LONESOME TRAVELERS: An American Journey - On The Road through America and Canada in 1977- A Non Fiction Novel

INTRODUCTION

It was Thursday night, December 15th, 1977 and the South Side of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania looked dreary as I walked the few steps along 4th Street from Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse to the Lehigh Tavern, where I was scheduled to play Folk Music from 10 to 2.

I had been at Godfrey Daniels to attend a Lehigh Valley Folksong Society meeting, which, as it turned out, was just beginning as I was leaving.

God, I thought to myself, Even the Folksong Society has changed.

Dave, an accomplished Folksinger, himself, as well as the proprietor of Godfrey Daniels, was about the only familiar face left from the old crew.

I was feeling strangely out of place on my old stomping grounds as I jammed with some musicians before the Folksong Society meeting kicked off. Some fiddle player, who obviously thought he was hot shit had finally gotten off his high horse when he recognized me.

Didn’t you used to play at the Lehigh Tavern, asked the fiddler.

Yeah, I said. A while back.

I didn’t bother to tell him that I was playing there tonight. I was nervous enough, after all and didn’t know how it would go considering all the time I had been away from playing. I thought that the night promised to be tough enough without this pain in the ass fiddler in the audience.

I thought I recognized you, said the fiddler suddenly flashing a look of respect on his face.

That made me feel good in a strange kind of way.

Dave was his good humored self and upon his invitation I joined him and some of the other players downstairs in Godfrey’s basement for a couple of hits off the Gong Bong, the first prize in the Godfrey Gong Show, a spectacular local talent competition that Dave had explained was held most Sunday nights.

I’m going to have to come over here and try to win one sometime, I told Dave as I took a hit off the Gong Bong.

Be my guest, said Dave as I passed the bong to him. Anytime, he added.

Dave had been a good friend to me before I had left on my cross country jaunt with Hal. There had been some depressing days before I left and it had helped to have somewhere to go and smoke a joint in peace and play some music. I had never really been too close to Dave before or since that time but I certainly appreciated his friendship those few days when I needed it very badly.

I was staying with my girlfriend, Sandy, since I got back from my trip and although we were both trying our damndest to keep it together there were still some pretty serious problems.

She was still the good girlfriend she had almost always been but some things still didn’t feel quite right about our relationship. I felt as though I was giving in to her on too many things. It wasn’t her fault, really. The truth was that I still loved her and she treated me like a king. I had everything a man could want, really, but I still didn’t feel as though I had peace of mind.

I knew that if I let her go that there would be somebody popping into the picture ready to give her the things she wanted. She didn’t want much, really. She just wanted to settle down with someone who wanted the same thing. I was trying hard to be that person and I had a strong feeling that with some time and effort I would truly be that person but I wasn’t there yet.

I still felt rather abandoned and alone as I walked into the Lehigh Tavern that night and saw him sitting there.

It was Hal. He sat there at the bar with a full grown beard and a big grin on his face. It was sure as hell good to see him.

Hal, I yelled.

Jerry, he yelled.

Then we hugged each other and pounded one another on the back to the amazement of a bar full of people who were obviously wondering what in the hell was going on between the two of us.

Let me buy you a drink, I said.

No, Hal said. Let me buy you a drink, a margarita.

No thanks, I said ending my attempt at generosity, at least for the moment. I’ll have a beer, I told him.

One beer, Hal called across the bar. A Michelob, he added knowingly.

I had only seen him once since we had both gotten back from our trip. That was the one time that he had come up to Sandy’s trailer and we had gone over our pictures together.

This night at The Lehigh Tavern we talked about the places we had been together. Chicago, Denver, Aspen, Hollywood, Yellowstone, Las Vegas. It had all seemed to be coming back to us like a shining beacon in a sea of uncertainty.

Hal and I had gone through a lot of changes in that month and a half we spent on the road together. We had loved and hated one another. We had been the best of friends and the worst of enemies but through it all we had stuck together and pulled off one of the great emotional highs of our lives. We had lived through some harrowing and magnificent experiences together and there at the Lehigh Tavern bar they all seemed to come back again, just as real and exciting as they had been the first time we had lived through them.

What about the book, Hal asked me.

The book, I said, sort of stumbling through my words. "Well, I’ve sort of gotten bogged down with other things. I explained to him about the piece I was writing about Father Phillip Berrigan and the emotional repercussions of that.

I got a letter from Randy, Hal said. He’s sending me a copy of the script. It looks as though he’s got a deal and they’re going to produce it.

Randy was a Script Writer friend of Hal’s who we had stayed with when we were in Hollywood. I suddenly remembered sitting in Randy’s apartment one day reading the well written outline of The Brownsville Massacre. That was the script that Hal was talking about. I remembered telling Randy now good I thought the outline was and I advised him not to give up on the project, no matter what.

I saw Victor’s picture in Playboy, I told Hal.

No kidding, Hal said.

I’m serious, I told him. There was a picture of him in the Sex in Cinema section not too long ago. Apparently he’s playing Howard Hughes in some movie.

I’ll be damned, Hal said in amazement.

Victor was an actor friend of Randy’s we had gone drinking with in Hollywood. He was on Randy’s softball team.

The memories kept flowing out and I wasn’t the least bit disappointed when Liz, the beautiful bitch of a barmaid, told me that there weren’t enough people for me to get paid to play.

