So, there we were on this sunny and hot, early Summer day and we were sitting about blowing some joints as we were wont to do ... and most of these stories begin that way because we wanted to do that a lot.
And then came the epiphany for Tinkerbell, Lotho, and I that we must hitchhike to Florida because we must go to Disney World.
(Ed: this was the Great Spiritual Pilgrimage?)
Only if Mickey Mouse is the new Messiah. We were fookin' stoned and it seemed like a cool thing to do. These were the sixties and something seeming like it will be a cool thing to do is all the motivation anyone needed to do anything. No-one had to charge batteries for cellphones, laptop computers, or find a way to triangulate on WiFi during the course of the mission. None of that bullshit existed at the time so there was only one option left: get off your hippie freaky dead ass and go off to find some fun.
In the family tradition of risk estimation, this one was way, way off reality because, by all rights, we should have eaten by cave bears before we even got through Kentucky. The trio consisted of three naive Cincinnati freaks, aged seventeen to, well, less than that and, um, zero defense. That nothing bad came of it says all you may need to know about guardian angels because ... see above about getting eaten by cave bears.
(Ed: age estimation is probably wrong as it might have been some years later but still we were ridiculously naive to try it.)
One of the first rides we got was in a hippie bus, straight out of Ken Kesey's psychoactive heart. If you've never traversed Kentucky while blowing joints in a hippie bus, dump your bucket list and do it now. Or do it yourself. You can get a retired school bus for peanuts. Pull half the seats out of it and, yahoo, it's a motor home.
(Ed: where do you sleep?)
They're freaks, they can sleep on the floor. Hippies know all about sleeping on the floor, usually in a big hippie pile, writhing in orgiastic splendor to the sound of ...
But I digress.
People don't hitchhike so much as in the sixties because, well, too many hitchhikers were eaten by cave bears. In the sixties, everyone was doing it since there wasn't only a Summer of Love but really a whole decade of it. The best thing was finding more freaks because we were more rare than media has made it seem. This was all about people ... people who need people ... are the ...
But I digress once again.
The rides we got along the way are not clear to me but some of them were really exceptional and those are what get this into the historical records.
On the way down to Florida, we got a subsequent ride from two guys who weren't exactly your polished suburban types and looked like they probably were, well, traveling serial killers. They talked about how they were going down to Florida to pick oranges. We don't know what they were really going to be picking down there but it's not a high likelihood it would really be oranges.
They were cool, tho. It was cool but weird but that was ok. In the sixties, everything was weird so coolness as all anything really needed to pass.
Somehow we did find our way to Disney World and that was, well, a lot of Disney. In fact, it was all the Disney I would ever need as I never went back to the place. "It's a Small, Small World" with all those singing android puppets seeded a nightmare from which I have never recovered.
Lotho, man, those little fuckers are going to get down off those stands and then they're going to start stabbing, man. I've seen that movie ... or I will see it ... or some such like that. They will be stabbing everyone like satanic avenging demons but they won't stop singing that fucking song. The stabbing you can take because you're going to lose some of the herd once in a while due to bad things but that song ... Kee-rist ... if there really is a loving Lord then please make that fucking song stop, Please!
So that was Disney World. I don't know if we got t-shirts.
Having satisfied the mission of the pilgrimage, the question comes as to what next. Somewhere in that time, we ran into the guy with the VW minibus camper. This was a cool deal because we could kick in for some fuel for the minibus and ride around with him. We went all the way up the East coast that way, at least up to somewhere around Washington, D.C.
It became clear Minibus Guy was developing a bit of a crush on Tinkerbell but that wasn't negotiable. We can help with fuel but trading anything else isn't in the program. He was cool with that and he was harmless so we rolled off to cruise. The minibus was highly cool because it had many windows, a pop-up top and didn't suck much fuel. This was some easy riding because the vibe with everyone was good, we were out rolling through warm and beautiful life, and always the buzz.
There won't be so much the tourist aspect of this because we really don't care all that much about getting a Mickey Mouse t-shirt but the people we met as we rolled were straight out of the rainbow.
However, which end of the rainbow gave us the next ride is for you to determine.
These boys worked in Washington, in the city, but they had come from the hills and mountains in West Virginia. They went down into the city for the work week to make a living but then high-tailed it back into the hills on the week-ends. It was for the maniac run out of the city that we were lucky enough to participate and this one was out of another Universe.
There were two cars, each loaded with drunked-up mountain boys, and they were heading for the same place and that only means one thing: how fast can we get there.
There's one thing you know for sure when you're a drunked-up mountain boy: you're never drunk enough. So ...
These two cars were blasting up the Interstate highway into West Virginia while running side by side at around 100 mph so they could pass a bottle of Southern Comfort from one car to the other.
Tinkerbell, Lotho, and I could only watch because there was no chance they were going to stop, we didn't want to get drunk, and whatever remained of a buzz probably evaporated like a campaign promise. This was one of those Glory Rides which goes into the scrapbook as How the Hell Did We Ever Live Through That One.
Unknown.
But it wasn't over. Not yet, nooooo.
