cliffside_park

a digit and adventure

2007-04-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

This is a hitch hiking adventure. In order to read it, you have to start at this link:
Heading West_1

you have to read it backwards (because the Blog is pre set to do Newest blogs at the top), so look on the right and open the oldest date first

Post 47 is the end of the trip
the trip starts on the Archive section marked:

Heading West_47

2005-09-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

The two hitch hikers back on campus in Pennsylvania.

Would you get hip to this kindly tip

And go take that California trip

Get your kicks on Route 66

Route 66 lyrics/Rolling Stones

There is a certain feeling you get when you are hitch-hiking.
It can feel like a science fiction time travel experience, like
in a Tom Swift sort of "I've been whisked away" sense.

Or in some more recent Star Trek "5 year voyage out on the asphalt".
Some rides are passive, sleepy affairs. Others are dangerous, where the conversations are lewd, or aggressive. Either way, you are connected with
the driver in some sense, and others, are disconnected, almost monastic; where you
are praying next to a total stranger at a sunday service.

For some, you might get that Zen feeling; when you feel the utter randomness of hitchhiking. One ride could get you right to your destination, or you might need 12 seperate cars.
On this trip, a very good friend shared the adventure

:

The Bayonne Boys with Bob & Steve

An Academic shot of Bob & Steve on the Route 30 sign post

Headed West_46

2005-09-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

Post Script: Momma Told Me

I walked into my house on Grove Avenue, probably 10 pounds lighter. My Mom gave me a hug, and after a cup of tea, some dbe-briefing questions. When she was satisfied I got a sandwich out of the conversation. I wanted to celebrate however, with no where to go, I started to get antsy.

Farley left me and had headed an extra 10 miles south, to Jersey City, his parents kept a commuter apartment for his dad, who still was working on tugs in the NYC harbor.

Farl's parents were living in the "Cedarcroft" section of Point Pleasantat that time. His folks had another house (32 Columbia Avenue in Jersey City Heights, one block down from Kennedy Boulevard, running parallel) at that time. A "fixer-upper" for Pookie to turn over later. It served a sleepover house for his Dad, who worked odd hours on the waterfront. Farley went there immediately after we got into Cliffside. He hitched or took a bus down Kennedy Boulevard.

Robert called me after my snawich. He had quickly organized a celebration, and end of the trip party or get together for that night! We would all meet at McSorley's Ale House in the Bowery. Parked in the Grove Avenue garage was his new 1974 Cutlass Supreme, it was a horrible brown colored two door. His old car was mine, it was parked on the street, a four door Cutlass 1968.

I was dying to go for a drive, behind a familiar wheel.
I wanted to cruise around and listen to some WNEW tunes.

Farley had arranged the Bayonne boys: Kevin Farrell, Robby Komerowski, and Mike Merkowsky to be there. Another call came in, this time it was a friend of mine from Bergen Catholic, a great guy named Tom Roberts. He was on the track team with me at BC, and had gone to Univeristy of Florida in Gainesville. He was in Fort Lee, visiting one of his sisters. "Want to join us tonight?" He was on his way. I dialed another local guy, Richard Kazanjian, who was working for a funeral home that summer.

My mom almost never second guessed me. Until now.
"Are you driving into the city tonight?" she asked.
"Yes, I'll be careful" was my response to those blue Hudson County eyes.

"Your dad is interviewing someone tonight, he is taking him to dinner, so you won't see him til breakfast" she said. Roberts and I jumped in the car, and we were off to the Lincoln Tunnel about 6pm. We stopped on the way, and picked up the "KAZ"!!!

There's a hit song Three Dog Night sang, it goes like this:

Open up your window, let some air into this room

I think I'm almost chokin' from the smell of stale perfume

And that cigarette you're smokin'Don't scare me half to death

Open up the window, sucker, let me catch my breath

Mama told me not to come

I drove through Fairview, down into Edgewater on the waterfront, and then up along Boulevard East through North Bergen, Weehauken, Union City. You are coming into mid town Manhattan, and its gorgeous. You can see the Empire State Building, and to the south, the battery and the Verrazano bridge on a clear evening.

Coming down the road from the Hamilton Duel monument, traffic was totally backed up. Three lanes were bumper to bumper, "This was a Fricken mistake driving in tonite, my mom was right" There was a parking lot on the other side of the road. I was in the middle lane, the first lane on my left was traffic free. The two middle lanes merged to the big right you take, as you go into the toll booth plaza.

I hesitated, I looked and the first lane was clear, but the northbound three lanes were jammed. I saw an opening in the northbound lanes, and swung the wheel hard left to cross the yellow line and run into the parking lot. Simple, but.....

BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

I only got the nose of the Cutlass over the double yellow line, and a car that was ripping down the first lane, ripped into the Cutlass at 50 miles per hour. A sick sound of metal on metal, the whole front of my car was crushed and thrown back into lane two. A Latino driver ran up to my car, furiously screaming and yelling. I get out of the car, and steam and water flows on to the street. Totalled for sure. No one hurt. I was in big trouble now. I had royally fucked up.

There was a it looked pushed in.

We called my mom, she called my Dad. He showed up in 15 minutes with the guy he was interveiwing. They had suits on. "Are you boys OK?" he asked. Kaz and Roberts were kind of stunned, just standing around, commiserating. Then they were making jokes, why not, they were not on the hot seat.

A little mini truck that cruises the tunnel to tow cars out rapidly went by.

Kaz mentioned to Tom: "Boy, that truck got it's assed kicked in".

I felt horrible. This was all my fault. Nick surmised the situation, and then asked the policemen, "Is this the driver of the other car, he seems to be inebriated".

There's no doubt my old man probably had 4 Tanguereys in him at that moment, but he looked sharp and in control, and the police did ascertain the other driver was indeed drunk.

They ticketed him for drunk driving, and tow trucks quickly removed both vehicles.

All I was thinking about on the hitchhiking trip, was buying some hot rims for the Cutlass. Now it was bent and dead being towed to the back row on a Tonnelle Avenue body shop.

My Dad dropped Roberts and me off in Fort Lee, and we had pitchers of cold beer at an icy air conditioned bar near Lemoin Avenue. It wasn't the intended "Light" or "Dark" ales of West 10th Street. Tom or his sister gave me a ride home.

A weird way to end a hitch hiking trip.

The end.

Heading West_45

2005-09-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

How many more rides?

You never know who or how long someone is going to take you when you are hitching. It could be some hippy, a military officer, a cop, a guy your dad's age. It could be a crook, a pervert, a stoner, or a musician. You have a little faith, you play your hunches, and you give it a go. You accept a ride, and take one exit up the road, or turn it down for a real long one with out of state plates.

We were now three hours east of Peoria, and we felt focused on getting maybe one more ride. We would boast to each other: "Hey Esteban, step aside, let me show you how to get a ride".

Or after ten minutes of futility, "Move aside, Roberto, you have no personality, no one wants you in the car for the next 4 hours. You my man, have lost your touch."

So with a friend, you enjoy, this kind of argument ensues to pass the time.
I can't recall who nailed this next one, I am going to say it was Bob. He flagged down a new white van with a trucker shell on the back of it. It was all clean white, no company name on it. It had only one big seat in the front of it, and we all climbed in. The guy was an older man, in his fifties. He had white hair and glasses, and he was much younger than the LBJ farmer from Iowa.

He was delivering some kind of furniture in the back of this truck. He was going to, (get this) New York City!

This could be our last ride on the trip. We told him where we were heading, and offered up front to drive straight through the night, and get him in earlier, and save him a hotel expense. I guess he was tight, or tired, he agreed and we roared east past Chicago.

So now we are balling the jack. Bob drove first, and I came in right behind him. We shot across Illinois, Indiana and were into mid Ohio, when the owner treated us to a dinner at a truckstop. Bob washed down a few cups of coffee and I sat on his right. We gabbed all night. The owner slept against the window on the passenger side. During the early morning hours, there was a large truck crash somewhere near Altoona.

We speculated that another "Steve", this one from Altoona, was the cause of the crash. Apparently not. We came into New Jersey around dawn, and we would easily have this guy on the GW Bridge by 9am.

What excitement. I had a new surfboard en route. We had the whole summer ahead of us.
He dropped us off in Fort Lee, and in one ride south, I was home on Grove Avenue. It was glorious. We were home.

Heading West_44

2005-09-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Crush on the girl headed to Chicago

I took the front on this one, and Bob sacked out. For two hours, we were like chatterboxes. She was curious about our travels, and she was just out of college, and moving to Chicago for her first job.

I think her name was Susan or Sue. She was dimunutive, and wore eyeglasses. She was really cute. For the second time on this trip, I imagined settling down with another person, if only for an hour. To summarize, I had no girlfriend, and no rings or strings. I would maintain this "ice in the vein" philosphy for twenty years.

But every now and then, you meet a total stranger and some kind of chemistry starts to swirl. I could feel it on her side of the car also. You can just tell, everything is clicking and extremely comfortable.

She read a lot, just looking at her and her glasses, and her two hands on the wheel.
Wel I loved reading just as much. Look at my thick Henry Kissinger glasses momma!

This conversation about sharks was sending off all kinds of bells and gongs in my chest. She described the details about a book called the Blue Meridian.

She was fascinated with oceans, and she was reading as many books as she could on the subject. She had just finished this one, and was going off on how great it was. Apparently five diver/photograghers and one expedition historian set to the high seas in search of the ellusive Great White shark. This book follows the expedition from the cold waters of South Africa, throughout the Indian Ocean, and ultimately to South Australia in search of thier quarry.
I wrote the title down, and recommended Two Years Before the Mast and a few Jack London works. That ride seemed like two exits, it went too fast.

Coming close to Chicago, I awokened my partner in the back, Bob had slept the whole way, and was a little groggy from the night before. She dropped us off on a great entrance ramp, and I got to shake her hand. I hope she got nearer to the ocean one day.

"I could really fall for a girl like that"
Bob said something like :"You're such a knucklehead. She was too small for you, oh whatever...."

Heading West_43

2005-09-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last leg

Steve Kelley was a great host. He was slowly moving away from our gang, as he wasn't too happy with the school and some of the crew. We would return the favor the coming fall as we invited him up to Jersey, and a wild night in mid town manhattan, showing him our hangouts, except it would be conclude sleeping in the Port Authority bus station, not a cozy guest room.

He was not happy at Villanova after two years. He was homesick for the midwest, and would transfer back to an Illinois school in another semester. Bob was also trying to get out of Villanova in three years, and he had a plan. I had attempted to transfer to Wisconsin or UConn during my freshman year. What a bad scene at a college can do for you, is sometimes make you bust a move, and try something different.

For Bob, and I, getting away from Villanova, PA via thumbs was the way to go.

an old postcard is all I have of the Kelleys:
Steve gave me an old postcard his dad mailed to "The Kelley Children". The Australian stamp was torn off, and its a black and white photo of an aborogine, shirtless, holding two boomerangs.
I bet its from the early 60's. The title under the shirtless man is Onus Australian Champion Boomerang Thrower-Lompkins photo. It is a classic:

Until I scan it, it actually is a man named Bill Onus:
http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/biogs/E000288b.htm

"Wait until see your father throw the boomerang! I'm putting on a demonstration in Glen Oak Park a week from Sunday. Start selling tickers to all your friends, Love, Dad."

You can tell Mr. Kelley was a cool guy too.

After two nights in Peoria, we headed out the next day. Steve dropped us off at the freeway, and we started to head north on Route 51, right back to Route 80, and nearer to Chicago.

Two or three short rides got us near the Route 80 east ramp, and a little girl in a Toyota Celica, picked us up, and she was headed to Chicago.

<----------Bill Onus, Boomerang thrower

Heading West_42

2005-09-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Peoria, riding schools and a country club.

After breakfast, Steve took us around town, he showed us everything. Cat headquarters, some famous theatre. Apparently the line "Will it play in Peoria?" is not a slam on this city, but a compliment as it considered itself a theatre town.

He showed us his grade school, all kinds of arcane places. It was a river town for sure, the Illinois River came right through it. We asked him to show us a bar for lunch and we had many pitchers of beers. We showered and got ready for a big BBQ that evening, we hung out and watched TV and drank more beers.

I remember Bob had sewn in 3-4 silver dollars in the inside of his denim jacket. When it was his turn to buy a round, he took off his jacket, borrowed a knife from the waitress and cut out the last of his cash on the table. She hadn't seen this act before.......

What a great feeling. Late spring in the "Land of Lincoln", waking up in a clean bed after 4-5 days sleeping on the ground or in a back seat of car. Smelling bacon and coffee downstairs.

On the second day, we dropped his kid sister off at a riding stable, and we were checking out the hotties riding these large horses. I had never seen this before in North Jersey. Later that day, he mixed up a batch of mixed drink pitchers of some concoction, and we walked over to the Peoria Country Club. It had several bars, a restaurant, a pool, lockers, the works. Bob and I were certainly impressed, this place was gorgeous, and he knew all the elders at this place. Kelley introduced us to a lot of dignified guys, probably the local bankers, politicians, or mostly just his neighbors hanging out at this club.

Steve had a cozy setup. This wasn't anything near Cliffside or Point Pleasant, and even further removed from our Jersey City and Secaucus roots. Oh well.

The last thing I wanted to mention about Kelley. I used to have to wear a sport jacket to class every day in high school. We also had to wear a shirt and tie, and shoes that "take a shine". At Nova, Kelley wore a sport jacket every day on campus. He had old bell bottoms, or jeans under them, and he explained that besides looking good, he had all these pockets for holding pens, keys, his cigarettes, and his wallet. The next time I went to north jersey, I brought back two of mine. I still wear a sport jacket all the time in casual events. Thanks to Mr. Kelley for this Peoria styling tip.

Heading West_41

2005-09-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Peoria, Illinois

LBJ dropped us off on the edge of town. We shook hands, and really, warmly thanked him for picking us up and taking us out of his way. Now we were in Illinois, and pretty excited to look up one of our old friends. His name was Steve Kelley.

Steve lived in my dorm freshman year, he was about 4 doors away. He was a tall guy, about 6 2" or 6 3", a gangly guy, and he had prepped in Washington DC. His Dad was under secretrary for Defense in the Nixon Administration. After serving in his first administration, he returned the family to Peoria, Illinois and went back to running Caterpillar. Cat still is a leader and the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines. This company dominated this city, and Kelley had long told us what a great town it was.