John, a songwriter friend of mine showed up a short time later and we played for free for John’s friend and Hal.

I sang a new song that I had written.

"Sailin on a Ship, Sailin on the Sea

Sailin back to where I want to be"

I thought it sounded pretty good and everyone else seemed to think so too.

John and I sang Drivin, a song that John had written and Hal and I heard many times on the road. I had sung that song onstage in Denver, Vancouver, Hollywood and Las Vegas, as well as around many a campfire and It had always gone over well.

Tony, the owner of We The People, a bar in Center Valley, where John was living at the time, came in around One O’clock in the morning. Liz the barmaid was pissed because she obviously wanted to close early to take her drunken boyfriend home but she grudgingly opened back up for business because Tony had brought a bunch of people along with him who wanted to hear John and I play.

Oh, the hell with it, Liz grumbled, as the sudden crowd demanded to hear music. Go ahead and play, Liz said to me. What do I care.

It wasn’t exactly a command performance as far as the barmaid was concerned but everyone else seemed to be quite happy when John and I climbed up on the stage. We played really well that night. John said he thought it was the best we had ever played together. That made me feel better than if we had been paid to play our music.

In fact, the evening couldn’t have gone better until Liz called the cops. At final count there were eight cops standing by the door with Liz while she kept yelling at us to Get off the stage, It’s after Two.

I kept singing, though and John stayed up there with me right to the end. We ended with James Taylor’s Shower the People."

"You can run but you cannot hide

This is widely known

how can you stand there with your foolish pride

When you’re all by yourself, alone"

Come on, one of the cops yelled, sounding like a weak imitation of Sylvester Stallone. Get off the stage, Now.

"You’ve got to Shower the People you love, with Love

And show them the way you feel

Things are gonna be much better if you only will"

Finally, said one of the younger cops who was heavy into his macho act when I finally got off the stage after my gentle protest song was over.

Yeah, I said. Finally.

You’re Lucky, said the cop. I was just about to climb up there, pull you down and bust you.

Jesus, I said as I grabbed my coat and my guitar and headed for the door. Thanks a lot, I said to Liz as I passed her.

You’re welcome, she said sarcastically.

Hal and John were both gone when I walked outside to see four patrol cars and a paddy wagon parked outside on 4th Street. I thought it was a dangerous but well deserved tribute to a burned out Folksinger. I still felt good, though. I had gotten out of another scrape unscathed and I was still on the loose. Maybe it wasn’t all coming apart, after all. Maybe I still had the answer.

What about the book, Hal had asked me earlier in the evening.

Good Question. There were still a lot of memories out there in America and in my head. I had to get back on the road one way or another. It was time to get my ass in gear and do it all again. It was time to either get on the road for real or get on the typewriter. I felt that getting on the typewriter was the least dangerous of the two choices. That, I felt, would be hard enough to do.

Chapter 1

I’ve got to take myself back to July 5th, 1977, the day it all began. It was a rather hazy morning with showers ready to spring at a moment’s notice, or with no notice at all. We kept waiting for the rain all morning, Hal and I, but it never came. Instead what came was an afternoon full of sunshine. We thought that was a good omen and we were right.

We are traveling through the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and are already appreciating the beauty of nature stretched out before us. This is going to be one hell of a trip, we tell ourselves. We are both glad to be finally on the road. Talking with Hal about our dreams of impending glory takes me back a long time. We have been friends for a long time even though we have been living in separate cities and, indeed, different worlds for the last several years.

I talk to him about my relationship with Sandy, what I can figure out about it, at least. Hal used to work with Sandy and I at the HRD (Human Resources Development) Pennsylvania State Employment Counseling Office. We were all three Counselors there together a long time ago, what seems like endless light years ago.

I find myself thinking back to those times long ago that seemed more peaceful, when Hal and his wife, Diane used to come and bring their friends to cheer me on when I played guitar and sang at O’Such’s. Hal and Diane and my wife, Donna and I spent some good times together. It seems hard to believe that those good times are gone but it feels best to believe it, because it's true.

I am trying to become a Writer and a Singer, not the easiest crafts to crack at the age of 34. I’m a fighter, though, and I oftentimes work better under pressure than off, although I would certainly prefer to work with the pressure off. As I think of the old and new times I realize that there are good and bad memories in both times. Mostly good memories, as a matter of fact.

People talk about creative artists suffering a lot of pain.

I heard that, Randy would say later in Los Angeles but that’s a long way off from here. We have no idea how long. Not yet, at least.

There will be good and bad times as Hal and I discover just how much we have changed during the intervening years between yesterday and today. I have become the wild eyed adventurer that he once was and he has become the stringent, careful, faithful, calm and sometimes boring person that I used to be and sometimes still long to be.

I am glad my life was heavy, I hear myself telling Hal. It gives me something to write about."

That is true, of course, but sometimes the weight has been too much. I am hoping to lighten that load out here on the road.

The brown Mercury Monarch that Hal and I are riding in passes by a home in McAdoo, Pennsylvania, near Hazleton.

I did a furlough investigation there, I tell Hal, On my last day of work.

Really, Hal says.

He is just trying to be polite. I know that he doesn’t have any idea what I’m talking about.

