Well...despite the clown show, we'll still be here standing up to craziness and working for a democracy that can deliver what most folks really would like to have delivered. I wonder just how much more BP medication I can take safely? Thanks for making me smile. This period of time actually makes the 60's look reasonable - which of course they were! Onward and upward - from my favorite hymn.
Well...despite the clown show, we'll still be here standing up to craziness and working for a democracy that can deliver what most folks really would like to have delivered. I wonder just how much more BP medication I can take safely? Thanks for making me smile. This period of time actually makes the 60's look reasonable - which of course they were! Onward and upward - from my favorite hymn.
Yes, I was involved in the "cutting edge" of the 60s and it definitely wasn't this crazy (though I was once close to scared hitch-hiking I-80 and getting stuck in Rock Springs WY till just before dusk when a trucker took pity on me).
Summer of '65 I hitchhiked with a friend from Aspen throughout the West (Grand Canyon, etc.) and then to Detroit. it got really scary around Four Corners, where we asked a native if there was a good place to crash. he said "nowhere safe." so we said "but, but..." and pointed to these towns on a map. he laughed and said "those ain't towns, those are just trading posts. he told us to buy some rope to encircle our sleeping bags because "rattlers won't cross a rope," which sounded really, really iffy. we found ourselves in Gallup and met a guy who was there to pick up his Caddy and drive to NYC. we stayed with him till St. Louis and the ride was great, but he spewed the most stereotyped racist insanity I'd ever heard. finally Howie, my friend, decided to end it by telling the guy that he was active member of SNCC and didn't appreciate that talk (he obviously had the cojones I lacked). it was a very hairy two minutes but the sonofabitch actually cooled it.
there were two other great parts of the story: at the beginning, we crept out of Aspen on the back of a pick-up truck and the guy blasted his radio which was playing a wild, very long record I'd never heard before, so I asked what it was. the answer was, I would realize years later, too perfect to be true but perfect enough to be true at the same time. it was "Like a Rolling Stone." swear to god.
the other "great thing" (actually a real bummer) was being laid up for two days in Grand Canyon National Park with a nasty case of epididymitis. god knows why. I blamed the usual tendency of a sixteen-year-old to practice what the old Boy Scout Manual warned about till sometime later in that storied decade.
it's possible I'm trying to cheer people up. I even found myself giggling for a half second in fond remembrance.
I just watched a new HBO documentary about the automat. so beautiful, I was crying at the end, which was also about the death of another beautiful, vanished thing about this town. and this country, even if the automats were purely a NYC/Philly thing.
and since this desk chair is kicking up my sciatica....
back then, it just seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I wasn't crazy about doing it alone, but only because I vastly prefer company to being alone. or, at any rate, I did then.
but I didn't know anybody back then who avoided hitching because it was especially dangerous. it just wasn't a THING.
but nowadays, if I had kids (I don't) and found out they were hitchhiking, I'd have to be packed in ice or something.
But I can tell you there were people I knew who had VERY BAD experiences hitch-hiking. Not the kind of stories to re-tell. So it wasn't all ponies and rainbows back then either. But less bad then than similar would be now.
Well...despite the clown show, we'll still be here standing up to craziness and working for a democracy that can deliver what most folks really would like to have delivered. I wonder just how much more BP medication I can take safely? Thanks for making me smile. This period of time actually makes the 60's look reasonable - which of course they were! Onward and upward - from my favorite hymn.
Yes, I was involved in the "cutting edge" of the 60s and it definitely wasn't this crazy (though I was once close to scared hitch-hiking I-80 and getting stuck in Rock Springs WY till just before dusk when a trucker took pity on me).
Summer of '65 I hitchhiked with a friend from Aspen throughout the West (Grand Canyon, etc.) and then to Detroit. it got really scary around Four Corners, where we asked a native if there was a good place to crash. he said "nowhere safe." so we said "but, but..." and pointed to these towns on a map. he laughed and said "those ain't towns, those are just trading posts. he told us to buy some rope to encircle our sleeping bags because "rattlers won't cross a rope," which sounded really, really iffy. we found ourselves in Gallup and met a guy who was there to pick up his Caddy and drive to NYC. we stayed with him till St. Louis and the ride was great, but he spewed the most stereotyped racist insanity I'd ever heard. finally Howie, my friend, decided to end it by telling the guy that he was active member of SNCC and didn't appreciate that talk (he obviously had the cojones I lacked). it was a very hairy two minutes but the sonofabitch actually cooled it.
there were two other great parts of the story: at the beginning, we crept out of Aspen on the back of a pick-up truck and the guy blasted his radio which was playing a wild, very long record I'd never heard before, so I asked what it was. the answer was, I would realize years later, too perfect to be true but perfect enough to be true at the same time. it was "Like a Rolling Stone." swear to god.
the other "great thing" (actually a real bummer) was being laid up for two days in Grand Canyon National Park with a nasty case of epididymitis. god knows why. I blamed the usual tendency of a sixteen-year-old to practice what the old Boy Scout Manual warned about till sometime later in that storied decade.
it's possible I'm trying to cheer people up. I even found myself giggling for a half second in fond remembrance.
I just watched a new HBO documentary about the automat. so beautiful, I was crying at the end, which was also about the death of another beautiful, vanished thing about this town. and this country, even if the automats were purely a NYC/Philly thing.
and since this desk chair is kicking up my sciatica....
Half a second of fond remembrance, hahahaha.
Lordy, I remember the hitchhikers. CouldnтАЩt imagine people putting themselves at such risk. Glad you lived to tell the tale, and so many more.
back then, it just seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I wasn't crazy about doing it alone, but only because I vastly prefer company to being alone. or, at any rate, I did then.
but I didn't know anybody back then who avoided hitching because it was especially dangerous. it just wasn't a THING.
but nowadays, if I had kids (I don't) and found out they were hitchhiking, I'd have to be packed in ice or something.
Yes. We were lucky we grew up when we did.
But I can tell you there were people I knew who had VERY BAD experiences hitch-hiking. Not the kind of stories to re-tell. So it wasn't all ponies and rainbows back then either. But less bad then than similar would be now.
ahhh...you can probably double it. I did.