Yea, right we used to tell him.

We called him from a phone booth at 7am, we asked his Mom if she could wake him, we were calling from California....(we told her). When we got him on the phone, we jived him and then told him we were in town. He was stoked. He drove right over with the family station wagon.

Freahman year, this guy was a cool guy to hang out with. My first days on campus were a trip. I had been on a island at the Jersey Shore for three months, and my hair was as long as it ever had been. I was tan, and had been surfing, guarding and partying all summer. This campus was hilly, green and old brick and mortar. It was humid, and crickets roared on the campus. Now we were under giant trees, on the Philadelphia Main Line.

I was wearing a bathing suit and new moccasins; to my mom's dismay. I was rooming in Corr Hall, an ancient stone dorm that was cramped housing near the library and facing the train tracks. In the first morning, I got up really early and went to take a shower for the first day of classes.

Standing in front of the mirror, in a towel, was a skinny guy, a Puerto Rican kid from NYC named Jose Sala. He introduced himself, he was brushing his teeth, smoking a joint, and singing some latin tunes. I was cracking up as I lathered up in the shower. When I came out, he was combing his hair, and immensely happy. "You know, God made puerto ricans the happiest people in the world!"

I would catch him later that day. His roomate was Steve Kelley.

He took us to his house, it was an enormous brick structure, probably the biggest house I had ever seen up to this point. He put us in a large guest room, we had a humongous pancake breakfast, and met his younger sister, his Mom, and later his Dad. They were all friendly folks.

3828 N.Harvard Avenue, Peoria, Illinois
Man, you should have seen this shack.

Heading West_40

2005-09-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

The kindness of strangers

The old guy lived alone in the western section of Iowa City. He may have been fooling us, or maybe he actually did have a friend or some family in Indiana. Nevertheless, he said: "I have some good news for you fellas, I am going to visit some old friend of mine. (He was so happy to be doing this, he was smiling and beaming) It should just happen to take you closer to your friend in Peoria. (Who we had mentioned was a possible destination)

We had our coffee break with him at about 4am. He got back in the back seat, and got on his pillow. He was chatty, then quieter, and soon sleeping again. He had some Blind Faith Hitch hiker Mojo going too. You have to have a lot of faith and trust in people if you pick up a hitch hiker or throw out your thumb on the requesting end of this equation.

Route 80 crosses right across Iowa, and this man was headed to Iowa City. To get us to Peoria, he had to get us to the border city of Davenport Iowa. That was out of his way just ot get us over the Mississippi River. He then headed south on Route 74, and east on through these 98 miles into the outskirts of Peoria. The old boy gave us all 160 miles out of his way, just because he "liked our spirit".

This was unreal.

Heading West_39

2005-09-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

"You go first"

"What in the world was going on in that house in Long Beach?"
"It was totally bizarre"
"All those kids were drunk, drugged or high, right?"
"It sure seemed that way"

"What about the entrance to that place?"
"Holy Shit!, that was totally fricken weird, what was going on there?"

Back in Heading West_27, a girl had picked us up in Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, and had offered to take us to San Francisco. We had to stop at her house, so she could pick up some things for her dog, his water bowl and some food. She grabbed her sleeping bag, and we were on our way.

What had happened was that the whole experience, maybe an hour of waiting for her to get her stuff ready was ERASED from our keen memories. It had been wiped clean, like shower steam from a bathroom mirror. Something was messing with us, and the spell had just worn off.

"I will never forget going into the house?"
"Do you?"
We argued who would describe it first,
My version went like this. We walked up to the house, it was a one story, kind of run down stucco home in an average neighborhood. She parked in the driveway.

"Would you like to come in, it will only take about 10 minutes"
We agreed.

I followed her up to the house, she went first, she opened the door and I had to follow her into a virtually blackened room. We put our hands out and tried to feel where we were walking. I lost sight of her, and just hoped I wouldn't fall flat on my face. We turned right, but who knew where any direction was.

On my right was a panel of some sort, it was set up like a 4 by 8 foot plywood or sheetrock panel, and it too was black, but there was a thousand distant green lights, like an astronomy pattern, it was close, but it was a million light years away. I didn't want to look at it, and I kept my face from looking at it. It was terrifying, like falling into the Grand Canyon.

We seemed to walk by a low, long couch, and I kept my head down and then turned right again. and walked toward some lights in the other rooms. Again. Bob described what he saw too.

"What is going on here?" we asked ourselves in the Rambler.
Goosebumps appeared on my arms, and I felt scared again, that these memories came out.

"What was that thing when we came in the house?"
I answered, "It was.....it was Satan"
It was a giant face of some sort, all those green lights, there were hundreds or thousands of these pin lights coming out from a panel or a black curtain, it or he was watching us walk in
the house, it made us walke around this THING?"

Bob agreed. Something weird had been there.
"Why did we, why couldn't we talk about this until now?"
"I have no fucking idea"

We walked in the house, and there were people in a room. Maybe 8 or nine people, but they were all teenagers. Young teenagers. They were sprawled on couches, old furniture, and the lam ps in the room had really low Watt light on them. There was something cooking or burning in the air. She introduced us to three of them, and then excused herself to get her stuff.

There were no adults here.
It seemed, she was in charge. But that term was pretty loose here.
We didn't see the kids mixing drinks or a bong, or any drugs, but they all were in a sleepy stupor.

I walked outside, past a dining room or a kitchen, and walked out some cheap aluminum slider doors to the backyard. There were more kids out here. One kid was wacking a stick against a chaise lounge, There may have been a built in pool back there. It was murky.

I grabbed a seat around a stone BBQ or fireplace, There were 10-12 old couches, folding chairs and some old patio furniture, the cast iron kind with moldy cushions. Something was smoldering in the BBQ, A wisp of smoke curled up and around the trees in this backyard.

I didn't want to go back in the house, and I felt wobbly, almost a bit drugged. I walked around the fences, and there were a lot of bird cages and some rabbit pens on low boxes near the redwood fence. There were dead birds in some of the cages. In other cages, some kind of birds or parakeets made sad chirps. I think I saw a dead or a sleeping rabbit in the one cage.

Bob threw in his observations.
"I think they were sacrificing some of the animals outside, like before we got there" "Yep, something weird was going on inside and out." he added. "Some of those little kids were drunk, no one was in charge."

It was pitch dark, and there was no outdoor light on.
Another thing happened, when the girl who picked us up was almost ready, and came outside to see me. She stepped outside, and said "I have towatch all these kids, my parents are seperated, her mom wasn't in town. They will be back soon.".

A low flying helicopter flew over, and it had a bright spotlight on it. It was right over the backyard of her house. It descended to about 150 feet, and started to move the light all over the yard. It then shined on her side of the fence, then they turned off the lamp, and it took off away from us.

"That is the LA Police, can you believe this?"
"Maybe they were looking for Patty Hearst?"

Finally, she was ready, and we left. I had sat on the couches inside with a few of the kids, I can't tell you what was going on in there.

We walked by the panel on the way out, it was still there, it was watching us as we left, but it wasn't as dramatic as when we entered. "Bob, whatever we saw on the way in, made me feel like I was so small, so tiny, like an atom"

Again, why did this get blocked out of our minds till Iowa? What was going on back in that house? It was a mystery, we tried to talk it out that night, and we switched drivers again and maybe one more time until the morning. The old gent woke up, and thanked us for driving. "How we doing on gas?" he asked.

We pulled into a rest stop for gas, and then had some hot chocolate and coffees.
We were almost near Indiana. LBJ had a surprise for us. We thought he had Iowa plates, and he did, but he was to offer us a great extension of kindness.

Heading West_38

2005-09-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

other wordly, crossing over the Missouri, perhaps you could explain this to me

So if you have followed this hithhiking trip so far, everything in the story actually happened. One of the patterns in it, is that: one thing leads to another. One hitchhiking pickup leads to the subsequent one. One bit of learning, leads to the next experience.

So here are two nineteen year old boys from Jersey City in the front of a 1963 Rambler station wagon. In the back seat, horizontal, is LBJ, snoring away under his blanket and comfy pillow.

We are taking turns driving and we are going through patches of fog. After midnite, we cross the Missouri River, and we talk about history, I believe in this case, I was reminding Bob that Lewis and Clark passed under this bridge, heading northwest over the Rockies in 1803.

We're rambling, and then there are minutes of silence, we're sleepy, we're hungry, we're still totally focused on this part of the trip. Something happened.

Something inexplicable happened.

In the middle of five or ten minutes of silence, I suddenly was very scared, in fact, I was absolutely the most scared I had ever been in my life. My mind shrunk like a BB pellet and fell deep past my lungs and into the pit of my stomach. Suddenly my BB sized mind jettisoned up past my upper chest and got lodged somewhere between my ears. My head wobbled like an old hand saw, or in a Popeye cartoon after Blutto gives him a haymaker punch.

The funny thing is, this realization, or this awakening happened simultaneously to my blue eyed friend on my right. Something fricken snapped our heads back and forward like two punches from the back seat, like two frying pans hitting us from behind.

In the middle of a dark night in Iowa, we turned to look each other in the darkness, with
the soft glow of dashboard lamps, and I remember we both started to ask ourselves out loud:

"Do you want to talk about what happened in Long Beach?"

Heading West_37

2005-09-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Desolation & a sense of desperation

We were hoping to cross the state line ASAP. We were stuck on an exit/entrance about 100 yards from the freeway. We couldn't see traffic, and they couldn't see us. The next car or truck to come down this road, yea, maybe in a day or two.

"F it" said my blue eyed companion.

I nodded in agreement, and we sprinted down the long entrance ramp, and starting frantically to flag down anything. Sure, we were really hoping for a truck, but would have gotten in or pulled a rickshaw if it came by. Anything. With the every dashboard radio blabbing about who one cop dead, in the 200 miles near Cheyenne, we could only hope some nut or a deaf person would pick us up.

We get lucky.
A station wagon, an early sixtes Rambler station wagon, with Iowa plates slowly pulled to the shoulder in front of us. Fifty feet away, a driver with glasses, an older man who looked like LBJ was looking us over. His turn signal was on, he looked in his rear view mirror, checked that he was on the shoulder, then slowly squinted at us. Sensing this, we didn't rush his car.

"Let him check us out Bob"
"All right" he said.

We smiled, then he leaned toward the passenger window, and slowly rolled it down.
In an old man's voice, I figured he was going to ask us for directions, or have a heart attack.

Instead, he asked: "Are you boys going to rob me?"

"No sir"

"We would very much enjoy riding with you to Iowa."
He paused about 10 seconds.

"Well come on in, I could use some company"

We could not have been happier. I jumped in the back this time. Bob started to comfort him, telling him where we came from, where we had been. He was a retired gentleman, he was visiting some family in northern Colorado, and had a long drive back to Iowa.

He was a really cool guy. His car was indeed, a 1963 Rambler. Bob was chatting away with him. He drove in the slow lane, and was doing 55 mph. I passed out for an hour, when I woke up the old guy was laughing his ass off, Bob had him rolling talking about Europe.

The guy's name was Bill. He was in that generation of men that carried clean handerchiefs in their pockets, he pulled his out to clean glasses with his, his was a blue and white one. Three hours later, I was in the front with him and I got him to talk about what was growing on our left and right.

"This here on the left is alfalfa, and in the back he's got some rows of sorghum. and over here this is feed corn. That fellow is growing oats. Over here they are planting dry beans. " He explained the whole Ag process to me, about how hard it is to be a farmer, and how prices are set, and bushels and the economy.

It made the time go quick, we were slowly and steadily moving across Nebraska. Bill knew and described what it felt like to "have your ass bumping on that there tractor seat for 12 hours on a hot day." He could tear out the engine on a tractor or some wheat cutting harvester. He knew how to raise chickens, swine and milk cows. He loved sharing his stories with us. He was a warm family man, and didn't curse. What a spirit this guy had.

We had candy bars for lunch, he had a BLT.

Five hours later, we pulled into a rest stop, and he had some soup for dinner, we also had something light, (under 2 bucks, maybe a hot dog and a glass of milk) Our elderly friend was getting a little stiff, he had those wooden beads on his driver seat that everyone used back then. His feets were getting numb. He took a few breaks, to walk and get his circulation moving.

After sitting for 8 hours, we asked him, if we could do some driving. "Let you take a break".
We had won him over all day, and he agreed. We would be in his section of Iowa around midnite at this pace.

With a sun setting in the back window of the station wagon,
Bob drove first. We agreed to switch every two hours.
Our farmer friend pulled out a pillow and blanket from the back, pulled off his shoes,
and got comfortable in the back seat.

"Bob, we are two lucky SOBs"
"We might just make it to Illinois in another day."

Who cares, keep your eyes on the road.

Heading West_36

2005-09-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

A Scare

We wished the Mustang guy, (I recall, his name was Ron) luck.

We walked away from the south boud interchange and watched his Mustang drive south and get swallowed in traffic. In some hundred miles, he would be home to lick his wounds in Denver. We shrugged our shoulders, "Hey, nice guy but he gave us 900 miles from Sparks, Nevada," "Let's nail another big one Esteban" said Bob.

We ran across the freeway and got on the east bound entrance ramp to Route 80. Bam!, Two quick, but short rides got us outside of the city. It was a clear, and chilly morning. The local freeway signs indicated we were at 6000 feet altitude, although we were well passed the Tetons.

For our third ride out of Cheyenne, traffic was crawling, and still, not one dam truck had picked us up. It was all cars for us so far. We were on a hill, working a pretty desolate entrance to the highway. We were staying off the freeway to avoid a hitchhiking ticket or another BS "Walking on the Freeway" ticket like we got in San Diego. We were also below the "Vagrancy" limit of cash to easily be thrown in jail.

How to scare 2 boys from Jersey City:
A VW pulls up towards us, slows down, and hits the brakes. It stops in a cloud of Wyoming dust. Two guys were in it with sunglasses, military or aviation type shades. They stopped the car in the middle of the road ramp, both leaped out, they reached to the backseat of the VW, pushing both seats forward.

We froze, not moving toward the Bug. What's up with this?

They weren't looking at us, and began pulling real shotguns out of the back, then, leaned them against the front seats, and pulled out two backpacks, canteens and ammo bags. "Oh Shit!" I thought.