I suddenly remember the pleasant conversation that went on in that house, the house of a jailbird with a fine quality mother who couldn’t be blamed for the sins of her son. I can’t recall why I told her that it was my last day as a Counselor for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction. I guess she was going to have her son call me and come down to see the Community Treatment Center while he was home on his furlough from jail. Yes, I guess that’s it. I can’t recall it too clearly now except for her seeming to understand my wanting to leave the Bureau of Correction for a trip across America.

Good luck on your trip, I remember her saying to me as I left.

Thank you, I had said back to her. Thank you very much.

I wonder now if she would have said it if I had been her son. She probably would have, I suppose. Traveling through America is certainly a more noble calling than being locked up in jail. I only wish my own mother would have said it to me on that last frightening day of work. If she had only said it to me at any time. Maybe she did and I just didn’t hear her.

I remember that last day of work. It was June 22nd, 1977, the day that one of the Watergate people, John Mitchell, went to jail. For me it was the day that I got out of jail after a four year, self imposed sentence. It was a strange day that seemed to be filled with tremendous highs and lows. It was a forerunner of days to come.

Hal came into the Center to see me that day. He was smiling broadly. He had good news to tell me. Lord knows I needed it on that strange day.

You won’t believe this, Hal said. I swear to God you won’t believe this. What Luck. What great luck.

Calm down, I told him, And tell me what in the hell you’re talking about. What is this great luck.

My Cousin, Hal said pausing briefly for emphasis, Wants me to drive her car out to Phoenix, Hal said watching my expression as I lit up like a campfire.

She and her husband are moving from Lansdale to Phoenix, Hal continued. He works for Micor. They work with computers. They have two cars, you see, and I told her that you and I were talking about traveling across the United States and up into Canada and she offered for me to take her car. It’s beautiful. Wait till you see it. It’s a Mercury Monarch, with air conditioning and everything."

I can’t believe it, I said to Hal, stunned by the good news.

I told you that you wouldn’t believe it, Hal said.

So anyway, Hal continued, My Cousin said we could take the car anywhere we pleased as long as we deliver it to their place in Scottsdale, Arizona, right outside of Phoenix, in August. That means we’ll have two months, for God's sake. Can you believe it.

Yes, I could believe it. Everything good was starting to happen. I could feel it that day just as I could feel it on our first day on the road.

We were headed west on Route 80 now and I had no idea where I would sleep tonight or what I would see tomorrow but as I thought back on that last day of work after 11 years of responsible employment I remembered being extremely grateful for the good news Hal had brought me that day.

It had been a shaky day, to say the least. I was awed by it. My comrades, my co-workers, who I both loved and hated at various times, had helped me to make the best of it, though and I appreciated that.

They took me out for dinner at the King George Inn, which had already started to take on the epic proportions of a historical site for me long before this night.

The King George was where I had met Sandy for the first time in several years after we had worked together and after I was divorced from Donna. It hadn’t exactly been a date but it was, in fact, the starting point of our dating. The King George was also the place where I had gotten my first job as a single singer/guitarist.

At my going away party my good friend, Meg, was there. I had met Meg when I was playing music and she had been a Waitress at the King George. We got to talking one night and I found out that her brother had been a friend of mine in High School and College and that Meg had graduated from King’s College, the same school her brother and I had attended. I had spoken to Bob, the Community Treatment Center Director, about hiring Meg as a House Parent at the Center. Our relationship never went beyond friendship and as I looked at Meg across the table at my going away meal I felt thankful for that, for some reason.

My Musician friend, John, who I had also helped to get a job at the Center, was there too at the going away dinner. I felt good and proud that he was still my friend and had made it to the King George that night. He was a soulful, talented musician, whose song, Drivin, I would end up singing in clubs all across the country and Canada too, as well as other stops along the turnpikes that Hal and I would travel. We had played some tunes at his place just a few days before the King George dinner. The memory of that music would remain with me for a long time. On up ahead I would think back from Denver, Vancouver and San Diego to the lyrics of one of his songs, in particular.

"You know I’m Leavin the Lehigh Valley

Goodbye, So Long, Lehigh Valley

I’m tryin hard not to look around

But you know I can be found

And now I’m Leavin the Lehigh Valley

I would treasure the memory of that song and that night at the King George Inn for many miles to come. Marge, our Secretary at the Center, was very warm that night, as she always was. She had nearly driven me crazy at work. I had yelled at her a lot when my frustration with her got the best of me but I loved her kind and generous personality and talked with her when she needed someone to trust. I would miss her.

Bob was there too. Bob was the Director of the Center. He and I had been good friends for a long time but our relationship had been very strained since we had taken a disastrous vacation together in Newport, Rhode Island. Things had gone so badly on that vacation that I had to hide out at the apartment of a Musician I met up in Newport when I had found out from one of the other vacationers, Meg, I think, that Bob was drunk and wandering around the waterfront with a gun threatening to kill me. What little faith I still had in his leadership ability and our friendship was through after that strange and dangerous vacation.

It was a good night at the King George, though. It was like old times, when Bob and I had been close friends. Bob and I talked and laughed that night like we had so many times before and it left me with a good feeling toward him. I was glad for that.

There would be things I would miss about all of my co-workers, I realized as I looked through the Center photo album that Marge had put together and brought along for the occasion, with my picture in several newspaper snapshots.

