vinyl record player.
But because the original cast albums of the hit Broadway musicals usually cost $3.98 or $4.98 in 1963, which was a price that I considered too expensive for me at that time, most of the original cast albums of the Broadway musicals that I bought that summer were either the albums of flop Broadway musicals that sold for a cheaper sales price or "non-original cast" cover versions of the hit Broadway or movie musicals that were being sold for the cheaper "on-sale price." I also sometimes spent some money at Jubilee City that summer purchasing some all-music movie soundtrack vinyl albums that were on sale and some only-music big band music albums that were on sale.
Surprisingly, although I was still into practicing my saxophone at home on a regular basis during the summer of 1963, to, in part, keep me "in shape musically" for being part of Broad Ripple High School's marching band during the 1963-1964 academic year, I can't recall purchasing any vinyl jazz records that featured saxophonists to listen to. Could be that Jubilee City's discount record department didn't sell many jazz saxophone records or that the jazz saxophone records Jubilee City did sell were never on sale, perhaps?
In retrospect, I think I was probably still more into John Philip Sousa-type marching band music, with respect to the saxophone, than into Illinois Jacquet or saxophonists who played jazz or even dance band music, at this time. And insofar as I ever thought of possibly earning a living in the music field, the only idea I toyed with in the summer of 1963 was maybe becoming some kind of high school music teacher.
Of course, again in retrospect, I probably should have focused more during the summer of 1963 on preparing myself to possibly play jazz or to play in dance bands at hotels, in the summers that lay ahead during the rest of the 1960's. But, for me, playing the saxophone was always seen as just a fun hobby in high school, that also enabled me to be part of a high school band, which was a school activity that both still interested me personally and also seemed to be useful to be involved in, when applying to some college. Since it would show I wasn't just someone who only just tended to do well academically, but that I was also a "well-rounded" college applicant.
From starting to occasionally read Lovejoy's College Guide by the end of my sophomore year, and from what some of my junior high school teachers and guidance counselors had indicated, I probably had realized by this time that it "looked good on your college application" if you showed that you were involved in some school extra-curricular activity like "Band" in high school. (Although, like I may have written earlier, in the summer of 1963 I still just assumed that, like my sister was then doing, I would just be attending Indiana University in Bloomington--with the in-state tuition cost advantage I was now eligible for, after my then expected graduation from Broad Ripple High School in June 1965; and I had no thought at all, at least in the summer of 1963, of even considering applying to an Ivy League school like Columbia University.
