On the Road - August 1971

The Summer of Love happened in 1967. Mostly in San Francisco. I was a 15 year-old boy living on the South Shore of Boston. 3000 miles separated my body and soul from West Coast. Efforts to convince my parents to visit California proved fruitless. They recognized rebellion in their son and made sure I got a haircut at the Terminal Barber Shop in Mattapan Square at least once a month, but other kids in my home town cut loose for the communes of Haight-Ashbury. They returned in the fall with tales of wonderment and we all sang along to Scott McKenzie's ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO.

The answer was no for me.

1968 passed into 1969 and then become 1970.

My hair grew down to my shoulders in college and I hung around Cambridge listening to bands such as the Beacon Street Union and Ultimate Spinach. Upon completion of my freshman year my good friend Peter Gore and I planned to hitchhike west at the end of the summer. We saved our money and with two weeks left until the start of school we walked over to the Mass. Avenue exit of the Mass Pike and stuck out out thumbs.

Our first ride took us into Iowa. The next brought us to Omaha, where a speedfreak in a GTO stopped for by the Platte River. Lucky was headed for LA. It was in the same direction and he drove at 120 through Nebraska into Wyoming and we woke the next morning with him asleep at the wheel speeding through the Bonneville Salt Flats.

I was in the front seat. Peter told me to steer. It wasn't a big challenge since the highway was as straight as Joni Mitchell's hair. Lucky snapped out of his slumber on the other side, realizing he was headed in the wrong direction. He left us in the high desert almost 2000 miles from Boston.

We had only been on the road 30 hours. The rest of the trip was with 4 ex-cons in a Riviera. Two Indians, a Mexican, and a black man. All in their 40s. They were drunk and asked me to drive. Peter had to sit in back between the Indians. They finished four bottles of whiskey by the time we pulled into the Bay Area. The owner said he was going to drive and I pulled into a gas station.

"We'll get out here." 43 hours had elapsed since our first ride, so we were in no suicidal rush to reach San Francisco. The Riviera pulled out of the station, stopped, and then backed up to roll over the service island. The crash ignited the pump and I pulled the drunks from the car. The gas station attendant extinguished the fire before it killed anyone. Peter and I got a ride from a Marine just back from Viet-Nam. He dropped us in the Haight an hour later.

44 hours coast to coast.

The ride back was much slower.