By the end of the dinner I was beginning to feel like a star, who was going out on the road with success an assumed certainty. They all made me feel like that. I hoped they were right. I preferred to believe that they were. They all seemed to believe that it was going to be a long, heavy and a happy life for me. It was easy to believe. It is always easy to believe in a dream.

I was going to be a Writer and a Singer. At some point I would have to make a choice, though, at least that’s what John said. Maybe he was right. I wasn’t thinking about that now, though. On this night the dreams were big and I preferred to think that there were no limits.

After our impromptu party at the King George Inn we all went out to Hobnails, a bar where John’s band was playing that night and where we could continue my going away party. I would get a chance to sing Drivin with John and his band and we could all get drunk together. I would get a little drunker than the rest of the group. After all, they had to get up for work the next day. I didn’t. It was a strange feeling to realize that. Life would never be quite the same way again. I was breaking away from a job that my journals told me was finished a long time before that day but leaving it still wasn’t going to be as easy as I had expected it was going to be.

It was June 22nd. Former Attorney General and Nixon Campaign Manager, John Mitchell had gone to jail that day and I was leaving Prison Rehabilitation about to go where I wanted to go for a month and a half refresher course in Freedom. By the time the date had changed to June 23rd and the clock had moved from 2:00 to 3:00 AM everyone else had left or was leaving.

John had some kind, encouraging words for me before he left and as I drove home that night the strains of his song, Drivin, kept ringing in my ear.

"Seein the road up ahead’s getting tougher

Reach into my pocket to pop another upper

Cause I’ve been on the road too long"

I heard those words as I watched the white lines on the highway that night. A lot more people in a lot more places would hear them too. I would carry the song with me on the road just as I would carry the traveling satchel that my co-workers had given me that night and both would be constant reminders of how good and glorious life could be when you least expect it.

Chapter 2

Did you know that Route 80 runs out through Colorado all the way to California, I said to Hal as I looked at the roadmap of the United States that was spread out on my lap. I didn’t realize that, I said as I stared out at the seemingly endless Interstate Highway that was leading us through Pennsylvania on this bright, sunny and pleasant afternoon.

Yeah, I knew that, Hal said with an air of reproach in his tone. We won’t be able to take it all the way, though, he said. Not the way we’re going.

It was a small world, I thought and every mile made it seem smaller yet. We had barely started and suddenly we were in Ohio and it was getting dark. Hal and I had spent the day getting reacquainted and patting each other on the back for being such easy to get along with, long time buddies. It probably would have made somebody sick to see it but it felt good to us.

Chicago was to be the first milestone on our trip. I had never been to Chicago before and neither had Hal. We had a lot of ground to cover before we got to Chicago but we had already covered a lot of ground in Pennsylvania. It was a strange thing. As we passed through the tree lined mountains of our home state we suddenly began to realize what we had always taken for granted. Pennsylvania was a beautiful state and we were appreciating how tourists from far off places must feel seeing Pennsylvania for the first time. Indeed, somewhere in the west someone would say Pennsylvania, Oh I was there once. It’s a beautiful state. They would be right. It is a beautiful state. It is also a long state.

Later on down the road we would shoot through states, sometimes like they weren’t even there, but not Pennsylvania. You’ve got to work hard to get through her. You’ve got to do some heavy drivin all day and on into the night and only then will you find yourself crossing the border into Ohio. I remember making a joke about Sandusky, Ohio being a good place to stop. Hal Laughed and kept on driving.

I also pointed out to Hal the sign for Kent State. We didn’t know it at the time but a protest was brewing there as we passed Kent, Ohio. We would learn about it in radio and newspaper reports farther west and it would depress us that there were still problems in this world, a world that seemed to be suddenly opening up to us. The problem at Kent State, we would learn, was that a building was being built on the site where four Kent State students had been shot by the National Guard at a protest against the War in Vietnam during the years of President Richard Nixon’s reign of terror.

Understandably enough, many of the Kent State students, as well as parents and friends of the slain students, were outraged and would protest this unintentional monument to madness. Unfortunately, when the protest and the legal arguments had run their course the protesters would lose and the new Kent State Gym would go up on the very ground where the four students had been shot to death years before.

It would sadden us to hear about the Kent State protest further west and the other signs of anger, unrest and injustice in a country that would show us so much beauty and warmth. Hal and I would be proud of those who were standing up for their convictions, though, because we both remembered how it felt to be rebels.

Time had taken its toll but it had also been kind to us in many ways. Revolutions were behind us, around us and perhaps ahead of us but right now they were taking a back seat to the great adventure that we were on our way to find out there in the United States and Canada. We were just two middle aged men, former rebels, former bureaucrats who were mainly interested in the call of the open road ahead of us and what we might find as we answered that call. Hal had traveled before to many of the places on our itinerary but for me it would be the first time that I had traveled further than Fort Wayne, Indiana and I was thrilled, if a little awed, by the prospects of what lay ahead of us.

It was a good day and it turned out to be a good night too. Since it was the first day out, we decided not to push it too far. We had already blown away all of Pennsylvania and half of Ohio before we got off the Ohio Turnpike at Maumee, Ohio and got directions from a pretty girl at the toll booth for a campground that was located nearby.

