Root Boy Slim - Background

Background

MacKenzie was an intelligent yet incorrigible youth, who was asked to leave several private D.C.-area prep schools, including the Sidwell Friends School. He finally found his niche at Saint James School in Hagerstown, Maryland, a boarding school, where along with his studies, he played varsity football. He was accepted and attended Yale University on a scholarship, majoring in African American studies, and graduated in 1967. He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, where his fraternity brothers included future President George W. Bush. MacKenzie was a year older than Bush.

While at Yale, MacKenzie formed a band with classmate and fraternity brother Bob Greenlee, who was captain of Yale's football team. The band was named Prince La La and the Midnight Creepers. MacKenzie's growing dislike of authority and inner inclination to play pranks and his love of shock value expanded. Band members wore ermine capes, silver lamé hot pants and boasted that they were never invited for return engagements. The year after MacKenzie and Greenlee graduated, they returned to the DKE house during Yale's homecoming. Bush, who since their departure had become president of DKE, threw them out and banned them from the house.

After graduation, MacKenzie drove an ice cream truck in Washington, D.C. One day he suffered a psychotic break after a particularly high dose of LSD, and he climbed over the White House fence. The United States Secret Service apprehended him as he ran up the White House lawn. He told the officers he was "looking for the center of universe." They hauled him off to St. Elizabeths Hospital, the largest long-term mental hospital that serves Washington, D.C.) That incident led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia, for which MacKenzie was medicated for the rest of his life.