We were very young and we thought that we were winning

I was listening to Leonard Cohen's Songs From A Room on the drive home last night and it flashed me back to when I was going to tech school at Keesler AFB, down in Mississippi, back in 1969.
I had a cheap record player, and a bunk on the second floor, right next to the fire escape.
And on Friday nights Thornberg, Johnson and I, and whoever else happened to be around, would congregate on the fire escape after lights out.
And we'd drink a little 3/2 beer.
Or if were lucky, somebody knew somebody, who know somebody, and there'd be a bottle of whiskey to pass around.
And we'd chain smoke Marlboros.
And we'd talk.
And we'd laugh.
And we'd rag on each other.
And then someone would put on an album.
And we'd listen to ...
Songs From A Room
Nashville Skyline
Abbey Road
The Band
Crosby Stills and Nash
And I don't know.
It just seemed so right.
It just seemed that we were the only people on earth who understood.
You know, really understood.
But it was probably just the smoke clouding our vision.
Or the booze clouding our minds.
Or maybe it was just the fact that were nineteen years old and were stuck out in the middle of Bum Fuck Mississippi, and we had to believe something just to make it through another Friday night.