"Sorry about that" said the driver. "now there's some room"

And with that Blind Faith attitude you need when you hitch, we shrugged our shoulders and got in the back. The front passenger guy kept the guns with him, and the driver shifted quickly on the 80 East.

These guys were our age, both from Montana, and off duty, they were going to shoot some birds about an hour east of Cheyenne. They were in the military, and did security east of where they picked us up. They monitored missile silos that were "all over the place here".

As history majors, (and I always loved the Cold War angle of American history), we pressed them with lots of crazy questions. These two weren't actually stationed in the bunkers, "those cats are some focused dudes" said the other soldier. But they had gotten down in them, to check it out.

"See that ridge on the left, just to the left of that herd , in fact, right under those 12 cow's asses are five big ass tubes with some crazy amount of war heads, aimed at Moscow.".

"Wows and Jeezes........!" came out of our mouths.

"we monitor about 50 miles of sensor equipment on the surface near the silos. We frequently get a tumbleweed stuck in a fence, and we have to drive out and make sure it isn't a spy or a terrorist. It's really boring work, but we get to party in Cheyenne, there are some great girls in that town. That's why we are so excited to get a day off and have some sport."

Then they broke the grim news that two just this morning, really early, but they heard it on the radio, that two hitchhikers west of Cheyenne had shot and killed a policeman. "You guys better watch your selves the next 24 hours."

Oh man, that's all we need.
Our best hope was they diverted their resources in that direction. But we would still have some local cops on the look for you know who.

So that was it, with an hour between us and Cheyenne, our hunter friends left us in a remote area. We were stuck with no rides for almost 2 hours.

Heading West_35

2005-09-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

The Mustang driver:

He had a worried mind. Apparently, somewhere between Sacramento or Reno, he had gotten busted by the cops for something odd. He was pulled over and he had resisted his being stopped, or had given the cop some lip. We passed a place called Humboldt Lake on Route 80.

He got hit with almost a $250 fine, and had spent two days in the slammer. If you do a lot of travel, you will inevitably run into some hard luck travelers. Bob and I always skated over the dangerous sections of our trips. On occaison, you would run into someone who was down on his luck, unlucky, or had made a bad decision. This guy was one of these sad examples.

He wanted a few bucks for gas, and I think we gave him (between us) about five bucks worth. On a cloudless day, under blue skies and sandy hills, we cruised east toward Utah. We were all hungry, and could only have a candy bar here and there when we gassed up.

We passed just south of the Great Salt Lake itself, and through Salt Lake City, and we immediately, started a steep ascent into the Wasatch Mountain range.

At the top of this climb, we needed gas. We pulled into a station, and I asked the attendent, who was my age, "How much snow do you guys get here?"

He had a cool story. He said during the recent February, it was snowing heavily, but the snow up here was usually always very dry, and this was a great area for powder skiing at local resorts Alta or Snowbird and piled in drifts. He said at 11pm, there was about three feet of snow out on his gas island, his pumps werer half covered. In an hour, the pumps were totally covered, the drifts may have been over 10 foot. By two in the morning, the snow had blown back to a foot or two.

We pushed east. We kind of had this guy cheered up after 400 miles. After 10pm, Bob and I changed positions, it was his turn to keep this guy amused and awake. I slipped to the back seat, and he and Bob rambled through the night.

We offered, yet he didn't want us to drive, I think all he owned at this point was this Mustang. Can't blame the guy. I awoke hungry and excited to be in a new state, we were in Wyoming!!

Around 9 or 10 AM, the Mustang hit Cheyenne, and we extended handshakes, and thanks to Ron. our driver. He headed south to Denver. Denver was about 100 miles due south of us. In retrospect, this was almost 900 miles on this one ride. We had put a good dent in the map.

Heading West_34

2005-09-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

Nevada & hot!

The 3 Beehive ladies dropped us off in a town east of Reno called Sparks.

I had on my A's hat, eyeglasses, brown corduroys and my orange U of Florida teeshirt.
It had to be over 100 degrees and it was a desert. Sand and cactus, and no one was picking us up. We struggled for a couple of hours, getting a few short rides.

We were on a hilly section now, about 40 miles east of Sparks, and to kill time, we threw rocks at a sign post. Someone wrote on the sign in Magic Marker: A disconsolate hitchhiker had left his mark.

"Stuck in this dam place for 6 hours, April 1974"

Dam, he was right, this place totally sucked for getting a ride. We were a little pistol shy of walking down to the main highway. This was really bad, we were thirsty and didn't have any water with us. We slugged on, the two greatest hitchhikers of all time, had hit a rough spot. Around 2 in the afternoon, our lucked changed.

We left the entrance to the highway, and walked to the main shoulder, and soon a beatup blue Mustang pulled up. A guy, maybe in his mid twenties was alone in this car, he was a skinny guy with glasses, a two day shadow on his chin.

I got in the front, and thanked him for picking us up. "Jeez, we were stuck in this spot for almost two hours, thanks a lot."

"Where you headed? or Where you headed today?" was tossed at him.

"Denver" he said.

Right on!

Heading West_33

2005-09-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

High in the Sierras

Ironically, we awoke quite close to an area of historical nature. We were almost reversing the Donner party journey of 1846

April of 1846, a party of 87 men, women and children cut over the Sierras via wagon train. Like many thousands before them, the Donners had every reason to look forward to their journey when they started out from Springfield, Illinois, in April of 1846. Countless wagon trains made the 2000-mile trek from Illinois to Oregon and California in the 1840s. Most people suffered various hardships along the way but managed to get over the Sierras and on to California in good health.

The party reached the base of the steep summit on October 31, just as snow was beginning to fall. And although some in the group were able to reach the summit, they were forced to turn back as there was no way the whole party could get through. Heavy snow continued falling overnight and by morning the pass was completely blocked by snowdrifts over twenty feet high. They had come 2,500 miles in seven months to lose their race with the weather by one day, only 150 miles from their destination of Sutter's Fort (what is now Sacramento) in California.

Back to us
We awoke to a sunrise and some cold conditions. We could see our breath in the cold morning air. I pulled my boots out from my "pillow" jumped into them, and we quickly got to the restaurant that had opened. "Coffee and a Hot Chocolate please", ordered Bob. He busted my balls in front of the indifferent waitress, about not drinking a man's coffee. Oh well. We sat at the counter and smiled, as the gas station was just being opened up. We had slipped by, one more night.

We hit the bathroom, brushed our teeth. Put on our baseball caps, and hiked down to the entrance ramp, and flagged down another big pickup truck. It had three middle aged ladies in bee-hive hairdos, they were going to gamble in Reno. We jumped in the back, leaned our packs against the cab wall side, and enjoyed the scenery. It was one of the best and prettiest ride of the trip. What a huge descent into the desert from these mountains!

Heading West_32

2005-09-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

With every ride, we climb into the Sierras

We were making 20-25 miles a hitch out of the Bay area.
Again, there was no money for hotels, we planned on sleeping on the move.
We would be shooting for Peoria and maybe a couple of days of freeloading at a college friend's home.

Most of the time, people who pick you up are on the lower end of the social scale, and their cars and their stories are reflective of their social strata.

We scored one very cool ride, going into Sacramento with a new car. I got the front seat on this one, a guy picked us up in a brand new Datsun 240Z. It was so fine in there, he had a green on black instrument panel, and a primo radio system. I got the guy talking about why he picked this car, and what he liked about it. I wanted one of these since they came out. I was just dying, I couldn't afford one of these for another 5 years!!

He was playing some Pacifica radio station, and we got to talking about politics. Sharp guy, had a sharp mind, and his car was just too styling for me this night. I wanted to switch places with this guy. Oh well.

The last ride of the night
The guy in the Z offered to put us up for the night. We declined, we both wanted to keep moving. We had never hitched this late before, it was after 11pm. Somewhere east of Sacramento, after waiting for about 40 minutes, a big Ford pickup with a camper shell pulled up.

It was a long haired guy, and he said he and his sister and girlfriend were in the truck, and they "had too much to drink". They were coming back from a party, and he could take us up near Donner or Truckee; two towns I had not heard about.

"I have to stick you in the back."
This wasn't the smartest thing we ever did. Hitchhiking involves a lot of trust or blind faith. We took the ride, he put us in the camper, apologized that he "had to lock the door or it would rattle" and we just laid up against the cab wall and listened to his music coming through the panel.

Two times he pulled over to the side of the road. No explanations, someone got out, and then got in, and we were moving again. Finally he pulled off the freeway, opened the door and let us out.
"My sister got sick a few times, that's why we pulled over".

"It's going to be a cold night tonite, it could get down to the 30's, here....."
He handed Farley a joint. Wow!

When his truck pulled away, we were standing on a off ramp in total darkness. We could hear the traffic on 80 below us, and our eyes adjusted to the dark. A stiff breeze blew around us, and whistled in these big pine trees. It was scary.

"Now what?"
"I think we are done for the night, there's no light for anyone to see us, let's camp up here"
"Are there any bears up here"
"You know, there probably are"
"Oh shit"

"Hey, look over there, its a gas station." Sure enough, a gas station was closed, it even had a restaurant near by it. We wlaked around the back of it and we found a parked pickup truck, a big one with a few pieces of canvas and wood in the back.

"Here's our hotel"

We climbed in the back, slid into our sleeping bags, and then fired up that joint.
The wind blew in the tall pines, and the stars were right in our faces. I kept my eyeglasses on to check them all out. We laughed and laughed, and then we got quieter and it was a wonderful night to sleep, probably the best of the whole trip.

"We better get up early before this station opens up."

Heading West_31

2005-09-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Taking it back to Jersey

It's 9pm, and we're standing on an entrance ramp to Route 80 east.

This is Berkeley, California, and there are 6 people in front of us; we're in the back of the line, waiting for the front of the line to get off the ramp. We tried the trick where we walked toward the front of the line, like we quit hitching, and then stick our hands out real low and try to snag a ride. Nothing doing this night.

Bob and I got seperated for a few minutes, and now a 1/2 block from the entrance ramp, a guy pulls up in a Triumph Spitfire, and he has NJ plates on his car. "Hey, how far are you going?"
"Trenton".

Holy shit!.

"Hey Bob, get over here, this guy is going to Trenton! "
"I can only take one of you"
"Are you sure, we can squeeze in the one seat, or I can lay in the back"

Holy Jeez, what if he had a real back seat in this thing?
We would have made it in 6 rides west and 2 rides east for some kind of record!

"Sorry, this is my best friend, have a safe trip back. Ah Shit!"

Interstate 80 is one of the nation's longest interstate highways at 2917 miles, running from the junction with US 101 near the San Francisco Civic Center to I-95 in Teaneck, New Jersey

That guy could have been the meal ticket, 2900 miles, but no, on this trip,
this was a team sport.

Heading West_30

2005-09-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

San Francisco for 7 hours

We were each holding less than 8 dollars, and we had three days of hitching to get back to Jersey.

If I hadn't mentioned, my traveling partner: Robert Raymond Farley was an extraordinary fellow. You couldn't ask for a better road mate. He was upbeat, garrulous, optimistic, and always saw the sunny side of life. On this trip, he was again exceptional, never complaining, always easy to collaborate and willingness to share everything.

But on this date, we silently agreed, it was time to get our asses back to N.J. We did consider visiting a friend in Peoria, Illinois on the way back, but who knew if the rides would swing us near there?

We had a full day to ourselves. We walked up some steep San Francisco hills, I mean, some of these hills in North Beach were hard on your legs, especially carrying our packs and sleeping bags. This city reminded me of Hoboken, or North Bergen, or Hudson County, which also have great views of the Hudson River and bridges and harbors. We looked at North Beach, and Chinatown. We checked out the cable cars, and instead of riding them, we invested three bucks, actually I think Farley negotiated a "two for five" purchase of some west coast baseball caps from a street vendor. I bought an Oakland A's hat, and Bob a SF Giants black cap.

We finally got a view of the real Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatrez, and we took some fun pictures with my camera.

On Telegraph Hill, thinking about Jack London, we clowned around Coit Tower, (which a rich lady gave 1/3 of her fortune to beautify the city) A large bronze statue of Christopher Columbus is in front of the tower, and what is Columbus doing on the west coast?

He was as displaced as we were, I suppose. (you bet the local Italianos had something to do with this)

We walked around Columbus Circle and then Bob found a comedy club called the "Purple Onion" where the Smothers Brothers had performed before they had their television show.

We hung out back at Market, watching all the girls run for BART and buses on their commute home. They all had switched to sneakers, white sneakers and running shows instead of their leather pumps and high heels.

Women dressing habits are amazing.

So, the sun started to set, and we had a cold beer or two at a bar close to the skid row section we were to dine at.

This was our last day in California, we toasted that we had conquered LA, Hollywood, Laguna Beach, Newport, Disneyland, San Diego, Ensenada, and now we had sacked San Francisco. What a great feeling of accomplishment for two nineteen year olds, as those beers kicked in.

We found the mission around 6:30, got a table and enjoyed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and tall glasses of cold milk. It was a feast, a begger's banquet on Howard Street.

The highlight of the evening, beyond doubt, was an industrial, Dairy Queen like, Vanilla ice cream machine. Farley must have had 4 or 5 bowls of vanilla ice cream; I was too stuffed from the chicken. We thanked the helpers behind the counter, bade farewell to the toothless, the homeless, and the bompies we had shared this meal, and we stepped into the sunset hour.

The on ramp for the Bay Bridge was packed with hitchhikers.
The protocol is as follows, if you are the last ones to arrive, you get in the back of the lineup.
We used a Jersey style of hitchhiking, where one walks a block ahead of the entrance sign, and just "Presume" these cars are going on the freeway.

We walked back about 4 blocks from the ramp, and we nailed a VW bus right headed for Oakland. We went by all six parties, and turned a few heads as we got on the Bay Bridge.

Our driver on this initial ride east, was a long haired, hippy Jesus Freak. He had electric lights with rosary beads and an electric cucifix on the dash board. Whimsical painting and biblical sayings were all over the roof. His wife and a tiny baby rocked and sat in the back floor on
a platform and on a mattress. The baby cooed as his dad, the driving preacher started to convert us to the "Lord's way".

We explained that we were all ready saved. Hold on there fella, we are two Catholic boys from Jersey City. We are indeed, saved by your kindness, as we are going home to NJ and Jesus, Thanks to your kind German bus taking us over this big blue bay.

