Vision Quest
Summer, 1981
The first time I left this place some people call Rock Island... I was 18 years old. I mean it was the first time I went a long ways away on my own... It was my friend Bill Vickers and I.
we rode our bicycles across Iowa. That's a story in itself. We started out from Loud Thunder Forest Preserve after a weekend of partying with our friends.
We stopped on the side of the road just across the Nebraska border to pick some hemp and were arrested. I ended up doing a week in jail and while Bill slept in the city park I found him a place to stay. He visited me the next day and I told him the address and told him to say to them that poppy said it was OK. And it was.
I got out and had a place to stay right away. Little did the police know (or bill and I for that matter) what we would do under the circumstances. We spent a good two months in Lincoln Nebraska just screwing around with the locals. Mostly Native Americans. Lucy Ybarra was the mothers name. Eventually they said we could stay there while they went on two weeks vacation but they warned us not to let their kids in and certainly don't let them steal anything. Of course while they were gone one of the kids had managed to steal a few blank checks and forged them and was supplying everyone with beer to drink while Lucy was away. Man there was hell to pay when she got back home.
Life at Lucy's house was pretty laid back. There was a nice cold water mattress in the basement that was wonderful if you had a hangover.
I learned how to make tortilla's while I lived at Lucy's house.
When things got to be too much at Lucy's house we'd head over to Poppy's to cool off with a beer and and a joint. Poppy always had a little stash around and was always happy to see company even if his face wasn't used to showing that emotion. We talked in broken tex mex as we taught each other a few new words. Poppy was a habitual with the police. Small time only though. You could tell he was good people. He warned us away from trouble now and then. He knew we were just a couple kids but we were from the Midwest and we did have some obvious magic goin' on. Just out exploring the world for the first time.
Just like anytime you spend a lot of time just burning up in the sun it seems. There is a lot to burn up in around Nebraska though. Can't say as I ever want to go back there.
Anyway, the police eventually came up to Bill and I one day and told us that we needed to get the hell out of town. No kidding! Just like that. I just about told him; "Well, hey! Next time don't arrest me when I cross your state line then buddy.
We were ready to get the hell out of there anyway. They were doing us a favor I'm sure since the Ybarra kids were nothing but trouble... great for a summer of fun for Bill and I but nothing you want to get hung up in. I loved them all though.
We left and instead of riding our bikes Bill sold his and I sent mine back home. We hitch hiked the rest of the way to Colorado which was our original destination before we got hung up in Lincoln NE for a month or more. We got all the way up into Central City which is right up into the foothills. The days were getting short already and so the cold crept up early and quick. We were told there was a little cave up a little higher by a kid. We went up there and found what he was talking about. We didn't have much money at all and nothing shaking loose out here at all on the outskirts of Central City. Kind of scary really. Bill wasn't feeling well. I knew that crossing the mountains with no money the way we were was foolish at best. Bill woke up from a dose and said that he'd heard his name. Heard his father say his name. The wind was blowing. We decided that we would head home in the morning. it seemed like the thing to do.
Thoughts of Rock Island made me feel safe.
We made it into Denver with one ride the next day. We screwed around there for a while looking for money then decided we didn't really need any and could be home in less than two days. On the bus ride towards the place where we were going to get on the highway and start hitch hiking we had a guy just come up to us on the bus and give us five bucks. So we went and bought a couple 32 ouncers and drank them and bought a couple candy bars with what was left and ate those....
we got on I-25 and then had to get dumped off at an interchange in the middle of nowhere... I-80, a godforsaken nowhere. We had no water or anything. We got picked up within half an hour however and we were snuggling into the back of the pick up in our sleeping bags for a long ride home. they were going to Wisconsin so they were able to take us all the way home. Sweet!
So were settling in and Bill and I hear a rap at the rear window. We look up and see the girl holding this particularly large joint up to us with a "questioning look". We shook our heads YES! She lights this thing and then hands it out the window to us. Bill and I roasted one of these about once every hour and a half. We'd hear the rap at the window.... Our heads would nod YES! I no longer wondered what was in the Uhaul trailer they were pulling. What a great ride.
We got into town dropped right off at I-80 and I-92 down in the wetlands of Rock Island County. Bill and I walked a long way that night. But it was good to be home. I don't remember where I stayed that night.
That was about 1981 I think.