We followed the toll girl’s directions but we found ourselves driving so far that we thought we were lost. When we saw an unlit motel with the name Keisers on the darkened sign, we stopped and tried the door to the motel office. The Keisers didn’t wake up but a girl who lived on the motel grounds did.

What’s going on. Who are you looking for, she called down from her upstairs apartment.

Excuse me, Hal said in a strange sort of whispering shout. We’re just looking for directions. I think we’re lost, Hal said.

I’ll be right down, the girl called to us.

When she came down she was quite friendly and she gave us directions to the campground we were looking for and when I asked her about getting beer she gave us directions to the closest watering holes that she thought might possibly be still open.

Look, there it is up ahead, Hal said pointing off the road to our left, The campground.

It was close to 11:00 O’clock at night when we pulled into the campground.

I had this friend who camped all across the country without paying a cent, Hal had told me earlier. His method was to get into a campground late at night when nobody is around to collect the money and to get out early before the collectors arrive.

I wasn’t sure whether I believed that story but when we found nobody there to collect money from us as we entered the KOA campground I began to give the story more credence. Hal and I didn’t bother to put the tent up. It was a beautiful night and the stars were clearly visible. I laid back on the picnic table bench near the campsite that we picked and looked up at the stars.

Do you believe those stars, I said to Hal who was lying on the other picnic table bench.

Beautiful, he said.

You know most people never really think about how incredible the stars really are, I found myself saying. You know, how every star is a sun with planets floating around it like our sun. And with all those stars and all those planets there must be some kind of life out there. There’s got to be. There’s got to be a lot out there. You know.

Did you see Star Wars, Hal asked me.

Yeah, I answered. Sandy and I went to see it last week. We stood in a hell of a line. I couldn’t believe it. It was Twelve O’clock on a Saturday night and the line was still a mile long. We waited to go to the late show to avoid the crowd and there was still a crowd. We were stoned, though and we loved it once we got inside and saw it. Did you see it stoned.

No, Hal said. I saw it, though.

Maybe we’ll get a chance to watch is stoned sometime, I said to Hal. I’ve got some good stuff with me, I added.

That’s an idea, said Hal. I’d like to see Annie Hall too. Did you see Annie Hall, he asked me.

No, But I’d like to see that too, I told him. What the hell. We could go to see that stoned too. Woody Allen movies are incredible stoned.

Well these stars are incredible unstoned, Hal said, But I’m going to get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. We’ve got to get to Chicago.

There was a message in Hal’s tone that told me that he felt that I should be turning in, too. It was subtle but I felt it.

Yeah, I know, I said. I’ll be over soon.

Hal didn’t reply. I stared at the stars above me for a few minutes while I smoked a Marlboro. Somehow that cigarette seemed to take on a whole new meaning. I didn’t exactly know why but I knew I had no complaints about how I was feeling.

When I finished the cigarette I sat up and stared down at the earth. It looked as good as the stars to me, maybe better.

It was a strange sight to see a man watching a small portable television outside of his camper in a campground that we hadn’t paid to get in. There was also a bright campfire burning outside of one of the tents. I thought of John Steinbeck and Travels with Charley, a book that had probably, at least in part, helped to create the phenomenon that had created this campground. I couldn’t help but wonder about what he had done and what he would have thought about all of the people gathered here and in all the other places like it all across the country. I decided that Steinbeck would have loved it and hated it at the same time.

Hal was asleep when I got back to the campsite. I found the sleeping bag that Sandy had lent me laid out neatly over the plastic poncho that served as a groundcloth. I was glad that we had decided not to put the tent up since the night was so clear and warm. I appreciated Hal setting up my sleeping bag. It was a nice gesture. I had a little trouble getting to sleep. I was still fascinated by the sight of the stars above me but frustrated by the mosquitoes that finally forced me to turn over. It didn’t take long to get to sleep then.

When I woke up the stars were gone and a beautiful morning sun had taken their place.

Chapter 3

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Hal was the first one up. He was, after all, an ex jock, an ex championship basketball team player. He was, indeed, an interesting guy, never at a loss for words, as well as being a good listener. As I tried to tell him about what I knew about the music that we were hearing on the road, on the FM car radio and my tape player, he seemed to appreciate it. Maybe he was just being polite but it didn’t really matter. I was beginning to appreciate his company very much.

I felt better, for some reason, in Ohio than I did in Pennsylvania. I felt pressure in the Keystone State but waking up in a different state with the smell of campground garbage in your nostrils and feeling the extra refreshing beads of water from a cold shower tended to wake one up not only to the rigors of the road but also to the feeling of being thrilled and excited at the prospect of a new day.

There was no hot water. I had no choice but to shower with the cold, a fate worse than death for me, I thought, or at least as bad as death. Yet it was a shower, something that I had been accustomed to every day of my life and now knew was on its way to being something more of a privilege that was no longer going to be taken for granted anymore. The shower was only one of the convenient pleasures of modern life that was going to be in far less supply and greater demand than it had ever been before. I would learn this day that taking a cold shower wasn’t really a fate worse than death, after all. It wasn’t even close.

Death was a not a subject for this morning, though, because I was feeling very much alive and I could see by the sky that it was going to be a beautiful day. My mind seemed to have veered away from anything negative that I had left behind and was running free. Free. Now there was the word for this day.