Heading West_29

2005-09-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

San Francisco

An unfortunate thing happened just as we hit sight of the city. Something happened with the front end of the car. The wheels seemed to sink and then we got a grinding sound from the wheel in front of the driver.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"Well, let's pull into a gas station and ask, we're history majors, not mechanics!" Then we said "hey look, get off at this exit, and we'll find a gas station. " In two blocks, we pulled right into a one story brick auto repair place, and we asked the manager if he could tell us what happened. We walked around and bought her lunch. She only had about 45 dollars with her. In 45 minutes, we came back and got the damage report.

Her Ball Joints had broken on the front left side. She was looking at about a two hundred and fifty dollar repair. She was pretty dissapointed, now she had to call her Dad for help. When she made that call, we had done all we could, and we gave her and the dog a farewell, pulled out our packs and duffelbags, and hit the streets.

This city was gorgeous!

We walked downtown, near Market Street, and it was mid day. It must have been a financial district, there were thousands of pretty girls walking around in business attire. We just pulled up at a little kiosk near California cable car, and did some people watching.

Now one of the things we had done almost daily on this trip was to send a nurse friend or ours a postcard from where ever we were on this trip. Her name was Maria Talamo. She had given us about 4 bucks worth of a small roll of postage stamps, maybe it was 5 or 6 cents a stamp. So we bought 10 post cards for a dollar, and walked to the waterfront to write out the days batch of cards.

We were a pair of knuckleheads. Here's why I say that. We got down to the bay, and I looked up at this bridge overhead, and said "Hey, here's the Golden Gate!" I took two pictures of it, and then sat down and cranked out my 5 post cards.

An old black gentleman was watching us, and he came by to chat.
"Where you boys from?"
"New York, well, actually New Jersey"
"Man, that's a dog eat dog kind of town back there!"
That just cracked us up. (We were sharing one pen for this card session)

Bob squinted up at the man, we were on a stoop.
"Well, we've been on the road for two weeks, we hitched out here, we're out of money and we have to hitch back tonite."
He smiled, and reached in his pocket and peeled off two dollar bills, and gave one to each of us.
"You guys are all right, here's money for two hot dogs, and then he pulled out a quarter and handed it to me"
"You'll need this for the tax!" he smiled.

"Can I ask you something, is this the Golden Gate bridge?" I asked our friend.
"Hell no, this is the Bay Bridge going to Oakland." "The Golden Gate is on the other side of town. Head over to Nob Hill and you can see that one.
he laughed and laughed.

"So you guys are leaving tonite?"

"I have a tip for you. I am a cook at a local mission, and we have a kitchen you can come to and have yourselves a square meal." He reached in his pocket and gave us a business card with his name on it, and an address to a mission on Howard Street. "I won't be there tonite, but you can just come in, and show this card if they ask you. You boys have a safe trip back to New Jersey."
He gave us each a warm handshake. He laughed and moved on.

We went over to a hot dog stand and had two delicious dogs.
"Let's go find Nob Hill and the right bridge!"

Heading West_28

2005-09-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

Morning was foggy

We got up, rolled up our sleeping bags, the car started, and we took our driver for breakfast. We were at some trucker stop on 101 North. Six years of studying California coastal maps had me aware, that somewhere out in that fog west of us, was a secret surfing spot called "The Ranch".

This was hilly country, and fogged in. We got back on the road, and the two chatterboxes, were joined by a third, and Farley spun stories about traveling around Europe the previous summer. Our driver was really nice, and we roared north through central California.

We were not driving too fast, but we were making time. We came into the lower portion of San Francisco Bay, and scooted around San Jose. The signs said we were about 40 miles from San Francisco. I can clearly recall seeing this navy base, it was called Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. There were 2, maybe three large dirigible hangers standing tall in the late morning sunshine

Heading West_27

2005-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

The girl from Long Beach.

We got in her car, and I could tell Farley was pretty tired. I offered to ride shotgun with her, and even to drove. "Oh no, I'll be fine, I really like to drive anyhow" she said.

"Just let me know if you need a break. I just have a tough time driving a stick shift."

So my partner jumped in the back, and he was making Z's as we pulled out on to the 405 North and past west LA and climbed into the San Fernando Valley. This freeway was huge, and kept intersecting other giant freeways, four or five lanes of lights, converging or climbing over other freeways as thick with cars at 8pm on a weeknight. What a huge city this must be.

So working on understanding her, I asked her about the car. "It's my Dad's, its a 1967 Fiat 125, it is my first car, and I love it. She went on to tell me that Fiat means "Fix It Again Tony" and Fords mean "Fix Or Repari Daily" She was really nice, and seemed about our age, but with a lot more responsibilities. She was trying to take classes locally after high school, but was stuck with raising a few brothers and sisters at this house we just left.

The pressure was getting to her, and she just wanted to get the hell away for a few days. She told some really odd stories on this ride. I had read a Jim Morrison book somewhere, where he was driving with his parents somewhere, as a child, and had come across a horrific car accident and had seen bodies on the road. She told a similar story, they had been in a camper on a highway in Arizona, and had passed by a brutal accident, and she had seen a head seperated from its body. I believed her, and I think it was a real story. Weird.

I got along really well with her, she drove for a couple of hours, we had a full tank of gas, and we were like chatterboxes in the front. In the back, the old dog, and my best friend were making Z's as we passed Ventura, and Santa Barbara. I looked towards the coast trying to find a famous point break called "Rincon" that I knew was around here. No luck.

Around 11:30 or 12, the girl said she was getting pretty tired, and she pulled off Route 101 North somewhere past Gaviota.

We were up on a hill, a mile above the highway and she parked the car, we woke Farley and the dog up, and we threw our sleeping bags on the ground near the car. It was pretty chilly. We let her stay in the middle of our bags, and we all snuggled up and got a a warm body to lean into.

The Dog was on the bottom of her bag. We all slept real well that night. Each night I said to myself, "Man, you are in California!"

In hindsight, it was more like, "You're are in California, and you have twelve bucks in your wallet". We had a few more destinations on the list.

Heading West_26

2005-09-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Long Beach, 1974

Something really weird happened in Long Beach, California.
All I can say, is it was so weird, so unworldly; that we couldn't speak about it
until 4 days later. On with the story......

Heading West_25

2005-09-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

Adios Ensenada, Back to California

After two nights in Hussongs, we headed to the downtown bus station, dug deep for our return trip bus tickets, and took a dusty highway back to Tijuana. It may have been another hot noon day when we got in. A couple more "Donde esta la frontera?" and we hoofed it about 3-4 miles back into the U.S.

"So what is our game plan Roberto?"

"Let's hit the House of Pies this evening. I think we have enough time and money to hit one more place. I think we have enough cash for a few meals, and maybe make it up to San Francisco! I think, if we can see the Golden Gate, then we can get our asses back to NJ"

I had my mind on hitting Newport and ordering/shipping a board to the east coast. We started hitching threw San Diego, up Route 405, and it was tedious, ride after ride were short, just a couple of exits or two. Finally near Anaheim, someone dropped us off on the top of the freeway, and we walked down the winding exit to ground level. We heard a pop of a PA system, and it was a California Highway Patrolman, pulling in behind us, and making us get in his car.

Now this was curious. We could out talk our way out of most troubles, and since we didn't have any alcohol or drugs on us, we were awfully confident that we were going to sail. This cop was a big, clean cut, butch crew cut guy, and he was awful nice to us. He asked where we were headed, and if we had come all the way from New Jersey, as out Drivers Licenses (the beigh or tan ones from the early seventies), and our college ID cards showed us a students, and stuff.

The son of a bitch still wrote us a ticket, each of us got a ticket for "Walking on the Freeway". "You boys have a nice trip." Yea, right jerk off!. We both ripped our tickets up in a hundred pieces, and heaved them in the air, the minute he was out of sight.

We hitched on PCH north, and avoided any more CHP clowns. I got into Russell Surf Shop and ordered one of the two boards I had placed on hold. I called my old man, and he sent them a check the next day. The 7 4" was green bottomed, green rails, and had a cool logo on the top: it had two arrows going in opposite directions, and the fin had about five hands in a circle and said "The Brotherhood" on the fin. It would be shipped to Newark Airport and I could pick it up in two weeks. Wow!!! We did the paperwork, and I was off down the street to meet Bob at the House of Pies.

We chowed down on spaghetti night. Six or seven helpings each, heavy on the cheese and lots of free water. After dinner, we lounged and collected our finances. We had less than twenty dollars between us. "I am pretty sure, we have enough cash to make it back."

Farls says:"That's plenty of money, we could hitch to Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of extra days with that money!"

So, we decided to hitch through the night to San Francisco. We got out on PCH and went north past Huntington, then Seal Beach, and we were now coming into Long Beach as the sun was setting. We were cursed with short rides.

Finally, we got another short ride, but it had a nugget hidden in it. A plain looking girl in a white Fiat picked us up. It was an older car, and it had four doors on it. Bob got in the front, and as such, he started flirting with her, in an innocent way of course. I had a sad looking dog in the back with me, it just looked at me, and put its head back down on the seat. She was headed up to Long Beach, and was asking us a lot of questions, more than we normally got from the locals. "Where are you guys headed?" "San Francisco".

We were cracking her up, and finally she warmed up to us and proposed: "Look, if you don't mind, I was going to stop off at my house, get my dog some food, grab a few things, and I will drive you two to San Francisco. Sound like a plan?"

Heading West_24

2005-09-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

Breakfast in Ensenada

We awoke a bit groggy, and quite surprised we had picked a safe place, outside of foot traffic, and not too obvious to the federales or the bad guys."I am certain, I don't want to do this tonite, could we possibly get a cheap place and stay here another night?" suggested Robert.

I agreed, and we walked back into town and passed a colonial style hotel, and got ourselves a room for 25 bucks a night. It was modest, and we shaved and showered, and took a nap. "I am sure glad we didn't get rolled last night" We walked back into town, got something cheap to eat, and went right back to Hussongs. It was a little less crowded, and we got to see all the same characters coming back for the sequel..

In a half hour, we were drinking beers again, and making friends all over the place. We kept meeting a bunch of Californians who had driven down for the weekend, telling us about some great surf spots and nice beaches to the south.

The party went on and on. People came in, and drank, we kept moving around the room. At one point, we scored a table and two chairs, and we had a great view of the place. I suspect I spent 25 or 30 dollars drinking in there, and Bob must have spent even more, as he insisted we try all the drinks on the drinking card. We had more fun the second day, and enjoyed the music and the scene. It was weird seeing our reflection in the bar mirror, and thinking how far we had come on this trip, and we were actually south of California!

We watched some crazy stuff in there the second night. We saw ten guys come in, score a table in the side that another big group just gave up. Their drinks were just coming to the table, when two of the guys got into it with, oh shit, this was a real Mexican cop, and he threw the whole group out of the bar. There drinks just sat on a tray, no one would go near that table for 15 minutes.

Behind them, I saw this one woman come in, she had short black hair, and was probably about 32. She must have been alone, and sending out all kinds of vibes. She got hit on by at least 6 guys in an hour. She was totally ripped, and could barely sit on her stool. She was eventually making out with two different guys who were as drunk as her, and I recall she fell off the bar stool two times, getting saw dust all over her white slacks. I bet she had no ideas where she was. A local lothario dragged her out to the dance floor, and then her stool was empty. She had vanished for some fresh air?

Around 10pm, we then met; well actuallyl, Bob met some people who were driving back that night, and they offered us a ride north of San Diego. It was tempting. But we didn't have a place to stay up there, and since we already had a room at the Mission, we turned them down.

Another night of brawling, flirting, laughing and drinking ensued. We staggered out at closing time, and got back to our hotel. I still have a little glass ash tray I took from that place.

Heading West_23

2005-09-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Ensenada

With limited funds, most likely sleeping on a beach tonite, feeling invincible, but still watching out for each other, we swaggered into town. We had our hands free of a duffel bags, backpack and a sleeping bags. I admit, I had a worried mind as we walked into town. Farley was three steps ahead of me, and then....there it was: "Hussong's Cantina".

A weekend night, early summer, and the place was raging, a mariachi band played along the back wall. There was a long crowded bar on the right side. It was packed with a few locals, but it was overwhelmingly packed with surfers, jocks, couples, fishermen, lots of Hawaiian shirts, college tee shirts. At least a hundred and fifty hell raising Californians down for a weekend fling.

Lucky for us, they took US dollars, and we started to knock back some ice cold Superior beers, They were two bucks a piece, and we drank like fishes. This was the end of the rainbow, and Farley "was buying!", he was exhuberant, the long wait and search for this place was over. We kept observing the scene, and it was a 10 ring circus this night. For the first night in a long time, we saw fights and pushing and shoving scenes. Every ten minutes, a tables flew over, chairs got kicked over, and a decent fight broke out. Two or three security guys, serious looking Mexican guys with moustaches and clubs on their belts, easily stepped in and pulled people out side of the place. People were getting tossed out the front door, and more people kept coming in.

It was like a giant surf party, People were screaming their heads off, cheering the cops on who constantly were throwing people out the door, drunken women tried to dance and fell on the floors, chivalrous males tried to help them up, and another fight began. Every guy looked like Jesse Collin Young or Loggins and Messina, all of the girls were sweating and dancing, and very excited and screaming for more drinks. It was like the end of the world.

Several observations. The place had big glass windows in the front, and inside, a dark green interior, wooden floors covered in sawdust and funky art on the walls. In a way it was like McSorleys in the Bowery, but it was wider, bigger and more colorful. electric fans whirled overhead, there were drinks posted on a sign. One of the drinks was a "Skip and Go Naked". Mariachis rotated in and out, and they sounded real good. A guy with a Polaroid cruised by, offering souvenir photos. One thing we had never seen in Philly, Jersey City or NYC bars, was this guy walking around with an electrical box and wires connected to two cylinders, offering to shock you. Drunk people were challenged or just stupid enough to put up money and this guy would give you a fricken electric shock, and let your friends howl in amazement at this pain shooting up your arm.

There were makeouts going on all over the place. Girls tired to dance on the tables and they were asked to sit down. This was a trip. Whenever a song finishes, there’s a round of yodelling, hooting, hollering and cheering.. We hung there for two hours fascinated by this place. Evenutally, we had to get a move on. It was after midnite now, and I persuaded Bob to come back in the morning. To my surprise, he agreed! We walked briskly through town working our way back out toward the bus station, somewhere near the harbor where we had stashed our gear.

