Thirty Rooms to Hide In: Insanity, Addiction, and Rock 'N' Roll in the Shadow of the Mayo Clinic by Luke Longstreet Sullivan

Author:Luke Longstreet Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: AA, home movies, Rochester Minnesota, Self-Help, Minnesota history, WI), Religion, Alcoholics Anonymous, Minnesota rock & roll, family history, Family Relationships, drinking problem, Alcoholism, rock and roll, Midwest (IA, recovery, ‘60s, doctors, ND, NE, Hartford Institute, 45rpms, History, memoir, the fifties, State & Local, Central, Substance Abuse & Addictions, Rochester MN, insanity, United States, Family & Relationships, Personal Memoirs, garage bands, family histories, IL, IN, Mayo Clinic, rock&roll, South, the sixties, addicted doctors, OH, MO, MN, MI, Minnesota rock&roll, General, KS, Americas (North, Thirtyroomstohidein.com, Biography & Autobiography, 30roomstohidein.com, West Indies), 50s, SD
ISBN: 9780816679553
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Published: 2012-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Millstone gates at night.

THINGS THAT WERE SCARIER THAN DAD

We used to play an incredibly scary version of hide-and-seek called “Beaster.” It was the last organized game any of us remember playing with Dad before he went over the edge.

It was always played at night. To begin a game of Beaster the six brothers would scatter through the four floors of the Millstone and extinguish every light. Wherever you were when the last light went out, the game began.

My father, armed with a rolled-up newspaper, was now waiting for you somewhere on one of the four floors of the huge house. His job was to whack you with the newspaper. Your job was to not make a high wailing girlie-scream when his form loomed out of the darkness and the whacking began.

So you crept through the Millstone looking for a hiding place. The Minnesota winter banished any thought of escaping the game by going outside. There were 30 rooms to hide in, but most were too scary to be in all alone. After a half hour of hiding in a distant hallway closet, part of you wanted to give up and run screaming and public through the house and just get it over with. Eventually though you tiptoed past the dead-end of the music room to the relative safety of the living room.

It was in the living room where my last game of Beaster ended.

I’d made it to the red chairs near the fireplace and tucked myself into a small triangle of space behind the back of the chair and the corner of the room. It was a good place to hide but offered no escape if you were discovered. On the far side of the living room was the stereo amplifier (or the “Hi-Fi,” as we called it then). From where I hid in the corner I could see its little orange on-light, the only illumination in the room and a sort of lighthouse, a reminder that the room was the way I remembered it in sunshine.

As I looked at this light I listened, trying to hear Dad’s footsteps overhead; listening for the discovery of one of my brothers and the high girlie scream which would surely follow. I fixated on the little orange light and waited; listened.

That’s when I saw something begin to move between my hiding place and the Hi-Fi. The little orange light, my connection to the world, went out – was blocked out – and I began to scream like a teeny little girl.

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