After my shower I put on my white Crosby, Stills and Nash tee shirt and white shorts. I was pleased as I looked into the bathroom mirror. I thought I looked pretty sharp.

EARLY MORNING NOTES WRITTEN ON THE ROAD IN INDIANA

Second Day Out –

It is absolutely incredible. As we drive down the Indiana Turnpike, I am experiencing a rebirth. Problems and tensions of just a few days ago appear to be shrinking the farther west we go. I am absolutely certain that I have made the right decision. I am learning once again that this country is worthy of love. Beautiful fields fly by, a herd of beautiful horses, a beautiful lake. We are listening to a Topeka, Kansas radio station. President Carter is considering a postal rate increase for business, although the rate would stay the same for individuals. Traffic is not congested. We are on our way to Chicago. The world is a beautiful and mellow place to be. Do you know the way to San Jose just played. It is eight minutes after 9:00 AM. We just gained an hour of time. What a gift you have given us, Indiana. Thank You. I heard a new Bob Seger tune a little while ago.

Chapter 4

Chicago was a pleasant surprise. I suppose I expected it to be a dirty, crummy looking town. I was pleased to find it so clean. It was a hell of a lot cleaner than New York or Philadelphia, at any rate. Its downtown dirt seemed to be limited to the erotic night clubs and theaters and its backstreet ghettos where it was harder to see and I was, quite frankly, glad for that.

We got to the outskirts of Chicago just after noon and I was not impressed in the least by the many oil refineries on the edge of town although they probably helped a lot of Chicagoans to earn a living. We traveled down Route 90 at a good pace and the signs of the big city were there by the side of the highway in plain view. We passed junkyards and swamps that smelled as bad as Newark and that’s bad, as anyone who has ever opened a car window in that raunchy city can tell you.

This was Chicago. It would all begin here and end in Phoenix. That’s what we had decided, Hal and I, though neither statement was really true. It had begun a long time ago for both of us, that wandering fever and would probably never really end. It would be a fascinating fantasy to enjoy for awhile and remember forever.

Right now, though, it was an immediate feeling of accomplishment. We had, in fact, reached a goal in life. We had reached Chicago. I had never before realized that Chicago was one of my goals in life but, by God, it was and I loved the feeling of being there.

We had a short drive through the ghetto before we turned at Jackson Park. There in the middle of this mass of humanity was a golf course. A little further on we found Lake Michigan with its beaches and its sailboats making the bay look as beautiful as Newport, Rhode Island on a sunny day.

After we parked the car we walked around to the back of La Rabida Childrens Hospital to get a closer look at this lake that would have had no trouble passing for the sea. We walked along the shoreline for a bit and then sat down on a large boulder, where we couldn’t help but notice a black couple who seemed to be having a good time laughing and listening to disco music a few rocks over.

As we continued our walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline we saw a pair of bikini clad girls sunbathing together. Further on down the beach we found an older dude who was staving off the vultures of old age in style. He was standing on the beach in his bathing suit playing his ukulele and singing the Saint Louis Blues. We took some pictures near the sailboats that were coming in and going out, then we walked back over the tracks to the car.

That’s a relief, I said as I looked inside the car window.

Everything was still in the car as it always would be for the rest of our trip. We then drove down Lake Shore Drive looking for a likely place to swim. We stopped at Lake Meadows Park at 31st Street and parked the car in a parking lot above the beach. There was a camper parked next to us with some girls in it, which I didn’t notice as I pulled my pants down and pulled up my bathing suit. When I got out of the car and did notice it I didn’t feel like wasting time being embarrassed so we walked quickly down to the beach.

The Chicago Daily News would call it Another Scorcher later in the day and they would be right. It sure as hell was hot. I couldn’t wait to get in the water, not having any idea of how cold Lake Michigan really was. When I found out, rather quickly, I just got my toes the hell out of that ice water and laid back on the beach hoping to soak up a sun tan in one day.

It was so hot that I couldn’t stand it on the beach after about five minutes, though, so I jumped in the water quickly, swam around quickly, got the hell out quickly and the sun dried me off almost immediately. I repeated that rather exciting procedure about every five minutes for the rest of the afternoon.

The fact that the 31st Street Beach was primarily an all black beach didn’t really bother us that much. Hal had worked as a Counselor in an all black college and had a black girlfriend who worked there with him. I had also worked with many blacks in the course of my jobs, as well.

To be honest about it, though, it was comforting to see a white couple swimming off the beach because this was, after all, Chicago and I had no idea what was going down here these days between whites and blacks. I hadn’t really paid that much attention to the racial situation on the beach that day either. That was until the white couple and their daughter left and Hal went back to the car. Then my mind began to play tricks on me.

I started to feel conspicuous in my white bathing suit and white skin. I began to feel even more nervous when I heard some gigantic black dude laying his jive routine on some of the brothers. He was talking about kicking some ass and I could see through the corner of my eye that he and the brothers were all looking directly at me.

When Killer came on the beach things started to feel just a little too heavy. Killer was a big, mean looking black dude who could easily have stood in for Bad, Bad Leroy Brown at any event happening on the south side of Chicago. When killer’ began dunking some of the brothers and sisters, with a vengeance, I found myself thinking twice about swimming out in the water to cool off again. It was still hot as hell, though, even in the late afternoon, so I finally just leaped headlong into the water and cruised past Killer with the same degree of caution that I would exercise in swimming past a shark.