We went out to the middle of a field, and what may have been sand, we unrolled our sleeping bags, crawled in, and passed out on a night full of stars.

Heading West_22

2005-08-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

San Diego

We got past Del Mar, into Torrey Pines, and worked our way south inland again, we missed La Jolla and finally got to the inner bay just north of downtown San Diego. A school teacher picked us up, and he was a proud local. He asked us what we were studying, and we told him "History". "Wow, that was my major! Well, I have some time to kill, and let me show you guys around."

From noon til about 3pm, he drove us around the city and out over the bridge to Coronado Island. He showed us the military bases, well, the Navy bases. This was a really neat looking town. lots of palm trees, mountains and blue ocean.

He said something that still stays with me. "One thing that's really cool about being a history major, is........it gives you perspective."

He knew about Hussongs, and he advised taking a bus to Ensenada from Tijuana. "Tijuana is a fun little town, but Ensenada is much prettier." Reluctantly, I gave in to Bob. So far, this trip had been my little surf-a-rama, and now it was his turn at the wheel. We would check out Tijuana. We got two or three more miles til we hit the border, and Bob was really getting excited.

We stopped for a lunch, a very cheap lunch at a fast food place where you could get a lot of food in you for about 2 dollars. Taco Bells or these little fast food no name taco places. It was a spicy ground meat in a spicy red sauce wrapped in a tortilla. Three for two dollars. Not bad.

"Let's get drunk, let's dance with the local girls, the Senoritas!!!" he was posessed about getting drunk and thrown in jail, like it would be a lot of fun, something amusing to tell our Joke friends when we got back next semester. I wanted no part of any jail. I remember trying to get him to promise me, we wouldn't do this jail thing.

He was really angry. And just like that Bob said: "Look, I came a long way and I am going to do whatever I feel like!" and just like that, he started walking to the border. After he got about 100 feet away, I shouted, "Hey, wait for me!"

Tijuana

We walked through a big gate system, and we walked right into downtown Tijuana, lugging our backpacks and sleeping bags and dufflebags. Hot, late in the afternoon, full of tourists and beater cars, shops selling all kinds of toys, blankets, shirts and goofy hats. Kids selling lottery tickets, and it looked like a Humphrey Bogart movie: The Treasure of Sierra Madre. A lot of drunk service men, and tourists roared in the bars and restaurants.

For some reason, we thought we would walk around the town, and we were in a hilly residential section. It was peaceful, and dusty. It was pretty run down, a lot of old cars, and sad looking people working on cars, kicking soccer balls in the street, a chicken here or there in a yard. Hand washed laundry on clothes lines. We walked through a residential neighborhood, and let me tell you, this was a long way from Laguna Beach styling.

We started to ask where we could find a bus station. My Spanish was weak, Bob's was much better, or at least he had no apprehension about asking anyone anything. He was always very animated, and fun to be with. Many times the person he would ask, would smile and look at me, laughing at his presentation or broken English, a broken Spanish flurry of questions, Bob's arms pointing and graphically describing something wacky.

Finally, he asked a young guy our age. "Donde esta la estacion de bus?" and he replied, in perfect English asked "Where do you want to go?" Ensenada, said Bob. "Walk back toward TJ, go to on the corner of First and Madero, a block downhill from Revolution Avenue, downtown. The buses depart for Ensenada every half hour from 6a.m. until 9:30p.m"

"Gracias" said Bob.

We made our way, bought two round trip tickets, and were out of Tijuana at 6:30. I slept the whole way, and we got into Ensenada about 8:30. It was a cool night, it felt like we were in the mountains again, we were in a downtown location, but surprisingly, we will still on the coast, in a seaport.

I was always pretty good at trying to fit in, in an odd situation. I reasoned, we should stash our packs and sleeping bags somewhere, and then head into town. My jail bound friend concurred. We walked out past a high school, and hit our stuff along a wall behind some bushes. No one was around, and we retraced our way back into town.

We hit a bar, it was a local place, and it had a working man's feel to it. We had a tequila, and washed it down with some cervezas. Man, did these taste great. Back on the street, Bob asked where was Hussongs? A minute later, we finally made it!

Heading West_21

2005-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

San Diego

I recall this was a very warm day, and we hitched south on Route 1. We walked south of town, and nailed a couple of rides. One old pickup gave us a ride past Oceanside. The back of the truck had 2-3 hippies, and they picked up 5 more hippies as we headed south. Turns out, it was a Grateful Dead concert at Del Mar.

"Need any agua?" asked this one nomad. He offered a swig of cool water from some plastic milk jugs he was carrying, next to his dog.

"We couldn't afford the tickets"

"Well we can't either, we're just going to hang out and listen
to the music for free near the stadium.

"Wow, cool"

Heading West_20

2005-08-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Laguna_sans Norm

Norm left on a trip. He told us we could use the extra car, and to slide the keys in the door when we left. We had one more fun day at the beach, just reading and observing people. Bob drove the Mustang as it was an automatic. We had one last spin in the car at night, with the top down, and we pulled up to an ice cream store, with take out windows, and hung around for an hour.

We were so innocent. We didn't try to get drunk, or party at his house. I guess we were too broke to even think about buying 10 bucks worth of beer. We were under $100 and we still had a few weeks to go on this trip.

We got up the next morning, rested and excited. We were headed south to San Diego, and Bob still had his mind set on Hussongs in Ensenada, Mexico.

Heading West_19

2005-08-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

Laguna Beach, Day 2

This next day, Norm made a pot of coffee for us. Let me tell you, my friend Bob was pretty stoked. We moved right out to the deck again, and it was fogged in, every morning. The beach was out there in the fog, but that was about a mile below us. "We get coastal fog for a few more weeks, it burns off by 10 or 11. I would like to take you guys down to the beach, in another hour, plus I can walk the dog"

I devoured the LA Times every morning on Norm's oceanside deck. What a great paper!

We put on our bathing suits. Norm had some kind of terrycloth beach jacket, and a retractable dog leash. He took the paper and some work papers with him; I think he was taking off a day or two to hang with us. His little dog joined us for the drive below. Norm parked, threw in a few quarters in the parking meters, and took us on a tour of the beach galleries, there were dozens of them, and he knew most of the owners. He also treated us to a big breakfast. Just knowing we didn't have to go back to the House of Pies was a great thrill.

I did some body surfing after this walking tour; and the waves were fantastic. I had on my favorite Katins, bright orange. Bob hung out with Norm, and I went for a run north of the Main Beach. I stumbled on the basketball courts up near this park. Here were some awesome 3 on 3 games going down, there were some huge guys, college or maybe pros just skying on these courts. I wished I had brought a pair of sneakers. I watched for about 45 minutes. Wow, I had never seen such quality hoops in such an outdoor setting..

When I got back, Norm was asking "So what do you think? Your Dad loved his visit here, is California growing on you?"

"I could stay here the rest of my life, Norm."I could only shake my head in disbelief, that I didn't come out here for college.

We stopped at a super market on the way home, he bought some huge steaks and I made a giant salad with about 8 things in it. He bought us a case of beer, and we headed back for a late afternoon BBQ and another spectacular sunset.

One cool thing happened before the sunset, I saw my first hummingbird.
It was making an unreal sound, as its little wings beat in air on some bougainvilla
that grew on his deck railings. What in the world?

Heading West_18

2005-08-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Laguna Beach

We were just about through with the Costa Mesa chapter of our trip. I had a "must contact" friend of my old man that I had to look up on this trip. His name was Norm Jacobson, he was a business contact of my Dad's who collaborated on east coast/west coast executive placements. They dealt with high end execs looking to relocate. It was a manual method of Monster.com.

For many years, my Dad and I had this running tease, about which of us was going to get to California first. He was a cool guy, closer to an older brother than a pain in the ass, or "a my way, or the highway" stentorian dad.

Any how, he had been doing a sidejob for a number of years, with a guy on the West coast named Norm. Together, they had a lucrative gig where they were doing some bi-coastal recruiting of executives. He would often be on the phone late NJ time, going over resumes, positions, candidates for jobs on either coast. Once their candidate or placement accepted a position, Norm or Nick got a cash commission, kind of a finder's fee.

In 1973, my old man (balls!) beat me to California. I picked him up when he arrived from Los Angeles. At Newark Airport, he was the most excited I had ever seen him. "Wait to you see Southern California!" Not six months later, his son had hitched out here. I needed to verify on my own, what had jazzed him so much on his trip.

I called Norm with a day or two heads up, and he sounded real nice and really friendly. I had spoken to him for years from NJ, but had never met him. He was real excited to come up and get us, and to show us his part of California. We just had a feeling, this was going to be fun, and inside look at the state.

We packed up our gear, thanked Bob and Shirley Cook for letting us stay with them for almost free. Norm picked us up around mid day, and we drove south along the coast.

Laguna Beach is a hilly, cliffside town with the residences up on these steep green hills. The town itself is on both sides of the Pacific Coast Highway One. It must have been quite a place between WWII and the sixties, supposedly it was a hipster town full of artists, and musicians.

Norm drove us around the town part, and then drove up these really steep hills, up to his house. We pulled into a garage, an automatic door opened and he parked it next to a cherry 1964 green Mustang convertible. It was just him at this homefor a week, his family was on some holiday, all he had, was a little dog in the house. You couldn't appreciate the house, as all you could see from the street was the garage doors. The main house was out past the garage, and went down three floors beneath the garage, down the cliff. He showed us a really nice guest room, it had ocean views, and it was ours!

We then ate some huge Dagwood sandwiches and talked for a while out on his deck. It was a gorgeous day. We described our week in Costa Mesa, the rides, and the trip out with Kenny B. He said, almost insisted that we hang all week with him. We agreed. We would love to hang with him for a few days. He said "make yourselves at home!"

And we kicked back for a few days. I read a book on the deck, Bob took a snooze in the guestroom, and then we had a great BBQ out on his deck. Norm served cold beers, and then he said: "Wait till the sun goes down, we should be able to see the Catalina Mountains."

This was exactly what happened. The sun set and it just burned your eyes to look into it. And as the sun sunked back into the ocean, this land mass, this offshore island sitting way out there, came into sight.

I had never seen anything like it.

The crickets started chirping, the beers kept coming out on the deck, Norm turned it, we did the dishes and had an amzing conversation about what it must be like to live out here.

Toto, we aren't in Kansas City (or Cliffside Park) any more.......

Heading West_17

2005-08-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

There was a slight rattle of metal behind us. It was squeaky sound. Something was slightly rolling around back there, maybe an inch or two as he turned on this entrance ramp. As he accelerated, the metal rolled backwards about a foot, and thumped into the back of the station wagon.

The driver didn't say much. Finally I nudged Bob, and we looked at each others eyes and then slowly turned our heads to see there were two dead bodies, under white sheets in the back of this car.

They were on these two body Trollies, and their heads were right behind our heads. "So how long have you worked at this place, is it a family business?

Weird Al smiled and said "Oh, no, I am doing this to get through junior college". He then explained how he was going to drop one of them off, and then take us right to our motel. We were pretty excited, because now we were driving toward downtown LA, and then he drove to Whittier, to drop off one of his "passengers". He explained that this chain of funeral parlors, were one of the largest ever in Los Angeles.

"so now you know why I keep the air on pretty high".

We pulled into the back of a funeral parlor in Whittier. It was covered with giant palm trees and it was the hottest part of the day. He said, he would keep the car running, but asked us, "Please don't steal the car, OK?"

He opened the back door, unsnapped the mechanism, it pulled back and he got the trolley on the ground and extended the legs, he ran it around the car and up an incline. He had keys to get in.

"Let's pull the sheet of this one" urged Bob
"Are you fricken serious?"
"GO ahead!. Let's see what this guy looks like"
"No way, you can do it"
He broke into a scary, crazy laughter, and I sat on my hands.

The guy took forever.

Bob thought it might be cool to take the car, imagining what the guy would have to explain to his boss. "I picked up these two stiff s from NJ, and then they robbed my station wagon"

We drove south now for almost another hour, right through rush hour traffic. I think he had cut across Fullerton, Buena Park, Anaheim and back to the beaches. He told us all this dense area was orange groves in the 1920's. He got us back to Bob & Shirley's place by 7pm.

We were starved. We hustled down to the House of Pies and it was a breaded pork chop night. Plenty of mashed potatoes, plenty of salad at the salad bar, and "no thank you, we'll just have water".

Heading West_16

2005-08-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Sunday

We kind of slept in this day, and I bought a local paper, and we headed back to Newport for the day. We were just checking out the girls and the cars and the scene on several of the beaches. We promised to check out LA the next few days.

Monday

We walked to the freeway this morning, and headed up to check out UCLA. We had no idea where it was, and we just kept asking the drivers who picked us up, where things were? Bob was a maniac about Hussong's, he asked everyone about it, and how to get there.

We walked around Westwood, and the campus and checked out Pauly Pavillion. It was pretty nice, and then we walked east toward Hollywood. We didn't take Wilshire, we walked on Sunset and than Santa Monica Boulevard for 5 or 6 miles. It was really hot, traffic was thick, and we took a few pictures in Beverly Hills. We were pretty parched, I think it was close to 90 degrees.

I asked Bob to take my picture standing in front of a Massage Parlor in Hollywood. It was a terrible photo, but these little cameras had no lense to speak of. When we got close to the 101, we decided to head back south. We couldn't snag a ride for 30 or 40 minutes, as cars were just rushing and gaining speed as they headed to the freeway ramp.

Finally, a new 1974 Chrysler Town & Country slowed up, and I noticed it had real fine blinds on the back windows. There was no logos or writing on the side doors, and when the driver opened the window, a cool blast of air conditioning hit my arms. "Wow, this is the first car on our trip that has air conditioning." I said to the driver. It was a guy in his twenties, kind of a Weird Al Yankovich guy with a crummy moustache. "Come on in, you have to both sit in the front." We jumped in, I was in the middle, and the guy roared on the ramp and dove into traffic.

There was several ways to describe this vehicle. The simple description, I like to offer, is that two out of three people in that car were deceased.