Summer, 1987
We had a few spare days in the summer in California... I think the Grateful Dead's Fall Tour was coming up and we were languishing in our homelessness on the beach playing guitar and doing our best to avoid "Imperial Entanglements". I was going to have lunch for free at this local soup kitchen run by Catholics. I was raised Catholic so I thought it couldn't be too bad... Well, when I got in there it was really weird. I felt like I was in that strange Night Gallery episode called "Sin Eater" (night gallery was Rod Serlings gig after the twilight zone's run ended) In this creepy little story when a person died they had to have a banquet and people came over and "ate" the dead persons sins. It was an eery episode and I was definitely creeped out by them slipping a mass in on me while I ate. I thought it was hugely disrespectful of the homeless people who may or may not have been religious at all. Guaranteed to insult at least some few people.
So maybe a few days later I was going to this same soup kitchen for breakfast one day. Just because you know, People I knew were going there. It was more for the companionship rather than "real" hunger.
I was met at the door by the priest who said I had to take my t-shirt off and turn it inside out to come in. I asked why? he said that since it had a pot leaf on it he wasn't going to allow me inside. I turned around and showed him the quote from the bible the was silk screened on the back of the shirt; "And he made the earth yield herb bearing seed after its kind. And he saw that it was good."
Apparently this didn't help, he wasn't happy at all with my t-shirt and still refused me entry. I refused to take my shirt off. I just wasn't hungry enough to put up with this guys BS. As I walked away, several people changed their minds about eating at the soup kitchen and invited me to eat with them on their bus. They had a nice large school bus turned into a tour bus and had plenty of food on board. They were just trying to save a little of it for the upcoming fall tour with the Dead. We had a great little breakfast of nuts and berries I think. It was good.
Later that day I was hunting down my dinner and I ran into a few local people and a reporter who interviewed me regarding the incident at the Catholic soup kitchen. I related to them the weirdness with the mass and said that even though I was raised catholic it still was kind of creepy. They were really interested in my story and wanted me to stay and fight for the rights of the homeless and hungry in Santa Cruz to determine their own faith regardless of their poverty. Our point was this: If you're going to act like your helping people you need to do it in a respectful way. Agnostics and Atheists are tired of being caught between religious wars. We have rights too. I never felt so welcomed by a city as I did in Santa Cruz.
I was not really planning on going anywhere but you never knew. I was hanging out on the beach later that week. It was an empty beach at first. I walked out and sat down in a comfortable spot and started playing guitar. I was ten minutes into a song and up walked a flute player. He started playing and then up walked a drummer. We were all jamming for about 25 minutes and we noticed there were about fifteen hippies all dancing around us. We stopped playing when we finally reached a point we could jump off that song... everybody clapped. They asked us how long we'd been playing that song and how long we'd been playing together as a band. We laughed. Twenty five minutes was the answer to both questions. I told them I'd never heard that song before. We went on to play for hours and hours... I stopped playing at one point and said I needed to go get some food. They said; "Oh we have food! here" So we kept on playing... then when I couldn't take it anymore, I wound it down again... I said well... I got to go and find me some kind. The dancing hippies immediately responded with; "Oh we have weed!" So on we played well into the night. Later, I stopped and said well, I do have to go find a place to stay tonight. They said that they had a nice place on the hill and that I could stay there for as long as I wanted. Their friends that weren't here were also musicians and they'd be happy to have me there too they said.
Wow. It all worked out so perfectly. All day I played guitar. All day the things I really wanted just kept effortlessly coming to me with just simply asking! What a wonderful world we have here! it prety much proved very simple to live on the west coast where things never really got too cold to survive. We could always travel south if need be. San Francisco is a little chilly in the summer. I can't sleep on the beach there. Too windy. All night. Blows straight through you.
I always traveled down south of San Francisco a bit to camp. Usually just outside Davenport CA. Population 200. There was a juice factory there. I parked my van there and talked to the owner. He said I could park in the lot there even though he knew I was living on the beach below the factory. You couldn't see the beach from the road so we could pretty much do anything we liked there. We could be just as naked as the day we were born and no one cared. I lived down there for four months I think. I'd go north every day to San Francisco and make money and then head south to Davenport for a few days.
I lived in golden gate park for about three months.
Eventually getting tired of the big city I headed up the coast to Oregon. I ended up in Eugene OR. which is a lovely city but even that wore thin eventually. I found this really nice little spot called Blue River Reservoir. Also known as Cougar Hot Springs. The naturally cascading hot springs from the water running straight out of the mountian.
To Be Continued