Hal came back from the car after he got changed.

We’d better not stay here too long, Hal said. There could be some real trouble. Some of these dudes look shaky to me.

That’s okay with me, I told Hal. Anytime you want to go, I’m ready."

It wasn’t getting dark when we left but it was getting late in the day. Hal wanted to walk around downtown for awhile and that sounded good to me.

I figured that there had to be a bar somewhere in downtown Chicago where I could find a cold beer to help me deal with the incredible heat of that Chicago day.

Chapter 5

We were driving down Lake Shore Drive when we spotted him.

There he was in all his glory, Gold on Gold, The Boy King, The Sun King, The King we had read about in school books a long time ago and in newspapers, more recently, The most popular King of them all.

King Tut was staring at us from a large gold Flag outside of the Museum of Natural History. We didn’t really have any idea of the national importance that King Tut's Tour would eventually have, at least not when we spotted it from Lake Shore Drive. We had just sort of stumbled on this find accidentally, much like the archaeologists who had found the Tut treasures in the first place.

Look at that, Hal yelled excitedly when he saw the sign.

Well I’ll be damned, I said. We’ve got to stop and check this out.

That’s for sure, Hal said, pulling the car off Lake Shore Drive quickly at the next available exit. He drove into the Museum parking lot and found a spot without too much trouble.

I can’t believe this, I said to Hal, as we got out of the car. This lot’s almost empty. There mustn’t be anybody coming to see this thing. The fools. Don’t they know how important this exhibit is.

What I found out at the Museum’s ticket booth was that I had pegged Chicagoans as being culturally unappreciative too soon. The truth was that they were appreciative enough to stand in line all night to be the first in line at 8:00 in the morning. If their all night vigil was successful they would get a ticket, after shelling out some hard cash, which would allow them to come back at some specified time later in the day to inspect the Treasures of Tutankhamen.

We have no tickets at all left for today, said the girl at the ticket counter.

After learning the hard facts about the tickets to King Tut’s Treasures Hal and I simply got Museum tickets and went in to check on the King’s situation firsthand. We both got in at student prices, Hal by virtue of a student ID card and me by virtue of a line of bullshit about losing my ID card. Once we got inside the air conditioned comfort of the Museum I began to feel the effects of the long, hot summer day that had just passed. I was tired and hungry and suddenly didn’t give a damn about the treasures as long as I could get a beer and something to eat in this strange city. Hal was tired too, he would admit later, but I didn’t know it at the time because apparently his answer to fatigue was to walk a lot and he was walking all over the Museum while I sat on a bench feeling like a man near death whose only salvation would be a cold beer. I was rather concerned as I watched Hal walking around the Museum like a madman.

Good God, I thought, "I can’t keep up this pace every day of the trip.

I was well aware that we were going to push hard but I felt that it was beginning to get out of hand, for me at least. When Hal finally walked over to me and said I’m tired I was relieved.

I don’t know where it came from but suddenly, from somewhere, the second wind came. And with it came a bizarre plan to break through the tight security to see the Treasures of Tutankhamen’ regardless of the fact that we had no tickets. After all, we reasoned, we were in this town and so were the Treasures and besides what did we have to lose except a couple of years in the Cook County jail.

We began to walk up the stairs toward where the Treasures were kept under the tightest security and as we walked we tried to maintain the confident look of people who had tickets.

This part of our plan worked. Some of the uniformed Security Officers were stopping people on the stairs asking to see their tickets but, oddly enough, they never said anything to us.

We’ve got it made, I said to Hal when we finally made it upstairs.

I hope so, Hal said, looking a bit worried.

We eased on down the hall together past the entrance to the Treasures where people were standing in line to go in. Well now, we had gotten upstairs alright but it was clear that this business of getting in to see the King’s Treasures was not going to be an easy matter, after all.

Our next step in this strange cycle of events was to push our way into a crowded gift shop, a little farther down the hall, where it looked as though people were getting out of the exhibit.

This is it, I said.

This is what, Hal asked.

The exit, I said. This gift shop is the place where the people get out after they see the exhibit. Let's check it out.

Go ahead, Hal said. I’ll follow you.

The gift shop was crowded but we were able to finally push our way inside without apparently being noticed. The gift shop was loaded with high priced King Tut gifts. Hal and I picked up some books picturing the gold artifacts that were on display on the other side of the guarded gate. We had picked up the books so as not to be conspicuous but with our tee shirts, shorts and sandy sneakers it was probably a wasted effort. Most people didn’t pay much attention to us, though. I suppose when you got right down to it we probably didn’t look much stranger than your usual downtown Chicago weirdo. Maybe a little cleaner and a little happier.

On the far end of the gift shop there was a pretty black girl dressed in a security uniform. She was standing outside of the gift shop in the room where the King’s golden treasures were on display. Everyone leaving the exhibit had to pass by this pretty girl and through the gift shop to get out of the museum. As Tut’s visitors passed by her this girl would punch them out on a plastic counter that she was holding in her right hand.

I think she’s watching us, I said to Hal at one point, while we were still poring over the overpriced gift shop junk, trying to look inconspicuous.