Heading West_15

2005-08-22T23:23:00.000-07:00

Talk about Hussong's

On Saturday night, we met up at the hotel in time for a late night, all you can eat feast at the House of Pies. He had a blast at Disneyland, and he kept talking about some place in Mexico we "have to check out, this guy, in fact two seperate people recommended it. it's in Ensenda, and its called Hoosong's"

Yea right. Sure Bob.

I think the special this night was some kind of meatloaf with lots of mashed potatoes. He asked about HB, and if the surf shops were better, and I told him about my ride on a chopper. He had gotten a couple of rides from some local kids, and he went on and on about Hussong's.

"I think its fitting that we head down to Mexico, get in a fight, get thrown in jail and try to work our way back across the border."

Now this was a guy who was fearless. On the Ft. Lauderdale trip, he had jumped a wire fence and tried to chase a few bulls around some ranch in northern Florida. He had also bounced around Europe the previous summer, starting out in the Sorbonne in Paris, and winding up with some crazy Greek radicals in Athens, at the other end of the summer. This guy lived for the moment, and that's waht made him a great traveling companion.

"We have to get to Hussongs" he insisted.

Heading West_14

2005-08-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Agreement: Travel light.

We had a mutual agreement back in these days. We were going to keep on moving, keep on traveling; and try not to settle down. Girlfriends, meant committment, meant having to get a job and settle into something, when college was done. I had met this cat Farley on the precise trail end of a girlfriend a year earlier.

I was freshman and this girl was a sophomore, at a college about 40 miles away. She had worked me over pretty good, at one time she tried testing me, she came to me and told me she was "late". Well, there was no way that she was late. I never came close to impregnating her, it was all a fricken test to see how I would handle it. She got to see how much I felt about her, by watching my reaction.

I knew it, she knew it, and it was all but over after she pulled that one.

She tested me one more time, telling me she was going off camping with some friends. How are you going to handle that one Stevie? I was mad, I was sad, and I just let her go. Another test of wills, a litmus test of young lovers. It was spring break. The Spring break of 1973 and I didn't want to head home to Cliffside. No way.

On the day I could leave for NJ, my dad was coming over from Trenton to give me a ride home. He would be there about 3pm. Decision time. I woke up determined to take a few buses south to Knoxville, and hang with some of my cousins who lived at the University of Tennessee. Bob showed up, and asked what I was doing. He didn't want to go home either.

"Hey, I watched this crazy movie last night, "Where the Boys Are" (It was a 1960 movie about Merritt, Melanie, Tuggle and Angie are four Midwestern college co-eds who travel to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for their spring vacation and a series of adventures and romance they all get into with some college guys they meet.

"I've got it", (He may have even snapped his fingers) and his big blue eyes lit up:"Let's go to Ft. Lauderdale, and let's hitch hike".

And we did. It was ludicrous. I borrowed some money from my roomate, and when my Dad came down, I told him there was a change in plan. He was so cool about this. "Do you need any cash?" "No, I got plenty".

"Just watch your ass"...he advised. He drove up the turnpike on his own.

And that was our first hitch-hiking trip.
5 days, $25 dollars, and it led to this trip the following summer.

Heading West_13

2005-08-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Do It Again (Brian Wilson)

It's automatic when I
Talk with old friends
The conversation turns to
Girls we knew when their
Hair was soft and long and the
Beach was the place to go

Suntanned bodies and
Waves of sunshine the
California girls and a
Beautiful coastline
Warmed up weather
Let's get together and
Do it again

Well I've been thinking 'bout
All the places we've surfed and danced and
All the faces we've missed so let's get
Back together and do it again

On Saturday, we got up early. Bob headed to Anaheim, and I walked myself down to Pacific Coast Highway. There wasn't much traffic, and I stuck out my thumb, and a guy on a chopped Harley pulled up.

"Going up to Huntington?"
"Sure, hop on..."

He had long dark hair, and I climbed on the back. He kicked down two metal rods to put my feet on. That took care of my feet from getting in the wheels. Next, what to hold on to. I had never been on a motorcycle, and put my arms around him. He turned and shouted: "Sit back, you don't have to hold on to me". I eased back, and there was a sissy bar in the small of my back.

He had no helmet, nor me, and I figured, oh well, trust the gods on this one. He just ripped into gear, and we were off on a 6 mile ride up the coast. This was totally unreal. It was deafening, It was breathless.

He dropped me off, and I walked out on the Huntington Beach pier. Surfers were on either side of the pier, it was about 4-5 foot swell. I walked around the beach area behind the pier, it was pretty run down, beach rental stores, biker bars. I waited a couple of hours, and then the shops started to open. These were enormous surf shops, holding hundreds of new boards.

I hit 4 or 5 shops, and they were intimidating.
The biggest place was this place called Jack's Surf Shop.

It was a scene in here, with a couple of guys really pushing for me to buy a "Hot stick". I really felt great about hanging with the guys back at the Russell Surf Shop after this experience.

At Russell's the guy working the counter, just said "Good Morning", and just let me take out boards, lay them on the floor and look at the shape and the rocker in them.

After about twenty minutes, he asked if I wanted to share some fish he was going to order for lunch. I did. What a laid back place that had been. This place was a zoo, and they were selling boards like they were used cars. "Check out this new black covered board, these are so hot!" Yea, right.

Heading West_12

2005-08-22T07:34:00.000-07:00

Several odd things would begin to occur on this California odysey.

For two 19 year old guys sitting in a House of Pies in Costa Mesa, our biggest issues were: a place to sleep, and some cheap food. We had quickly found both of these minor issues. Now we could confront global issues. Oil embargoes, wars, elections, pop and cultural things swirling around. When two inquisitive 19 year old History majors have hitchhiked to the west coast, we always focused on some worldly philosophizing, tackling these issues waiting for a ride, or over plates of unlimited spaghetti.

Was the world different back then?

Who knows? In hindsight, there was certainly less technology in the common man's hands. With no ATM machines, you needed to get find a teller to provide you cash for evenings or weekends. There were no cell phones, PCs, or a GUI access to an internet. We owned no credit cards. We had our real NJ Drivers Licenses, (our fake IDs deep in our wallets, and less than 100 dollars. There were no girlfriends or kids pictures in our wallets. God forbid.

The big three networks and newspaper media dominated the reporting mechansim.
There was no cable TV.

Vietnam was over, as in the previous January of 1973, President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam which was later followed by a unilateral withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. With 55,000 American casualties, and defeat, the nation was still divided on the big issues.

The 1973 oil crisis was also on the back burner in the spring of 1974, as OPEC eased off on a 5 month oil embargo against the U.S. Bombs and senseless acts of violence were going on in Dublin, not Baghdad. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were calling the shots in his second term. What could stop these two?

Unexpectedly, Nixon would have significant internal issues to deal with. In this past March of 1974, seven men were indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. Then Thursday May 9th, four days before we left on this trip, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon.

After six or seven portions of spaghetti and meatballs at the "House of Pies"; we pondered our game plan for the coming weeks. If we could eat once a day for 4.99, (and drink water and avoid the humngous pies!), we could hang out in Orange County for a week.

I wanted to check out the surf scene. Bob wanted to check out Hollywood and Disneyland. There was plenty of time to head south to San Diego (and hook up with Kenny, our old friend) or check out LA, and then maybe head up to San Francisco in the final days of the trip.

We had a blank canvas for this part of the trip. We were short on paint ($$$$)

On Thursday night, we walked back to our motel, showered and turned on the television. The sun set over the Pacific, we stretched our aching bodies on clean sheets, and dreamed 19 year od teenager dreams of excitement, adventure, and a huge feeling of accomplishment that we had gotten this far. We could still be stuck in some desert or thrown in jail in Oklahoma or Texas, if Kenny hadn't picked us up.

What would they be serving Friday night, at the House of Pies?

Friday May 17
We awoke on Friday morning, and it was a glorious morning!. When Bob switched on the TV, thirty-three people had died in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings in Ireland. Members of the Protestant factions, were suspected. Ugly.

We decided to check out local Newport Beach. We made our beds, locked up our room, and strolled 2 miles west on Newport Boulevard. We had coffee (Bob) and hot cholocate (me) and sat in the sand, watching girls roller skating, fisherman headed out to the Balboa pier, and surfers caught waves to the north of the pier. I had to get in the water, so we headed to some local surf shops on this peninsula. After checking out one or two, I found a friendly guy at the Rusell Surf Shop, and he rented me a board for half a day, and I surfed right in front of Bob for an hour or two. The water was cold!

I was overjoyed. Back at the surf shop, I asked about buying one of his boards and shipping it east to NJ. "No problem, we do it all the time". I put two boards on hold. One was a green 7'2" and the other was an orange 6'10". I told him I'd be back in a day or two to decide. He taped two cards on them "Hold for Steve B" I was stoked.

We walked up and down the Newport peninsula and Balboa Island was really hot. This is one of the coolest Orange County towns. Costa mesa is up on a hill, and it drops down into these little bays full of cute beach houses, crowded on tiny streets, with a big bike path on the sand.

There are volley ball courts, and places to rent bikes and boards. Houses were for sale here for over 300k. We thought it was a typing error. There were hot convertibles, 911s, Mercedes, parked everywhere. Corvettes, Camaros, ragtops ruled here.

Bob was enjoying the scenery too. Every girl seemed blonde and blue eyed. We decided to split up the next day, as he wanted to hit Disneyland, and I was going to head north to Huntington Beach. We walked back up to Costa Mesa and our hotel, we still had a couple of hours before the dinner began.

SLA Shootout
We ran into a Pop Culture event that was occurring.

Just up the road from us, in Long Beach. It was the whole Patty Hearst thing. The granddaughter of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst was abducted from her Berkeley college residence in February 1974, sparking the biggest manhunt since the Lindbergh kidnapping. Surprisingly, Hearst was next spotted in bank surveillance footage, brandishing automatic weapons during robberies. She released statements stating she had sided with her captors, members of the revolutionary Symbionese Liberation Army, and renounced her family. So Patty was on the lam, the same season,when we rolled into town.

Tania
To show off its newest recruit, the SLA targeted a Hibernia Bank branch in San Francisco. The April 15, 1974, heist netted more than $10,000 for the group, which was short on funds. Bank surveillance cameras showed Hearst holding a rifle. Two bystanders were shot. Los Angeles police had a televised shootout with SLA members, but Hearst, who now called herself "Tania," fled. She was apprehended in September

A fiery shootout
On May 16, 1974, Hearst sprayed a barrage of gunfire outside a Los Angeles sporting goods store to help free SLA member Bill Harris, detained for shoplifting, and his wife, Emily, who had come to his aid.

"(Hearst) pointed an M-1 carbine and fired the whole clip," FBI agent Charles Bates said "And then she took another rifle and shot some more. As I recall, there's about 30 shots, and there were people walking along the sidewalk. ... Thank God she missed them."

Hearst and the Harrises made a getaway in a van. They later ditched it, but a parking ticket inadvertently left behind led police to the SLA's whereabouts.

The following day, May 17, Los Angeles police surrounded a house where most SLA members were holed up. A massive shootout ensued, and the building went up in flames -- shown live on television.

Six SLA members died in a shootout with Los Angeles police in May 1974. Hearst watched the fiery battle on TV, from a nearby motel near Disneyland.

Bob and I watched this thing for about 2 hours. It was insane.
Six SLA members were killed in the battle with police, including the group's leader.

Heading West_11

2005-08-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

First day in California

After three consecutive nights on the road, it felt pretty good wrapping up this moving part of the trip. Our first night on the road, rolling through Ohio in his VW. Our second night, high in the Colorado Rockies; just short of cliffing it, and this our third night: on a rest stop lawn (just sneaking inside California.

Kenny swung that purple Bug west and we headed towards LA.

We were in traffic now with Black license plates, with the yellow numbers and letters. We were stoked to be getting closer to the ocean, and Los Angeles signs kept showing up with less and less miles on them.

Ken thought he had a buddy in San Diego, and he gave us his phone number to check in with. We were thinking he could drop us in LA or south of LA, me for the beaches, and Bob wanted Disneyland.

I had a subscription to Surfer magazine since 1968, and I had a pretty good idea where all the surfable beaches were. As we got closer to the coast, traffic started to get more crowded, and we were suddenly deep in Southern California suburbia. Kenny got us into Orange County around 10am. We stopped, got our stuff out, shook hands, hugged, and he was gone. We would try to hook up in a week or two.

I could almost smell the ocean from where we were. I begged Bob. "Please, just let me see the ocean, I have to just stick my foot in it, please!" He was very agreeable. But we were stuck in Costa Mesa, a town up and east of the beaches near Newport. We had one more hitch to get us there.

We stuck our thumbs out on an west bound street, and Bam! A guy picked us up in another VW, this time, it was a Karmen Ghia. And this guy was off the charts. He had a Mohawk, his sides of his head were shaved, and he had on a blue jumpsuit. The most amazing thing though, he had a pair of Shazammm shoes on, they were silver, and the tips curled up and back towards his ankles. I saw this all, because I was in the front with him.

We told him where we were headed and where we came from. I was so polite telling him how this was the last ride in our coast to coast trip. The best ride is the last one. He laughed.

This was what I wanted to do since I was 9 or 10, see this other ocean. Every year in grammar school, I had been ridiculed about Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean. I could not think straight. "Well, its there, right in front of you, go get it" He apparantly had just gotten back from Viet Nam, and was trying to get his attitude back. We wished him well. He dropped us off at the Newport Pier; appropriately named "Balboa Pier".

This was it, this is what we saw, I threw my backback on the sand, and ran up and kicked off my workboots, socks and stuck my feet in the Pacific. It was unreal, it was Cosmic!! (whatever that means) The water was cold, the sand was brownish-white, not the NJ snow white powdery sand I grew up with. This was it. I grabbed hands of it, it was granular, and I heaved it out into the surf.

Now what? We needed a place to stay, and the beach here would be pretty pricey. Hotels were almost $45 or $60 dollars a night, and we only had about $120 each.

I suggested we head back off the beach, baak towards Costa Mesa where Kenny had dropped us off. We didn't hitch, we hoofed it back on Costa Mesa Boulevard, and on the walk back, we ran into an "all you can eat" place, a sign clearly said: "House of Pies"...."all you can eat---7 nights a week"

We made a note of that, and headed east toward the strip malls and cheap two story motels of Costa Mesa.

