Synopsis - Chapter 16
I took a one way flight to LAX, from Jacksonville, on August 14, 1969. That was the day I was released from probation for being arrested for possession of marijuana. Adjudication of guilt was withheld, and it was supposed to be stricken from my record, but it still shows up on FBI background checks. George probably took me to the airport in Jacksonville. I got to LA around noon and took a bus to Orange County Airport, since renamed, John Wayne Airport. I hitchhiked to the Greek surfboard factory in Costa Mesa to look for work. They didn't need any help, but told me to go one block up the hill to the Exxon gas station. Monty and his wife ran the station and hired me on the spot. "Be at work tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock." Did I mention that I had a duffel bag and @$100 to my name. I hitchhiked down to Huntington Beach and walked down Main Street, near the pier. I saw a vacancy sign at the Alma Hotel, 215 1/2 Main Street, and walked upstairs to meet Mom Ingersoll. I rented a 15 by 15 room for $15 a week from Mom. She asked me how I was getting to work, and I told her I would hitchhike. She took me to her son and his wife's house a few miles away and gave me an old 24" girls blue bicycle to ride. I had been in town for 3 or 4 hours and had a job, a place to stay, and transportation. I love to tell that story. I was 21 years old.
I had ridden my 350 Honda Scrambler to Atlanta and partially disassembled it and strapped it to a pallet at Dad's S.K. Wellman warehouse. Dad shipped it for me to the company warehouse in LA. I may have flown to LA from Atlanta, it's hard to remember now. I may have hitchhiked back to Jacksonville and flown from there, I think I did. I wouldn't have had a duffel bag on my motorcycle. I took a bus to LA from Huntington Beach a week or so after I arrived by plane. I borrowed some tools from the warehouse manager and put my bike back together. I was on the road again. I bought a 1954, 4 door Chevrolet station wagon shortly after that too, for $150. It reminded me of my first car, a 1953 Chevrolet sedan that I drove when I dated my first girlfriend, Susie Voges.
I had many adventures during this period, which I will detail in time, God willing. If any of my friends or family can help me with time frames for events and/or photos, I would appreciate it. Special mention goes to Sallie Rosenbaum, who was a very important part of my life during this time. Hi to Brian Rosenbaum, who is also special.
Coming to California
1966 to 1968 were rough years for me. I downgraded from University of Virginia to DeKalb Junior College in Decatur, Georgia in 1966. I dropped out of DeKalb in 1967. I totalled my 1957 VW oval bug, after a Christmas party that year. Took too many 5mg white crosses at a Love In in Balboa Park. Got arrested for possession of marijuana in April of 1968. I am omitting some of the more sordid episodes out of shame, but there were several more. The day I got off probation for the marijuana charge, August 14, 1969, I was on a plane from Jacksonville, Florida, to LAX. I wanted to start over, live differently, and do better. I was 21. I had a duffel bag and $100, I figured that was enough to get started. I had been to Orange County, California, previously and I knew the owner of a surf shop, Bob Bolen, aka “The Greek”, who had a factory in Costa Mesa. I took a bus from LAX to the Orange County Airport, now named for John Wayne. From there I hitch hiked to Costa Mesa and started looking for work. I stopped at a gas station, and asked about work. I knew the mechanic there from an Exxon station where we had worked together in 1968, and he said they weren’t hiring. From there I walked a short distance to the Greek factory, and asked about work there. Greek didn’t need any help either, but he said “Go to the Exxon station up at the top of the hill, I think they need someone.” They did need help and I was hired on the spot. Monty, the owner told me to report at 6 AM the next morning. I had been in town for 3 hours and I had a job. I hitch hiked down to Huntington Beach, AKA, Surf City, and walked down Main Street, near the pier. There was a vacancy sign in front of an old two story wood frame building in the 200 block. I walked up some wooden stairs and met “Mom” Ingersoll. She had 15 X 15 rooms for $15 a week, bathroom at the end of the hall. I paid her and told her I had a job in Costa Mesa. When I told her I was going to hitch hike to work, she took me to her son’s house nearby, and got me an old blue girls bicycle to ride to work. Mom Ingersoll settled in Huntington Beach in the 1920’s and lived in a tent for two years with her two sons and husband, who worked in the oil fields offshore. Within about six hours I had a job, a place to live, and transportation.
What I really remember about the end of that day, was a feeling of being completely on my own. The room was shabby, with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I felt a little depressed about living like a bum, but I put that out of my mind and revelled in my independence and freedom.
I had been in Huntington Beach for several months. I was surfing by the pier one day and I saw something off to the west in the distance. "What's that?" I asked a fellow surfer. He said "That's Catalina island." The everyday smog had obscured it until this day since I arrived. "26 miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is calling to me..." Another cool sight off in the distance to the northwest was when a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base blew up about a mile high. The smog made the explosion cosmic with color.
Frisco Trip
It’s early Spring 1972, in Southern California. My friend, Glenn and I are both temporarily unemployed. And as young men are wont to do when bored, we decided to take a trip. Not having any money never entered our minds as a deterrent. For $9 (and I’m not making this up) you could fly from LAX to San Francisco on the redeye flight. We assembled some camping gear into a couple of backpacks, old school with metal exo frames, and prepared to depart. My girlfriend, Sallie drove us and Glenn’s girlfriend, Jackie, to L A International. Sallie’s 4 year old son, Brian may have come too, I don’t remember. Sallie had a beat up old 4 door Falcon sedan, which was usually loaded with books, fast food wrappers, laundry, and assorted crap. I used to get on her about cleaning up her car, but that’s another story.
