Ken was pure sunshine, a perpetual smile. He even had a most lovely Mom. Intelligent, funny. Briefly as I knew him, he left an indelible mark of joy and enriched my whole life with it.
Ken was an excellent musician and an extremely smart guy, intense but always humorous, brilliant in Mr. Mathis' English class, played classical and boogie-woogie piano, very much fun, incredibly loyal friend, ready for adventure. From Beverly he went to Antioch College, where he studied music, took acid and saw God, was at Woodstock, went to India witih the Maharishi, the whole bit. Definitely wanted to devote himself to religion, enlightenment, better things. Unfortunately died in a car crash on May 22, 1972.
I remember Ken Simmons very well from the Saturday Art Classes at Horace Mann, taught by Curtis Miller. Ken was lively, very bright, and a bit rambunctious, too, as evidenced in his mixing terra cotta clay lumps into his oil paints and applying this thick media right onto the canvas, where, well, it slid down and onto the floor several times. The painting was a clown with a skeletal face and I remember thinking that there was something upsetting him from earlier in his life; but then, I would have felt that way from projecting about myself.
He made a small guillotine, put, onto the bed, a little doll he'd worked on to look like our teacher, filled it with red paint and then beheaded it. Mr. Miller asked him to leave the class. Period.
But I spent a lot of time thinking about how complex Ken was. Whenever I see a creative person trying out things that buck the usual way of doing things, I am impressed, it stays with me, and I never forgot that Ken was one of those people who was trying very hard to find new ways of doing things, to find answers.
When I learned that he had died in a car crash, I felt very hard-hit about it. There was something about Ken, a spark, something different and promising. I've always felt sorry that he died so young.
Connie and Debbie, beautiful comments. Follow-up to Debbie's comment: A conundrum? Ken (he eventually used the spelling Kên, with a circumflex over the e, presumably for hexagram 52 of the I Ching) was, as you say, anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian, and "going East" fit into this, but the religious organizations he joined were very guru-centered and therefore authroritarian within themselves. He remained joyous and joyfully creating music the whole time, though.
I too counted Ken as a friend, and I remember meeting him for the first time, in eighth grade, I think it was. Ken was so creative and a real original thinker. In Mrs. Gibbons' senior honors English class, we all wrote essays when assigned, but I remember that Ken's writing really wowed the teacher, and she pointed that out to the class. But he did follow gurus. I spent one afternoon with him at an ashram in the Hollywood Hills, listening to that twelve year old guru talk on and on about whatever it was, some tedious gobbledy-gook really, but Ken was entranced. When Ken got a job playing boogie-woogie piano for a summer theater group in Crested Butte, Colorado, a group of us drove out to surprise him, and was he ever surprised. We slept overnight in sleeping bags in the town graveyard. I went back to Crested Butte years later to see it again and recover those memories, and of course it's very changed, now a major ski resort. I'm sure he had a lot more to accomplish in this life.
Constance Zec (Bessada)
Ken was pure sunshine, a perpetual smile. He even had a most lovely Mom. Intelligent, funny. Briefly as I knew him, he left an indelible mark of joy and enriched my whole life with it.
Bill Fishman
Ken was an excellent musician and an extremely smart guy, intense but always humorous, brilliant in Mr. Mathis' English class, played classical and boogie-woogie piano, very much fun, incredibly loyal friend, ready for adventure. From Beverly he went to Antioch College, where he studied music, took acid and saw God, was at Woodstock, went to India witih the Maharishi, the whole bit. Definitely wanted to devote himself to religion, enlightenment, better things. Unfortunately died in a car crash on May 22, 1972.
Deborah Nourse (Lattimore)
I remember Ken Simmons very well from the Saturday Art Classes at Horace Mann, taught by Curtis Miller. Ken was lively, very bright, and a bit rambunctious, too, as evidenced in his mixing terra cotta clay lumps into his oil paints and applying this thick media right onto the canvas, where, well, it slid down and onto the floor several times. The painting was a clown with a skeletal face and I remember thinking that there was something upsetting him from earlier in his life; but then, I would have felt that way from projecting about myself.
He made a small guillotine, put, onto the bed, a little doll he'd worked on to look like our teacher, filled it with red paint and then beheaded it. Mr. Miller asked him to leave the class. Period.
But I spent a lot of time thinking about how complex Ken was. Whenever I see a creative person trying out things that buck the usual way of doing things, I am impressed, it stays with me, and I never forgot that Ken was one of those people who was trying very hard to find new ways of doing things, to find answers.
When I learned that he had died in a car crash, I felt very hard-hit about it. There was something about Ken, a spark, something different and promising. I've always felt sorry that he died so young.
Bill Fishman
Connie and Debbie, beautiful comments. Follow-up to Debbie's comment: A conundrum? Ken (he eventually used the spelling Kên, with a circumflex over the e, presumably for hexagram 52 of the I Ching) was, as you say, anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian, and "going East" fit into this, but the religious organizations he joined were very guru-centered and therefore authroritarian within themselves. He remained joyous and joyfully creating music the whole time, though.
Larry Kaplan
I too counted Ken as a friend, and I remember meeting him for the first time, in eighth grade, I think it was. Ken was so creative and a real original thinker. In Mrs. Gibbons' senior honors English class, we all wrote essays when assigned, but I remember that Ken's writing really wowed the teacher, and she pointed that out to the class. But he did follow gurus. I spent one afternoon with him at an ashram in the Hollywood Hills, listening to that twelve year old guru talk on and on about whatever it was, some tedious gobbledy-gook really, but Ken was entranced. When Ken got a job playing boogie-woogie piano for a summer theater group in Crested Butte, Colorado, a group of us drove out to surprise him, and was he ever surprised. We slept overnight in sleeping bags in the town graveyard. I went back to Crested Butte years later to see it again and recover those memories, and of course it's very changed, now a major ski resort. I'm sure he had a lot more to accomplish in this life.