The two cars really were going to the same place which was an isolated trailer camp, way up in the hills, and a million miles from anywhere. It was pitch deep in the night and we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves. We have no idea where we are except for being able to narrow it down to one of the fifty states. There's no way to recall the discussion of what should we do but that discussion didn't last long anyway.
The mountain boys of West Virginia know there's only one thing needed after Southern Comfort and fast cars. Yep, that would be guns.
There's nothing better when you're drunked-up in the hills of West Virginia on a Friday night and that's to start shooting guns into the air.
This was when the decision was made that We Must Get the Fuck Out of Here.
This was also the night we slept underneath an overpass to an Interstate highway. We found our way back there and did not see anything around us. We had to sleep somewhere so we went up into the overpass and climbed into some crawlspaces they have up there. And so we spent our first night in West Virginia in America, thankfully bereft of bullet holes or the risk of incurring any.
It's also not entirely clear how that bleak moment resolved into finding our way back to Cincinnati but the astute reader may have wondered, where was any contact back to the home front to advise we have not, at least not yet, been eaten by cave bears. That's because the contact did not happen and that part of it was so wrong.
I was the eldest so I owned it and my cop is I had no idea nor did Tinkerbell or Lotho that this would be such an immense fright to my parents. They never let it show but, dayum, I know if I had been in the position in which I had put them then I would have been up to the top of the wall with panic.
One of the good things to come out of this was more recognition we really did get lucky with the draw on my parents. There was no recrimination for doing it because no-one understands wanderlust better than they after they have traipsed the family all over the world but we could definitely improve our communications and, puh-leeze, review your risk estimation.
Some of this crew improved their ability to estimate risks. I wasn't one of them but some did.
And so we skated through something else which we had no right to survive. Chalk to up to Providence or whatever you like but it's all true. If stories like this did not exist in my life then I would have to invent them but the historical records really did happen. Some of it (i.e. a lot of it) is as unbelievable to me as it likely is to you.
But I don't worry about it because, hey, got a light? Let's smoke this joint.
Who dey!
(Ed: say what?)
Bengals cheer ...
WHO DEY
WHO DEY
WHO DEY THINK GOIN' BEAT THOSE BENGALS
WHO DEY!!
(Ed: what does that have to do with going to Florida?)
Nothin'. I just like it. All-out Cincinnati. WHO DEY!
And then came the epiphany for Tinkerbell, Lotho, and I that we must hitchhike to Florida because we must go to Disney World.
(Ed: this was the Great Spiritual Pilgrimage?)
Only if Mickey Mouse is the new Messiah. We were fookin' stoned and it seemed like a cool thing to do. These were the sixties and something seeming like it will be a cool thing to do is all the motivation anyone needed to do anything. No-one had to charge batteries for cellphones, laptop computers, or find a way to triangulate on WiFi during the course of the mission. None of that bullshit existed at the time so there was only one option left: get off your hippie freaky dead ass and go off to find some fun.
In the family tradition of risk estimation, this one was way, way off reality because, by all rights, we should have eaten by cave bears before we even got through Kentucky. The trio consisted of three naive Cincinnati freaks, aged seventeen to, well, less than that and, um, zero defense. That nothing bad came of it says all you may need to know about guardian angels because ... see above about getting eaten by cave bears.
(Ed: age estimation is probably wrong as it might have been some years later but still we were ridiculously naive to try it.)
One of the first rides we got was in a hippie bus, straight out of Ken Kesey's psychoactive heart. If you've never traversed Kentucky while blowing joints in a hippie bus, dump your bucket list and do it now. Or do it yourself. You can get a retired school bus for peanuts. Pull half the seats out of it and, yahoo, it's a motor home.
(Ed: where do you sleep?)
They're freaks, they can sleep on the floor. Hippies know all about sleeping on the floor, usually in a big hippie pile, writhing in orgiastic splendor to the sound of ...
But I digress.
People don't hitchhike so much as in the sixties because, well, too many hitchhikers were eaten by cave bears. In the sixties, everyone was doing it since there wasn't only a Summer of Love but really a whole decade of it. The best thing was finding more freaks because we were more rare than media has made it seem. This was all about people ... people who need people ... are the ...
But I digress once again.
The rides we got along the way are not clear to me but some of them were really exceptional and those are what get this into the historical records.
On the way down to Florida, we got a subsequent ride from two guys who weren't exactly your polished suburban types and looked like they probably were, well, traveling serial killers. They talked about how they were going down to Florida to pick oranges. We don't know what they were really going to be picking down there but it's not a high likelihood it would really be oranges.
They were cool, tho. It was cool but weird but that was ok. In the sixties, everything was weird so coolness as all anything really needed to pass.
Somehow we did find our way to Disney World and that was, well, a lot of Disney. In fact, it was all the Disney I would ever need as I never went back to the place. "It's a Small, Small World" with all those singing android puppets seeded a nightmare from which I have never recovered.
Lotho, man, those little fuckers are going to get down off those stands and then they're going to start stabbing, man. I've seen that movie ... or I will see it ... or some such like that. They will be stabbing everyone like satanic avenging demons but they won't stop singing that fucking song. The stabbing you can take because you're going to lose some of the herd once in a while due to bad things but that song ... Kee-rist ... if there really is a loving Lord then please make that fucking song stop, Please!