In about an hour, we came across a two story stucco motel that was being renovated. We went around cement mixers and laborers. We found the office, and rang the little bell, and a middle aged bald man came out and greeted us. "Hi, we are a couple of guys from the east coast, we came out to check out some colleges out here, and we don't have a lot of money. Is there anything available in your establishment that we could afford for, say a week? We would be happy to help you with any odd jobs or chores to help pay the fee."

"How much can you afford to pay?" he asked
"Maybe, (I looked at Bob and shrugged) maybe about $40 dollars for a week?" we suggested
"Let me see" he said.

He went into the back office and we presumed he had a conference with his wife. These people definitely had a big heart for us, and he came back and said: "Forty dollars it is" and then "We can give you a room up on the second floor. He checked us in, we paid $20 dollars each, and he gave us a receipt!. I will never forget this couple. They were Bob and Shirley Cook.

We got our room key. We showered and took a nap, fully extended, and on a bed with sheets. Bob woke first and said "I am really, really hungry". "Yep, me too." We walked back to the "House of Pies" about two miles back to Newport, and grabbed a vinyl covered booth, and confirmed with a young waitress that it really was an "All you can eat" opportunity. After three days of Snickers and Hersheys bars, we did some serious damage to their "Spagetti Night-All You can Eat"

Heading West_10

2005-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Utah, AZ, and Nevada

It was starting to get warm in this part and time of year in southwest Utah. We all pulled off our jackets and sweatshits, and Kenny rolled down the windows and was all fired up. He had stopped smoking, he was out of stock. We shot between the Dixie National Forest, and it was almost pure downhill driving. Several times, Kenny shutoff the key and we drafted behind some big trailers. The Rockies were behind our fumes. we were coming down to the flatlands. You could almost imagine Indians on horseback behind these dark mountains and hills.

"Now this is my kind of weather" said Kenny.

I slept and bullshitted, we philosophized and experienced pure joy traveling with my best friend and with this new friend. We hit speeds of 70-75 in this little old Bug. Again, we had no spare, and were dependent on whatever money he had in his flannel top pockets to keep gassing this sweet German chariot.

One highlight of this Route 15 is we just nicked the top most corner of Arizona. We let out another group scream when we saw that "Welcome to Arizona" sign. We were like little boys on a class trip. NJ. PA, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and.....the best was coming last: California and the Pacific Ocean!!

We hit Nevada late in the afternoon. At this rate, we were going to spend night, somewhere past Las Vegas. We pulled into downtown Vegas, on the strip around 8am, and we found a BBQ rib joint just west of the city. Great BBQ sauces, cold beers and a cheap tasty meal, our only one for the day. It was a clean but dumpy local place, not a chain. We bid Adieu to Vegas, and decided to psuh it into California and crash somewhere in the evening.

In the east Mojave, we pulled into a new clean rest stop with a large parking lot, and we threw our sleeping bags on a nice lawn and slept under the stars. My first night in California was in this East Mojave National Scenic Area. I could have died and went to heaven. This time tommorow night, I could dip my toes in the big pond, the Pacific Ocean.

Heading West_9

2005-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

We rolled into northwest Denver at dark. We avoided the city, and Route 76 turned into Route 70. We still couldn't see the mountains too well, so the Rockies really start right behind, or west of Denver.

We stopped somewhere west of Golden, maybe even to Idaho Springs, and then stopped at a roadhouse that had pitchers of beer and burgers. It was a cool place, it had deer heads and antlers on the wall, and some kind of wood paneling. It had a ski lodge feel too it, but on a spring night. I wish could have have stayed here for a few days, but it was impossible having this ride going all the way.

We had 3-4 pitchers of Coors. Maybe 5-6, and we staggered to the car, it was Bob's turn to drive. Kenny and I jostled for the rear seat, and I got in first. Farley kept driving into the night. Something odd happened near midnight. Bob fell asleep at the wheel and gently came to rest on the side of a shoulder.

We both woke up and asked: "Why did you stop?" Bob was confused, and said he was falling asleep, he couldn't keep his eyes open or something. We got out and used the facilities, and then noticed we were very near the end of a large mountainous drop off, and there wasn't any guard rail here either. Jeez.

Well, we'll stay here tonite said Kenny, and we all fell asleep in the car. When we awoke, were a few miles near Grand Junction. The other two guys had hot coffee at a rest stop, and I had a hot chocolate. Grand Junction looked like a cool place, but it was gas and go. We got into Utah around 10am.

I got to take the wheel (but not the shifter) for the next leg. I took us into Green River, and boy was this pretty country. We pulled into a gas station in the middle of no where, and there was a blond, blue eyed girl working the register at this gas station to die for. She had a big smile, wore boots and jeans, and behind her in the distance were a few snow covered mountains.

Some unknown territory in my head was sending out signals like: stay here, settle down, this is it. I clearly heard those signals, but pushed them down and got back in the car smiling. Kenny shifted me back into fourth gear, and we roared into a collision with Southeast Route 15

Heading West_8

2005-08-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Nebraska

Mid afternoon, hot and sunny, this Interstate 80 is a necessary bore, a rite of our passage.
Years later, looking down on this state from an airplane, it amazes you how big it is by road.
Imagine doing this in a covered wagon.
Lots of intersecting roads, exits going to the horizon, lots of farms. Seven hours of flatness.
Where the hell are the Rocky Mountains?

Kenny the owner of the Bug, was pretty quiet, he seemed deep in thought on my right, playing with junk in the glove compartment. He snoozed for a while, then awoke and combed out his beard and hair with a black plastic comb. He readjusted his leather sweat band, and went to work on the radio.

I kept my foot down hard on the gas, pedal to the metal and battled the winds. There was no need to use my left foot on the clutch, I couldn't drive a stick. We moved along at a steady 55 miles an hour. In about 35 minutes, Kenny reconnected the radio to the speakers, and the old Sapphire radio was alive again. He dialed into a few stations, we got into some music, and then some news.

I was expecting an all points bulletin, looking for a marraige chucking carpenter and two stooges from Villanova. There wasn't a heck of a lot to listen to in the middle of Nebraska. We were about 20 miles from North Platte, and a radio station announced that there was a freak late spring snow storm up in Yellowstone, and the park had been hit with 2-3 feet of fresh snow.

We all heard it.
Kenny had a silly laugh.
"Go figure!" he moaned, then did a drum roll on the passenger dash.

"I come all this way, and the place is snowed in".

Farley went to work on him. "Hey Kenny, you're gonna need some snow tires for this next part of your trip." He just smiled, and kept tapping on the dashboard, singing some songs in his head. I went into his pockets, he lit up another of his many little roaches, exhaled a hit, and then finally said, "You know, I think we're all headed to California, F Yellowstone!"

Right On! This couldn't have come at a better time, because the road forked up ahead, and we were going to have to take Route 76 Southwest into Denver, to get back on course for southern California. I was cramped and tired, I had driven almost from Omaha to Julesberg, and the Platte River was now on the right side of the Bug, and there still wasn't a dam mountain in sight.

"At the next gas, Old Kenny Berger will take the wheel..."

Before that happened, we procured a handful of candy bars for Bob and I. Like dogs on a roadtrip, we stretched our legs, and sucked down some free fountain water at the station.

It still remained flat around here, but we could figure from the road signs, we were slowly climbing in elevation. We switched drivers, I climbed in the back, Bob drove the beast, while Kenny rode shot gun. Bob and Kenny were talking about Euro girls. Farley was cracking him up about having to pay a Franc every time he did something wrong in his college class that summer.

I was in the back, and in a daze when we finally left Nebraska and entered Colorado. I couldn't wait to have a Coors! I must been in and out of a nap, when Bob or Kenny muttered: "Oh Shit!". A police car behind us, had just hit his cherry top. We were about to see how calm our Harrisburg host would be. One mile inside the Brush, Colorado city limit, we were stopped on the shoulder, and an older policeman was checking out Farley's license, which was current.
Later, we found out the town was named for Jared L. Brush. Brush came west to mine gold west of Denver in 1858. It was nothing but stockyards for miles and miles.

The cop was some Colorado State Trooper, and he was old and slow. He asked us all out the car, and Kenny asked him politely. "Sir, what was I doing wrong?" "Boys, you were going under the speed limit for Route 76." "I have to , I don't have a spare tire, and the engine is old and tired."

"Which one of you own the car?" So Kenny fessed up, and the cop wrote him a ticket for not having a current registration. The car was in his name, but it had expired. The fine was $30 dollars. "If you gentlemen will follow me and Mr. Berger, we are going to head into town to a drop box, where you can pay the fee."

We did just that. Bob had to drive, since I couldn't shift the gears, and we were hoping this was all we had to do. We pulled into a Post Office, and the cop watched him put the cash in a special envelope. Once deposited, the cophanded him his receipt, and the cop was pretty cool, he never searched our bags, back packs or the car, and that was that.

Outside the Post Office, the policeman asked where we were headed.
We told him. He mused:
"California, you fellows should be there in a couple of days"

At this point, we realized how fricken horrible it smelled in downtown Brush. It reeked of cattle and what cattle make in a zillion pens of cattle.
In downtown Brush, Kenny couldn't let that go.
He was very pissed, as this bullshit infraction just took out most of his cash.

"This town smells like Shit!" he said (undiplomatically)
"Boys, that is the smell of Money!" the cop said, and he tipped his hat.
We got back in his car, and we to ours.

"What a bunch of horseshit......or cow shit!!" muttered Kenny.

Headed West_7

2005-08-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

We soon crossed into Nebraska in the afternoon.

I guess we crossed the Missouri River. I was driving and stopping for gas three or four times.
Kenny said "push down the clutch" and he shifted each time with his left hand. Once we got into top gear, I was the captain of the ship. We eventually got parallel to the Platte River, on one side of the freeway and then the other. We weaved across this flat prairie, and Bob crashed in the back, and Kenny philosophied, sang songs, rambled and got high, all on his lonesome.

At some point we would have to turn north and get him up to Yellowstone near Montana. But Bob and I had a plan at the last gas station. "This guy is pretty cool, lets see if we can talk him into going to California."

Earlier, when I was in the bcak, I found a small open wooden crate with a stack of developed photos in them. I had noticed some boudoir photos of a dark haired, short woman, nude on a couch. I had looked at 7 or 8 of them in the back, and then placed them back in the box. At this point in the trip, Farley was in the back, and he had spotted them. A bit less diplomatically, Farley asked Kenny "Hey Ken, who is this hot lady in these pictures?"

"Oh those are my wife, check these out!" He reached in the back and started reviewing them.
"Man, she still has one hot body."

We were pretty embarassed at these shots. They eventually made their way back into the crate, and we continued talking about the benefits of going this summer to California.

"Hey Kenny, do you like the Beach Boys?"
"Have you ever been to sunny California, like Malibu or San Diego?"

"Do you think there are any hot california girs out in the summer time, maybe even this summer?"

"Oh I doubt it" Farley added: "All the hot ones, they probably all headed up to Yellowstone."

Heading West_6

2005-08-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

Midwest

After 9 hours wedged in the back of a beater VW, the morning was a treat. If you ever were in one of these "Made in Germany" old VW's, they had a particular smell to them. The ceiling had a soft padded vinyl pad on it, and the seats were also some kind of vinyl.

I awoke and saw Farley wrestling with the wheel and the morning sunrise in his eyes, he had no sun glasses, and had the visor down and was breathing heavy. He looked focused on the road and the traffic, but I knew that look he looked beat dead.
Kenny snoozed in the passenger seat, and eventually woke up and joined our conversation.

"Where the f are we?" asked Kenny.
"We're 100 miles from Iowa" said Bob.
"Let's stop for some coffee at the next chance"
"Sure Ken" my friend was exhausted and running like this car, on fumes.

We pulled into a rest stop, and Kenny filled it with cheap gas. The two college boys, saving our bucks, we only bought a couple of candy bars. Kenny and Bob bought large coffees at the counter. I hated coffee. When we got back to the idle Bug, Kenny looked at me and said "It's your turn to drive"

"I can't drive a stick"
"Oh you can, I'll shift it for you"

And that's just what he did. I started the engine, he told me when to hit the clutch, and we shifted and roared out to the freeway and he shifted me up to fourth gear.

I was so excited. I put on my perscription sunglasses and took a deep breath, and was driving this beast into Iowa before long. we tanked up and soon we were trucking. There was nothing in the whole world I wanted to be doing, on a sunny mid week, than driving a car across this midwest state.

It was ugly, it was flat and boring, and for the most part, we could give a dam.
We looked over to each other, knowing we had snagged a killer ride, and
we were eating up miles, on our Headed West tour.

Heading West_5

2005-08-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

Kenny pushed on

As he weaved his tales of his morning escape, we kind of felt bad for him. I had no idea how a married couple could disagree, or divorce, or throw infidelity into a relationship. This guy was on the lam. He had left the scene of the crime in Harrisburg, PA. Now, the three of us were in the getaway car, and the rattly old VW engine was groaning out behind my back seat, and I held a greasy spare tire digging into my lap.

Not for long.

In the middle of the rainstorm, not two hours into middle Ohio, we moved around 45 mph in the slow lane. There was a BASH, and then we skidded out toward the shoulder of the highway. The back of the VW on my side was flat or we were on the ground back there. Kenny got out, with Bob, and they helped me out...and now they had a reason to get the spare tire off my lap......the back right tire had just fallen off!

The tire had rolled clear and was out in a field somewhere. It was too dark to look for it. Kenny tried, but just cursed. So we picked up the back of the bug by the bumper and the wheel well, and Kenny slapped the spare tire, (my companion) on the rim. He took one lug nut off each of the other three wheels, tightened them up, and said: "Let's get the hell out of here!" We made it to a rest stop, and he put air evenly in the tires, and tightened up the lug nuts real good on all four of them. We tanked up the gas, he checked the oil, and scratched his beard.

Kenny was the kind of guy you would like to share a bunk in bootcamp, or on the Pequod.

He then gave Bob the wheel, and got in the front seat, pulled out a pillow and took another hit or two on a roach fromt the ash tray, and was quickly into a Siesta. "Are you OK Bob?" Oh yea, he said. "I prefer driving, since I can't sleep."

So Bob did it, he drove through Ohio and Indiana and we came into Illinois when the sun was coming up. I slept through the night, snug as a bug, my thighs grateful that spare tire was back on the axle and doing its thing.

