HANG ON SLOOPY by David Porter 2016

In my younger years of my life I knew girls known Sandie, Samantha, Suzanne, Sara, but never a Sloopy.

Doctor Nick and I went to college with a girl whose name sounded by Sloopy, until I went to university.

A slight brunette from Roxbury majored in nursing. On the weekends she danced weekends at the Two o'Clock Lounge in the Combat Zone to pay her tuition. Sloopy was the first person in her family to attend university. Nick and I drove taxi at night. We sometimes picked up Sloopy at closing time. Neither of us received more than the fare at the end of the ride. We never said how we felt about her. To have said anything was bad luck.

At a party one Friday night I told our college friends from New York and New Jersey about the idyllic Rockport quarries. Everyone wanted to swim in the spring-fed granite pits. The next day we left Boston in a car caravan headed to Rockport. Sloopy accompanied Nick. He had a red MG convertible.

We smoked weed on the cliffs. Nick and Sloopy leaped off the cliff together.  I decided to dive to impress her. I misjudged the drop and hit the water at the wrong angle. Bones crackled along my spine. I swan to the shore and slowly hauled myself from the quarry waters.

Sloopy hadn't seen my dive. She had been kissing Nick. As I pulled myself from the water, Nick reached out a hand and asked if I was all right. He was pre-med at BC.

"I'm okay."

Barely and I recovered from the dive, but ever since then I've avoided girls with names sounding like Sloopy, I love David Porter's cover of the McCoy's hit song. Henri Flash introduced me to the HANG ON SLOOPY at BSIR's, a Hamburg nightclub, in 1982. The French disc jockey would play Porter's long version at the end of the night.

The last lingerers slow-danced for about two minutes and then lost the groove. Henri called the lengthy recording the best music for emptying a nightclub nearing dawn. David Porter's HANG ON SLOOPY was a long song. Henri would leave the DJ booth and I would join the Frenchman at the bar.

"A last drink."

"To HANG ON SLOOPY."

We never lost the groove.

And neither does this song.

"C'mon Sloopy."

From the Stax hit man.

Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" (1968 Grammy Winner)
Mariah Carey "Dreamlover" (1993 Grammy Winner)
Will Smith's "Get Jiggy Wit It" (1999 Grammy Winner)
Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'"
Biggie Smalls "Who Shot Ya?"

LAX-SFO - SUMMER OF 1973

Back in August 1973 I hitchhiked across country to Tulsa. My friend Neil was staying with a woman there.

We had planned to drive to the West Coast in his BMW 2002, however prior to my arrival the Staten Islander had been distracted by a State Fair roller coaster and rear-ended a truck. The car had been towed to a repair shop into Oklahoma City.

"How long," he had asked the mechanic.

"We don't get many foreign cars out here. Figure two to three weeks for the parts to arrive and then a day or three to get it drivable."

After a truck driver dropped me in Tulsa, I phoned his girlfriend's house. Vickie picked me up in a Chevy. Neil was in the passenger seat and I asked, "Where's the BMW?"

He explained about the accident and that night we discussed the options with Vickie and her sister, Marilyn, which were either stay in Tulsa, fly to LA or hitchhike to California.

"There are all kinds of murderers on the road," warned Vickie.

"We'll be careful."

"Please."

Two days later Vickie drove us out to a strip of Route 66 south of Sapulpa. She kissed Neil goodbye and said, "See you in a month."

I stuck out my thumb and a van stopped for us. The driver was a Yale medical student heading to LA. We took turns driving practically non-stop through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona into California. The driver was no killer.

Neil's cousin met us in Hollywood and that night we slept at his Surfside beach cottage.

Oil rigs sprouted from the Pacific and the ocean was flecked with black tar that stuck to your feet. Neil and I were happy there. I loved the orange smoothies. One night we went to the local bar on the PCH. A convertible Porsche Roadster was parked outside with the keys in the ignition. Neil and I were no car thieves and handed the keys inside to the owner. He bought us drinks all night and offered us to drive the Porsche. We said thanks, but returned to his cousin's house by foot.

The next morning we decided to head north. College friends were waiting up in San Francisco. We crossed the PCH and once more stuck out our thumbs.

Orange County wasn't cool with hippies and neither was LA county.

By nightfall we had only made it as far as LAX.

A mere twenty-seven miles.

Neil and I stood on Lincoln Boulevard and looked at each. He pointed to a PSA sign promoting a $25 midnight special flight to San Francisco. "What you think?"

My money was running low and my final year at Boston College started in less than ten days. Still north of LA the PCH ran along the coast through Santa Monica, Malibu, Ventura,Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Monterrey, and scores of small towns and beaches with magical names.

"We might never come here again."

"That's true, but we're going nowhere tonight."

I thought about Vickie's warning and said, "And we're going nowhere fast. Let's fly."

A taxi brought us to the PSA terminal. We killed the wait drinking at the LAX Theme Building. The 727 took off on time and landed a little after 1.45 at SFO. No one was waiting at the terminal other than taxis. The ride to Haight-Ashbury costed as much as one of our flight tickets and the hotel near City Lights Bookstore was $15. We flipped a quarter for the choice of beds. Neil won and slept by the window.

"That way the ax murderer will get you first."

"Thanks."

I woke with the dawn.

Neil slept with the sun in his face.

We were 3000 miles from the East Coast and over 400 from Seal Beach and six years past the Summer of Love, yet I had learned one thing from our abandoning the road and it was only about how to travel and that was "If I had of known I would have flown."

Driving On Water

There are several hundreds in New York City. My good friend, Nick, has one in the backyard of his house atop Staten Island. The good doctor graciously invites me for a swim during the summer months. His four children have four cars and Nick has three along with that of his wife. None of the eight cars have ended up in the pool, but seemingly other pools in the USA have seen unexpected guests plunge into the deep end.

They don't float.

They can't escape the pools.

And you can't drive them out.

Even high class cars find water.

The juggernaut crushes all in its path.

Pools too.

But not Nick's MG.