Consider how much safer we have made the world with incremental changes in our machines, environments, and behaviors. Playgrounds have bouncy surfaces. There are car seats. There are airbags. Cyclists wear helmets. Our kids and their kids cannot conceive just how dangerous it was when we grew up. And then there were our adolescent years and behaviors that would seem quite alien to those grandchildren of mine:
Consider Hitchhiking:
Sometime in 1973, I had a nightmare. I was a college student at UC Santa Cruz. The dream found me in the back seat of a VW beetle, having hitchhiked from the base of the campus and driving along Empire Grade but passing the entrance to the campus, my destination. I looked at the back of the head of the driver and realized he was going to take me into the woods and kill me. I pulled my trusty Bic Pen out of my pocket, took off the cap, and lunged forward intending to take out an eye and cause some pain before I died. I woke up and missed all the excitement of that next step.
Dreams, of course, are interesting and subject to interpretation which often can become quite obtuse but in this case, the triggering event was clear. The mother of Edmund Kemper served a small administrative office at College V (now Porter College) and helped me get oriented to the mailbox system, interoffice mail, and other functions of the small annex. Within a few years, she would be found bludgeoned to death by her son who would become famous as a killer of Coeds who hitchhiked in the Bay Area. Edmund had a high profile as his murders were bizarre and extreme in nature.
The other precipitator, of course, was that I did hitchhike--- often.
Before the nightmare, and any knowledge of Kemper, I was hitchhiking from Monterey to Santa Cruz on some weekends—this would’ve been in the Fall of 1970. Art Crumb would bring us the Freak Brothers with his illustrations and comics. Their Doppelgängers picked me up in a VW beetle for the ride on Highway One to Santa Cruz. They offered me a share of their smoking joint; I declined. I worried that they might think that as, “off putting.” Halfway to Santa Cruz, the old highway one narrowed to one lane in each direction and wound through some Eucalyptus covered hills. Abruptly, the driver pulled off the road and into a glen of sorts. They got out. Thank goodness I had not smoked marijuana as I was primed for life-saving action. Gazing through the cold dense fog, I realized they were gathering Eucalyptus leafs and seeds into paper bags; indeed, the pungent odor of Eucalyptus was everywhere. My questioning glance, now that I was standing out of the car, was met with an explanation that these formed the basis for aromatic teas used in their home. I picked up a bag and helped them with the harvest. Once done, we drove on. I arrived at the entrance of UC Santa Cruz that Sunday morning around 11:00 AM. It was grey and cold. I stood for twenty minutes and not a car drove into campus. I decided I would walk the rest of the way.
My trip to Monterey had found me minimally supplied. I wore a pair of Levis, a shirt and jacket, and for footwear, Zories. Walking across campus, the most direct route meant climbing a barbed fence and then rolling hills, shared with a herd of cows.
I started off.
Lessons learned: pasture grass, when long and wet is difficult to negotiate in sandals. It is worse when the ground is muddy. Never was my suburban upbringing more apparent as I dodged cow patty after cow patty in this setting. I knew cows, from watching TV and reading, to be docile, “dumb” animals that would barely notice my hike through their turf. To my consternation, I learned that I had been fed a pack of lies. Cows are alert and attentive. When faced by a single human walking slowly, they, in a coordinated manner, chose to confront me. My response initially was to put my head down and walk faster. Hoof beats picked up their pace as did the volume of each step. I stopped and turned around abruptly to find six cows less than ten yards away from me.
College student (name withheld pending notification to relatives) found trampled in the cow pasture this Wednesday afternoon—cause of death to be determined.
My quick movements froze them in their tracts and from this, my strategy evolved: I yelled loudly and feigned a rush towards them. They broke and ran, (the cowards), before stopping a bit down the hill. They regrouped and followed me, now from perhaps twenty yards. I made progress to a parking lot near the married student housing and climbed the barbed wire fence—in my zories.
The time in college, that particular college, allowed for suspended judgement regarding the obvious dangers and inconvenience of hitchhiking. There were good rides: one in particular grew larger than life: the beautiful French Canadian hippie girl driving a VW bus who with a charming accent obtained my social history and determined that I really must visit Quebec someday. I was willing to go right there, right then, but she had shopping to do.
Once I had a car in those years, I picked up hitchhikers and mostly this community service was as it should be: pleasant and leaving one feeling positive about the contribution toward the common good performed in the moment. There were occasional rides that found me wondering, as we all do sometimes, “WTF was that?”
While the culture of hitch hiking was ubiquitous along the Central California Coast and the Bay Area, my move to Los Angeles found me aware that it was uncommon in the South—at least around West Los Angeles. Despite this and my ownership of a perfectly serviceable car (a Chevy Vega, no less), my last summer free from work obligations found me deciding on an adventure: I would hitchhike from LA to Santa Cruz, then the Bay Area and then back — the last throw with re-living a quickly evaporating culture of my college days.
