“That’s an astute observation”
It was an easy one because I was driving around up there that summer. Had picked up some hitchhikers down in Pennsylvania who were headed to Woodstock, so I remember what kind of people were out on the road. One of our hitchers was an older Deadhead kinda dude who never said a word. Weird. Zero entertainment value out of him.
This was the summer after high school, some friends and I were just driving around the US in my VW bus. Mooching off of friends and family or just sleeping in the bus. You can do that at 18.
Stopped in Phoenix. El Paso. Houston. We were in Houston the night before the Moon landing. Stopped to sleep on some nice residential street and the cops chased us away. Probably had picked some NASA honcho’s house to park in front of, is my guess.
Watched the Moon Landing on a gas station tv out in the boondocks of Cajun country. Celebrated turning 18 in New Orleans.
At some point we picked up a kid who was hitchhiking to his uncle’s place in Florida. When we dropped him off he invited us to go alligator hunting, so we clambered out on the ricketiest dock ever built and went zooming around in a flat bottomed skiff hunting ‘gators. The gators eluded us.
Anyway after spending some time in Flor-da we wandered up the east coast eventuating our presence in New York state.
You’ve mentioned the fierce Hurricane Camille hitting the Gulf Coast that August. I guess that must have been about the time that we were in New York. Good timing, I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the road down there when that thing hit.
You shoulda stopped in
We had a bunk room and mom or her mom woulda cooked for you
We watched the Columbia capsule in the night sky the reflection
Recall how we all felt watching the capsule go to the dark side...will they come back
Man everyone watched that
The age of Aquarius
Optimism in the air
A great time to be a kid
I was 11 and we all were laying out in this cut field next to my house on blankets looking up at the sky listening to broadcasts on the transistor radio
All of a sudden the stars and moon were blotted out by Betty Ann’s face as she crept over and gave me a big wet kiss out of nowhere
She’d been lying next to Pam giggling
We were sixth graders together and she was blond and blue eyes and wore my silver ID bracelet...God she was so pretty like Kim Novak at 12
Heaven in the sky
Heaven on that blanket
Man.....like a laser beam in my dream
I had not recalled that for a long time
What a great neighborhood I grew up in so many kids it was moment in time till the federal gov decided to build projects down white rock road and that was it
We moved north to where the rich kids were....whole nother awakening