When I woke up, the right side of my head vibrated steadily on the window, and the western skies were a light powder blue. The sun was coming up on day 2 of of trip.

Heading West_4

2005-08-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

"so Kenny, where are you from?"

"Harrisburg. Harrisburg PA." he laughed.
and in the fading light, he told his tale.

We could see he was a cool guy. He had long hair, parted in the middle and he had a leather string around his forehead. He wore a solid thick and dark, brown beard. He had a denim jacket and jean jacket over a flannel shirt. He was a carpenter, had married his high school teacher!

Could you inagine that? That must have been steamy. Kenny had two kids, and worked for his father-in-law, and he wasn't too fond of his father-in-law, or his daughter, at this point. After a few minutes, he started to warm up, and tell us more and more of his story.

He was now in his late twenties. He had been in the army after high school. He had somehow, got out of serving in Viet Nam. He had won this car in a poker game several nights ago. This car, it was worth about $150 dollars.

In it, he had packed a fresh water fishing rod, and a fishing box, and in the nose of the VW was a box of tools. He had about 3 flannel shirts on rickety hangers on the back window hook, behind the seat near me. He had taken the car to his brothers house, and not told his wife about it. He loaded his stuff in it for two nights, and had plans to drive north on Route 100 north through PA and New York State north to Canada. Apparently in Toronto, he had an old military friend of his, who promised him a carpenters job. Kenny had a small quantity of marijuana with him, and he never offered us any. We were happy to just be in the ficken car. At this point in his story, he reached into the ash tray, and finished off a roach.

This morning, he had left his house for his day carpenter job, took a deep beath, fired up a joint, and hit Route 80. This trip was premeditated, and he had no second thoughts about leaving his family. In an hour, he made another decision, he blew off driving to Toronto. Instead, he swung the purple Bug west and decided to go west for a couple of weeks. A fishing and camping visit to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming was in order! He took a pee break in the Cleveland rest station, and said "what the hell" and picked us up.

It was raining really hard now, and I could only think about the Great Lakes that we were passing on our right hand side. Kenny's car roared on, and he kept talking. His wife was "really hot", but she took her Dad's side and was nagging him to death. "You know......" he said. (Like we did?) I couldn't take it any more, and decided to leave town". "You just can't change some people" he muttered; along with some other sighing statements which we could not decipher, as innocent single guys. (That knowledge comes with age).

"I was getting a little tired when I decided to get a coffee, and take a leak. I almost picked up the two guys who were hitching in front of the rest stop. You guys were on the right side of this service station, that's when I picked you.

Bob responded, "We like to stand under the lights, and let the people see us!"

"Well it dammed well worked!" said Kenny.

Heading West_3

2005-08-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

"My name is Kenny Berger".

You take a leap of faith when you get on a commercial airline, a ferry, or a train.

And so too on the road, when you're hitch-hiking, you are hoping the driver picking you up is unarmed, sober, rational and not too weird. Bob & I, had a perfected a team method in our hitch-hiking process. We decided before we got in the car, who was going to sit in the front seat. That guy would have to talk with the driver, and the guy in the back could sack out. We had this set before each ride. "I got the back!" "OK".

If you have a friend hitching with you, you have a second opportunity to "connect" with the driver. If there's two people in the front, conversation opportunities increase. We also had a "third person" hitching with us on every ride, even if we were hitching solo. The "Third man in"' a hockey expression, was in effect, and that third man was Dale Carnegie.

Dale Carnegie wrote a book called "How to Win Friends and Influence People" My younger sister gave me a hard copy of this book, and I am sure it was a joke. Just a joy to read, this book is truly a classic. With its timeless stories the author uses to illustrate the principles of getting along with others, and we read it, and tested it on the road. It flat our worked. and it made such an impact on me years ago that I still recommend it to people to this day.

His book is not just a set of instructions - it's an art form, and using it was a feat. My favorite question to ask the driver was if they were in the Armed service, and or, what was their first automobile. Then sit back, and listen for an hour. The stories that came out were classics.

Another issue when hitchhiking over a thousand miles, is how well can you sleep in a moving car. My mom used to say, since I was a baby, that it only took one revolution of the car wheel for me to fall sound asleep. To this day, if I am not driving, I can sleep for hours in a car. It is refreshing to get 3-4 hours of sleep, especially if you will be the next guy driving, or trying to keep an obstinate driver awake, who refuses to let you drive.

My hitchhiking partner was just too amped, he refused to sleep in the car, and would ramble with the driver, or lean forward in the back of the car to participate in conversations. Bob arrived exhausted on all of our trips. The ying and the yang of our personalities was in play.

We never offered to pay for gas, nor were we ever asked to chip in to pay a toll or buy gas. If someone wanted to buy us a meal, and they did, we always accepted. We never carried drugs or alcohol on us, fearing for a police shakedown. We never had a lot of money either, I think I had 115 dollars for this California trip. We also never carried any food or water.

We had typical haircuts for the time. We didn't wear our hair really long, but it was over our ears. Farley had blue jeans and a blue denim jacket. I had a lifeguard windbreaker and a pair of brown corduroys. Farley had a blue dufflebag, a sleeping bag in the bottom. I had an extra shirt or two, in a BSA Yucca back, and a dusty old sleeping bag lashed to the top of it. I was near-sighted and wore glasses, and Bob had 20/20 eyesight.

As we jumped in this old VW bug, the door slamming like a garbage can cover, the driver roared out on the Ohio blacktop, and we headed into a steady rain and then thuderstorms.

Heading West_2

2005-08-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

The Initial morning

The first two guys who picked us up, were headed to class at Montclair State. They were sipping some store bought coffee, in paper cups. They perked up when we said we were headed to the West coast. We were in age, their contemporaries; except they were jersey boy, college commuters, and apparently stuck in their parent's houses, in north jersey. They were facing some grim summer jobs.

They dropped us off at their exit in Paterson. We nailed another ride quickly.

This reide was a young girl of 24 going to work in Parsippany. She too, appeared a little commuter sleepy, and from where I sat, her hair was still wet from her shower. She told me, I looked like one of her brothers. She dropped us off, and BAM!, two blue collar guys in coveralls picked us up next, and they were headed to a job in Stanhope, just past Lake Hopatcong. These guys fired up a joint, and it was only 9 a.m. God bless the working man.

They passed it back to us, and we were "flying the kite" in the back seat, as they flew west to their time clocks somewhere west of us. Music boomed on their car radio. We were rocking out on a sunny morning, on Interstate 80.

At the next exit, there was a large graded, grassy hill on the northern side of Route 80. Unfortunately, there were 4 seperate people hitching ahead of us. When you are hitching, say on an entrance ramp, whoever gets there first, has the spot closest to the inbound traffic. If we would start hitching in front of them, nearest to the oncoming traffic, we could easily be hit with stones or a good sized stick.

There is honor amongst the hitchhiking society, and from what I hear, with hobos.

We took up the 5th position way down the road, nodding a stoned hello to these cats. We looked pretty clean cut, almost collegiate, next to these guys. After a half hour, and no one being picked up, we hiked up the hill, or knoll, and laid back in the sun. I fell asleep for maybe 30 minutes, and so did Bob.

When I awoke, I was a little disoriented. That was some potent stuff we inhaled with the blue collar guys. We scrambled down the hill and now, we were alone. Weird, we were the only ones here. In five minutes, we had another ride, this time a real estate guy headed to Pennsylvania to look at some property. He took us through the last miles of western NJ. I used to go to Boy Scout camp up near Blairstown. This Delaware Water Gap is so pretty, anytime of year, and today is was clear and sunny, like this photo.
We were over the Delaware River, and into the Poconos of Eastern Pennsylvania. Just outside of White Haven, PA, a late model Plymouth stopped and in it was a balding, middle aged Italian guy who checked us both out, and then asked us if "we could drive for him". You bet your ass we could drive.

He was headed to Cleveland, and had to be there for an appointment around 6 or 7 pm. "Sure, I would love to get us to Cleveland and in time for dinner!" I said.

His car had a big engine, and it was an automatic. He let me have the wheel, in fact, he gave the front seat to Bob, and he climbed in the back and said "Wake me when we need gas". I got in the driver seat, and cautiously opened it up to about 80, and maybe 85 on a few occaisons.

"I will pay any tickets you get, just make sure you get me there in time. "

With that assurance, he was soon snoring away. Funny how wearing seat belts was just not happening in 1974. I drove 350 miles in just about five hours. We stopped once for gas and he made a few phone calls.

He never said what he was doing in Cleveland, and we didn't ask more after he said "business" and settled back down for a nap. As we crossed the Ohio state line, we headed north and west of Youngstown. Mostly Ohio license plates dominated the traffic. Just below Cleveland, Route 80 and Route 90 run as one. The clouds were getting thicker, the afternoon grew darker, it was now overcast as we were moving into some spring thunderstorms. He dropped us off in a rest station, we thanked him and hit the rest room.

It was now about 7:30 pm, and we had our third state in the hopper for the day. We had interntions of pushing it, stay on the road and hitch all night. Sleeping in a hotel was out of the question, that would be for some candy asses. We could smell rain, and we walked out towards the two exits of the rest station, hoping to stand under some streetlights and get a ride before the rain.

Bob worked the one inside lane, closer to the gas pumps, and I worked a lane coming out of the rest stop. We were about 60 feet apart, like we were flyfishing on a roaring stream.

A purple VW Bug downshifted, and a hippy looking guy rolled down his window and I asked him, "Good evening, are you by chance, headed west?" "Yes, I heading to Yellowstone" he smiled.

"Got room for two?"
"You bet"....

I yelled frantically to Bob, who was right behind me now, "He's going to Yellowstone!" We almost grabbed the car, and held it until we could climb in.

We pushed the front passenger seat forward, and I reached in the back, and handed Bob a spare inflated VW tire. I jumped in the back, and Bob handed me back, the greasy rim, and I shoved my pack, his duffle bag over me, behind the driver. ""Go!" yelled Bob, as he jumped in the front, and the driver shifted like a bandit and we were back on the road on a stormy April night.

Is there anything better than moving west, with your best friend, and being an invincable lad of 19?

Heading West_1

2005-07-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Genesis of the trip

Our Villanova second semester ended earlier than any other college in the country. We were dismissed in late April, almost every year for some reason.

Our strategy was to take a hitch-hiking trip west, hitting both LA and San Francisco; and be back to NJ by mid June. Bob was going to take some summer classes. I don't think he had to work any of these summers. My "work" was a gas. I had an ocean lifeguard job lined up for the summer south at the Jersey Shore.

My partner on this adventure was Robert Farley. We had met freshman year, he was a gangly blue eyed Irish American boy from Jersey City. In the spring of 1973, we had hitched to Fort Lauderdale from Philly on less than 15 bucks a piece. We had promised ourselves on the return of that trip, that the next trip, we would hit the West coast. For this upcoming trip, I had saved about 130 dollars.

Roberto had confided to this mom his plan, and his dad was dead set against it. He forbade him to go, he wanted him to stay home and get a summer job. Bob basically packed a bag, hitched up from his home at Point Pleasant. He told his dad he was coming up to see me for a few days. I was home maybe one day, when he showed up, I was shooting hoops and it was a lovely spring evening.

We were totally stoked. We planned on taking Route 80 West, and then dropping southwest at some point and heading for southern California. Nothing more than that. Not a lot of details, but a "go for it" attitude with a lot of flexibility. That evening, my dad got home from work, and we gathered around for the usual family dinner, with Nick at the head of the table, holding court. My younger brother and sister were quiet listening to this imminent adventure. My mom cooked a great dinner, my Dad busted Bob's balls at the meal. All we needed was sunrise.

When my family went to bed, we had our gear set up in the living room. I had a B.S.A green canvas Yucca pack, an old dusty sleeping bag. Not much more than an extra shirt, corduroys, jeans and a pair of Katin surf baggies stuffed in there. Roberto had a longer blue dufflebag, with his sleeping bag stuffed in the bottom.

We watched a really weird science fiction movie: "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" around midnite. It was apocalyptic cinema, Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer are the only people left in a post-apocalyptic world, Harry Belafonte emerges from a mine after an accident and discovers that the world is deserted, except for Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer. Some kind of nuclear war has taken place and there are few survivors. No dead bodies, no rotting corpses. No physical body traces of any kind an odd 1959 movie. There are striking images of a deserted New York City. There was a dummy in the movie they called "Snodgrass"

When the morning came, my dad was off to work, and he woke me up. I was in the middle of a dream, and I woke startled and said: "I am having a dream". And his reply was "Was it worth it?".

A quick bowl of cereal, and Nick drove us north through Fort Lee, to the GW Bridge, and the start of Route 80. If we made it all the way across, we should wind up in San Francisco. We shook hands and his last advice (always) was "Watch your ass!". We scrambled out and down the cement stairs to the westbound ramp coming out of Manhattan.

We nailed our first ride immediately.
California, here we come!

Heading West_from Cliffside_spring 1974

2005-02-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

We stayed up much too late, watching old movies. But who could sleep tonite? We were leaving in the morning for a hitchhiking trip, and we were had butterflies and impatient minds. Later, after sleeping a bit, I was deep in a dream, when my dad woke me.

He shook me......"Get up, hey wake up".
I murmered "I was still dreaming".

He asked "was it worth it?"

A bowl of Wheaties for me, and my friend. Into the car on a chilly morning. My old man dropped us off at the George Washington bridge interchange, and we ran to a westbound entrance ramp on the other side of Lemoine Avenue. It was a clear, April morning, and we were headed west.

We had done Fort Lauderdale from Philly a year earlier, spring break on only $15 dollars each. My same friend proved to be a tremendous spirit on that trip. This year, we waited for the second semester to end, and we aimed for the other side. Our goal wasthe big pond hugging California.

Smiling and thumbs out over our shoulders, we were hustling to be the first one to grab a ride on this trip. In a matter of seconds, in a sea of cars roaring from the bridge, the first car stopped for us. It was two kids our age, headed to class at Montclair State.

Preface_Across from 125th Street in Harlem

2005-02-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

Just West of Harlem.

Across the Hudson, just 4 miles west of 125th Street in Harlem, is a place of cement and bricks. It is situated on a cliff above high above the filthy river, and it is a lofty place to see the world. A series of stories came out of this place. I found them in the attic on Grove Avenue.

Make a pot of tea, or better yet, pop a cork on some old red grape.