So that was Disney World. I don't know if we got t-shirts.
Having satisfied the mission of the pilgrimage, the question comes as to what next. Somewhere in that time, we ran into the guy with the VW minibus camper. This was a cool deal because we could kick in for some fuel for the minibus and ride around with him. We went all the way up the East coast that way, at least up to somewhere around Washington, D.C.
It became clear Minibus Guy was developing a bit of a crush on Tinkerbell but that wasn't negotiable. We can help with fuel but trading anything else isn't in the program. He was cool with that and he was harmless so we rolled off to cruise. The minibus was highly cool because it had many windows, a pop-up top and didn't suck much fuel. This was some easy riding because the vibe with everyone was good, we were out rolling through warm and beautiful life, and always the buzz.
There won't be so much the tourist aspect of this because we really don't care all that much about getting a Mickey Mouse t-shirt but the people we met as we rolled were straight out of the rainbow.
However, which end of the rainbow gave us the next ride is for you to determine.
These boys worked in Washington, in the city, but they had come from the hills and mountains in West Virginia. They went down into the city for the work week to make a living but then high-tailed it back into the hills on the week-ends. It was for the maniac run out of the city that we were lucky enough to participate and this one was out of another Universe.
There were two cars, each loaded with drunked-up mountain boys, and they were heading for the same place and that only means one thing: how fast can we get there.
There's one thing you know for sure when you're a drunked-up mountain boy: you're never drunk enough. So ...
These two cars were blasting up the Interstate highway into West Virginia while running side by side at around 100 mph so they could pass a bottle of Southern Comfort from one car to the other.
Tinkerbell, Lotho, and I could only watch because there was no chance they were going to stop, we didn't want to get drunk, and whatever remained of a buzz probably evaporated like a campaign promise. This was one of those Glory Rides which goes into the scrapbook as How the Hell Did We Ever Live Through That One.
Unknown.
But it wasn't over. Not yet, nooooo.
The two cars really were going to the same place which was an isolated trailer camp, way up in the hills, and a million miles from anywhere. It was pitch deep in the night and we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves. We have no idea where we are except for being able to narrow it down to one of the fifty states. There's no way to recall the discussion of what should we do but that discussion didn't last long anyway.
The mountain boys of West Virginia know there's only one thing needed after Southern Comfort and fast cars. Yep, that would be guns.
There's nothing better when you're drunked-up in the hills of West Virginia on a Friday night and that's to start shooting guns into the air.
This was when the decision was made that We Must Get the Fuck Out of Here.
This was also the night we slept underneath an overpass to an Interstate highway. We found our way back there and did not see anything around us. We had to sleep somewhere so we went up into the overpass and climbed into some crawlspaces they have up there. And so we spent our first night in West Virginia in America, thankfully bereft of bullet holes or the risk of incurring any.
It's also not entirely clear how that bleak moment resolved into finding our way back to Cincinnati but the astute reader may have wondered, where was any contact back to the home front to advise we have not, at least not yet, been eaten by cave bears. That's because the contact did not happen and that part of it was so wrong.
I was the eldest so I owned it and my cop is I had no idea nor did Tinkerbell or Lotho that this would be such an immense fright to my parents. They never let it show but, dayum, I know if I had been in the position in which I had put them then I would have been up to the top of the wall with panic.
One of the good things to come out of this was more recognition we really did get lucky with the draw on my parents. There was no recrimination for doing it because no-one understands wanderlust better than they after they have traipsed the family all over the world but we could definitely improve our communications and, puh-leeze, review your risk estimation.
Some of this crew improved their ability to estimate risks. I wasn't one of them but some did.
And so we skated through something else which we had no right to survive. Chalk to up to Providence or whatever you like but it's all true. If stories like this did not exist in my life then I would have to invent them but the historical records really did happen. Some of it (i.e. a lot of it) is as unbelievable to me as it likely is to you.
But I don't worry about it because, hey, got a light? Let's smoke this joint.
Who dey!
(Ed: say what?)
Bengals cheer ...
WHO DEY
WHO DEY
WHO DEY THINK GOIN' BEAT THOSE BENGALS
WHO DEY!!
(Ed: what does that have to do with going to Florida?)
Nothin'. I just like it. All-out Cincinnati. WHO DEY!
2 comments:
Man you left out the dude in the 4 door truck who was trying to get it high.
Or the family towing the car to thr drag strip that pretended the money she was handing to us fill out of one of our pockets
You are right and it's cool to see you in-game here.
You already know I mean to be accurate with these historical because they're so outrageous anyway that no-one would ever believe them if I added anything more ... but ... there is a wee bit of a problem with forgetting cool stuff like you said.
I look back and feel like the Bad Eldest Brother for getting you two into risks I did not anticipate nor consider. On balance, I can blow it off somewhat with trying to push the Cool Eldest Brother because that expedition did reveal some really whacked stuff about life but, deep down, I know that doesn't wash. It's damn lucky for me I did not get you all hurt as I would have been severely and deservedly accountable for it.
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