We arrived at the airport about 11:30 PM. We got our tickets and were seated on the airplane by 11:55. Hard to believe, but this was before the TSA.
After a short flight, I don’t think we ever got to altitude, just up and down in less than 30 minutes. After disembarking we unsuccessfully hitch hiked to downtown, The City, as Northern Californians liked to say. In other words, we walked from the airport, which as I remember, was not too far. We wandered around downtown for an hour or so, at 1AM. We felt like we were in a surreal Fellini movie. There were drunks, street people, cops, and various other characters wandering around doing various things, strange things, to our minds.
We wandered off in the general direction of South San Francisco, to start hitch hiking back to Costa Mesa, SoCal. We considered finding a roof top to sleep on. This was Glenn’s idea, since he was more street wise than me. He said we would get up before dawn and hit the road again. (Before leaving town we went to Golden Gate Park to see the sights. I got a ticket for hitchhiking in the Park, which I guess was illegal. The California cops were infamous for "rousting" hippies. I don't believe I ever paid the ticket as an act of defiance.)
About this time, a young man about our age, pulled over in a fiberglass dune buggy. He took us to a house nee mansion, that he was care taking for absent owners. He cooked us a great breakfast and we went swimming in their heated pool. The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, the young man drove us to Highway 1, where in the course of a few days, we made it through Big Sur, Santa Cruz, and other points south to arrive safely in Orange County. One of the people who picked us up was driving a Ferrari sports car. He was a little older than us and insisted he had room for us and our packs. So we crammed in and he took us a few miles down California Highway 1.
On the way we camped out in a cemetery in Santa Cruz, which according to Glenn, was another safe place to sleep over night. I had some friends from Florida in Santa Cruz, but there were already several other vagabonds staying with them and there was no room for us. I did borrow a surfboard and attempted to surf Steamer Lane, a famous local break. I didn’t have a wetsuit and I remember it being quite chilly. I wiped out taking off several times and gave it up. I can’t honestly say that I surfed Steamer Lane.
Hussong’s Cantina 1970
I was working in a surfboard factory (for the Greek, Bob Bolen) in Costa Mesa California, in May of 1970. My buddies were gearing up to head for Mexico for Cinco de Mayo. Having recently arrived from Florida I asked, “What the heck is Cinco de Mayo?” After acknowledging I had just fallen off the turnip truck, my friends enlightened me about the big fiesta. Despite having a beat up old car, a 1954 Chevrolet station wagon, painted to look like a woodie, maybe $25, and certainly no money to buy car insurance for Mexico, I put $10 worth of gas in the car and headed for the border. (Driving in Mexico without insurance is a real bad idea. You could get locked up for a long time).
Skip Tijuana, my friends said, go straight to Ensenada. So I did. Hussong’s Cantina was the place to be, I was told, so I headed there. This reminds me of a coworker, Tim Johnston, telling me about the Rendevous Ballroom, on Balboa Island, in Newport Beach, California in the ’60s. I said to Tim, “That sounds like it was the place to be!” As long as I live, I’ll never forget Tim’s reply, he said “No, but we thought it was.”
For a quarter Hussong’s provided a shot of Tequila, a salt shaker and a small bowl of cut up limes. Needless to say, Hussong’s was quite popular with American tourists. It was basically a dive bar with no entertainment besides the boisterous crowd inside, mostly Americans. I noticed a young man sitting on the fireplace mantle, across the room from the bar. I walked over and joined him. Everyone was singing and dancing and drinking tequila. About that time a couple of Federales walked in, surveyed the room, and walked to the mantle. They unceremoniously grabbed my amigo off the mantle and dragged him outside. The Federales walked back in and began walking in my direction through the crowd. I don’t claim to be the sharpest tack in the box, but I jumped down and headed for the back door. As I walked around to the front of the cantina, I saw my compadre in the back seat of a police car. His friend was trying to tell him, “You don’t have to go to jail, just give the Federales $10.” The arrestee was so programmed (and drunk) that he couldn’t comprehend what he was being told. “No, he said, we have to go to jail and bond out.” I think the friend gave the cops $10 and they let their prisoner go. I got in my wagon and drove to nearby Rosarita Beach to sleep for the night.
Upon arising I met some nice Americanos camping next to me and we started drinking. I was mixing rum with Gatorade, which was supposed to get into your bloodstream 7 times quicker than water. I don’t know about that, but you would get a rush maybe 10 to 15 seconds after taking a drink, especially sitting on the beach in the sun.
While driving through Tijuana on the way home, I recalled a story my buddy named Earl had told me. He got stopped by the Federales once in Tijuana, who relieved him of all of his cash, about $25. Then they gave him back $5 and told him to go home. Another time Earl and I drove to Mexico in his car. After being refused entry in Tijuana for Earl’s long hair, we drove to Tecate, a border town a few miles to the east. (I remember the Federale in Tijuana saying to Earl, “No hippie in Mehico!” several times). The border crossing at Tecate was closed at night and at 6 AM a young guard opened the swing gate and raised his hand to stop us. To my abject terror, Earl waved at him vigorously, and hit the gas. As we sped off down the road, i had visions of us being in a Mexican jail. However we got away without incident. I used the same trick once later in Costa Rica when a traffic officer tried to stop us (to shake us down) on the highway. It worked there too.
And no, I did not go to the donkey show.
I stayed in Southern California until February of 1973, when I went to Hawaii to live. Sallie and Brian took me to the airport. I remember getting my airplane ticket at LAX, and the girl at the counter asking me if I wanted round trip. I grinned ear to ear and replied "One way!" Hawaii was and is my dream, and I was on my way.
June 28, 2010