At ten in the morning, I stood at the on-ramp for the coast highway at Santa Monica. I was resplendent in college garb: red bandana over thick curly hair, ZZ Top beard, blue embroidered workshirt, Levi’s, hiking boots, and a large backpack with sleeping bag attached. It took me eight long hours to get to Goleta, California, some two and a half hour drive up the coast. My ride to Goleta was nice enough, and invited me and another hitchhiker to stay the night but the vibe was not a good one. Charles Kemper still stalked my dreams. I walked about a mile to the on-ramp going North and at sunset, bedded down under a tree on the ice plant next to the ramp.
I woke with the sunrise and sorted out after an hour that I was never going to get a ride from that ramp North, so I crossed the overpass and hitched to downtown Santa Barbara where there was a cluster of us heading North as the city street turned into highway. Within minutes, I was on my first 18 wheeler. The driver and I chatted amiably through the coast route and then into the Salinas Valley. At some point, the conversation turned to my employment. When I mentioned my medical student status, the cab temperature dropped a few degrees. We maintained however and somewhere around Gonzales, I was dropped off and he howled with laughter as I angled my backpack for a gentle drop, lost my balance, and grabbed the exhaust pipe with my spare hand. It was quite hot.
Days later, having enjoyed a reunion of sorts with former dorm-mates, I hitched from Berkeley to San Francisco. So far, so good. Near Union Square, I met a young man also headed to Santa Cruz and he stuck to me like glue. I wore out my welcome with former classmates living at my old home when the two of us showed up looking for a floor to sleep on. Somewhere along the way, he had confided in me a hitchhiking story that found him driving for the fatigued driver who had picked him up in New Mexico. Before drifting off to sleep, he asked politely if he could give my floor mate a blow job. This was not a normal story for me; if I was tired and ready to sleep before, I was on alert now. His conclusion ending the story? “It was dark; it was just the two of us; I had not had sex in forever and I thought, ‘no one will ever know.’”
Well now I knew. We parted company the next morning as I chose a destination no one would follow me to: Felton California. There I linked up with Steve Corbin, a scientist I had worked with when trying to complete a college thesis. His brother, a big burly redneck policeman was heading to LA the next day in his pick up—-along with his family. I welcomed the break and a fast trip home though in the back of a pick up at freeway speeds, I learned something about my frame and how it was aging. I never hitchhiked after this trip again. The Vega suddenly looked like a modern, safe, and efficient means of transportation that I would never abandon again, until it became unsalvageable—and that is a story for another time.
I had an experience that foreshadowed this sad experience. One summer at Santa Cruz, I wanted to spend time with family in San Diego and I thought I would hitchhike. The Natural Science campus had a bulletin board that advertised people traveling and I got a number of a young woman who was taking highway one from Santa Cruz to San Diego. I called her and she had a wonderful voice—like honey —and we made plans to meet and seal the deal for a trip South. She had a VW Van with the middle seat removed. Her voice was deceptive however —as a person being interviewed, she did not show well. I rose above such superficialities and I thought her itinerary and travel route sounded interesting. I stocked up on food, got out my travel gear and off we went a few days later. This woman drove slowly and would not allow me to drive. As we talked, I learned that she had a job in San Diego— but in three days. Our original discussion was for a two day trip. She demonstrated a need to be a tourist and so, by the end of the first day, we were barely to San Simeon when we stopped. I had brought my own food, being on the economy plan, and joined her at a small cafe for coffee only. The next morning, we negotiated a part of 101 and the van broke down. By now we had two other riders and happily one of them knew how to trouble shoot a VW van’s engine. After an hour, we were on the road.
The trip on highway 1 through Los Angeles found me out of money and there was nothing I could say that would get her to use a freeway. There was tension now; I was hungry and she was receiving my signals to go faster but her response was to stay the course while grabbing her long hair and coiling it around her fist, gnawing on it with her teeth. I was becoming increasingly critical of her body, her dress, and her voice. I closed my eyes and as the sun set, we found ourselves in suburban Orange County. I had one dollar left and had coffee on an empty stomach. I had not had solid food all day. She ate lightly and as there were no stretches of beach or parks, we stayed on a curb in the suburbs and slept in the van. Together. While I had horrible heartburn from the coffee, she farted silently, all night long.
My desperation in the morning found her with her back up. When I explained that there was no choice but to take Interstate 5 through Camp Pendleton, she thought I was lying to her so we drove back and forth trying to find that elusive beach rout. She gave up; Camp Pendleton passed at 55 miles per hour but once to Oceanside, we made our way down highway 1 to La Jolla where my brother Chip, on leave from the US army lived. While idling on the street, I left all my possessions in the van as I checked to see if he was home. He opened the door and seeing my disheveled hungry look, proclaimed, “Randy, what happened? Did Lethe throw you out for not having a haircut?”
My response, a pitiful one: “I have not eaten in twenty four hours. Let me get my stuff and let me eat something, “ resonated. He nodded and I found my matron in the VW smiling and happy to say good bye as I gathered my things. Chip and his wife Patty watched me in awe as I consumed thousands of calories in one sitting.
When the family visit was done later that week, I flew back to Santa Cruz.
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