Who, Hal asked.

The counter, I said.

The girl, Hal said, quickly glancing over at her. I think you’re right, he said looking back at me. I think she spotted us.

The handwriting was on the wall, I suppose, but Hal and I both figured that since we had come this far we might as well give it our best shot anyway. We moved slowly and tried to make believe that the girl wasn’t there as we eased our way through the line of people who were steadily coming out of the exhibit. The hawk eyed chick with the counter was all over us, though, before we had moved very far.

What are you two trying to do, the girl said with a good dose of authority in her voice.

We’re trying to get back into the exhibit , I said trying to sound as calm, confident and authoritative as she had.

You weren’t in there, said the counter. I would have seen you come out. I would have counted you, she said very angrily. I was pissed off but I had to admit that I had a high degree of respect for this girl if she could actually remember everybody she counted.

Don’t you remember counting us, I said, smiling at her. He’s one and I’m two.

The girl glared at me viciously and her anger began to put things in perspective very quickly.

We were, after all, a long way from home, in the City of Chicago, where many a head had been beaten in. In addition we were trying to break into one of the most prestigious gatherings of treasures in the world. My whole life flashed before my eyes as I began to have visions of spending the rest of my life, let alone my vacation, in the notorious Cook County Jail with a lot of other inmates like Killer from the beach and many others who had also earned the nickname Killer.

The pissed off black girl was just about to speak when I spoke first.

My friend and I are just leaving, I said as I walked backwards with Hal at my side, heading for the gift shop exit before this angry counter completely blew her cool and we ended up in the slammer. Hal and I ran down the stairs and got out of the museum fast.

We got directions for someplace to eat and get a beer outside the museum from a Security Guard who looked and talked like a Mafia Hit Man.

It felt strange to be walking across a pedestrian bridge from the museum over the downtown area of Chicago. As I looked down at the incredible rush of traffic underneath the bridge it occurred to me that this bridge was an ingenious idea, really, and fun for someone who had never done it before. It seemed to add a whole new dimension to the term walking across the street. We walked across a few streets, actually, and then across some railroad tracks in the same manner.

A couple of shaky looking dudes who looked like junkies to me passed us on the bridge and I found myself looking back at them to make sure that they continued heading the other way. These characters made me feel aware of and concerned about crime in the City of Chicago. For the most part, however, I was already beginning to block out the bad. It didn’t exist. There was only good in the world and especially in Chicago. That was, after all, how it was beginning to feel to me.

Jesus, that air conditioning feels good, Hal said.

It sure does, I said. "I just hope they have beer here.

They do, Hal replied. Its listed on the menu, at least, although after this day they might just be sold out.

Don’t say that, I told Hal. Don’t even think about it.

We were sitting in the Surf Restaurant and it felt good to sit down and relax after what felt like a full day. We still had nowhere to stay but we weren’t really worried about that, not yet, at least. Hal and I were both starved. It had been a long time since lunch at a Howard Johnsons back on the road in Indiana, where the food was fair, at best. Now we were about to eat our first dinner in Chicago and we were looking forward to it with a passion.

Hal and I had a lot to talk about. We discussed the experiences of the day. We congratulated each other on how far we had come, how well we were getting along and how much we had seen.

The Waitress at the Surf Restaurant was friendly.

Give me the coldest Michelob you’ve got, I asked her.

Sorry, she said. We’re out of Michelob."

Wow, I said. Am I ever sorry to hear that. What else do you have that’s good and cold.

Beer, you mean, said the Waitress.

Yes, I answered.

Well, said the Waitress, We’ve got Millers in bottles and I’ll bring you an ice cold frozen mug.

That sounds great to me, I said cutting off any further suggestions that she might have listed.

I’ll have one too, Hal said before she raced away to get our beers.

Hal was sitting across from me reading the Chicago Sun Times. He was silent for several minutes while he read the paper. Finally he put it down on the table and looked at me just about the time the Waitress brought us our drinks.

There’s an article in the paper about beer on hot days, Hal said. Did you know it doesn’t quench your thirst on a hot day."

I looked across the table at him wondering if I had heard him right.

"Did you say that beer doesn’t quench your thirst on a hot day, I said.

Right, Hal said. Well, I didn’t say it. This Doctor who wrote the article said it.

I’d like to know where they got a Doctor to say that beer doesn’t quench your thirst. That guy is obviously a quack, or a lunatic, or both.

No, Hal said sounding very serious. It makes sense. He says you’re better off with iced tea or lemonade. They really quench your thirst.

That’s fine, I said as I poured the bottle of Miller High Life beer that the Waitress had just brought me into the frozen mug she had also set down on the table. You order an iced tea or lemonade. I’ll drink this, I said staring at the bright glass of beer in front of me. There was one in front of Hal also.

I lifted the glass from the table and drank it all in one motion.

Good Lord, I said as I set the mug down on the table. That’s incredible. I swear to God that’s the best glass of beer I’ve ever had in my life. That Doctor is a Goddamn Quack.

Another beer, I said when the Waitress returned to our table. And a hot roast beef sandwich, I added almost as an afterthought.

The hot roast beef sandwich that I ordered was delicious too, although the second Millers was nowhere near as much of an experience as the first had been. I was beginning to have second thoughts about the Doctor’s