Hitting the road in 1968/hitching to East Coast from Berkeley and back in 8 days (what we "hippies did!")

(Hitchhiking story from my memoir: <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0777FHXX2>).

(Excerpted from my book, TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES, A filmmaker's Memoir.

IMPOSSIBLE GOAL (1952)

Before she died, my mother told me a very revealing story about an early parent-teacher conference we attended. After my first-grade teacher had finished her recitation of my achievements, and pointed out my various deficiencies, she told my parents that, in her estimation, “Ricky could do very well in math.” My mother nodded, smiling, until my father broke in. She was shocked to hear his next question, “Yes, but can he be the best?”

I don’t remember that incident, but I’m sure my father’s exaggerated expectations contributed to the dismal afternoon we spent together later at a bowling alley .

FOUR IN A ROW (1955)

When I was around eleven, I somehow convinced my father (then age 58) to accompany me to a bowling alley on the South Side of Chicago where I occasionally went with my friends. I was getting pretty good at the game and wanted to show him just that – how good I was. So he agreed to take an excursion, and was probably surprised at the bleak surroundings. I can still picture him, sitting there on that hard wood bench, in that dingy, three-lane bowling alley, where everything in sight – ceiling, walls, and floor – were dark brown. He never took off his grey winter coat, just sat there fairly uncomfortably, waiting for me to get it over with.

In those days there were pinsetters, mostly kids back there where you rolled your ball, manually setting up the pins after they were struck down. It was strange to see arms and hands protruding around the pins, adjusting their placement, then clearing out of the way. I guess that was part of the tension for me in those early days. I always worried about hitting someone with my ball. Releasing the first ball, I got off to a very good start with a solid strike. I looked over at Father. He seemed to approve. And the second ball was accurate too, knocking down all the pins.

“Yes,” he said, “That was good.”

Even the third ball was perfect. Three strikes in a row. Things were looking very promising. I was performing well for Father. But I was getting a little nervous between throws, waiting for that pinsetter to set the twelve pins again, put them all back up in their designated spots. I think it was the long waits between balls that finally got to me. I wanted so much for my father to appreciate something I did. I desperately needed some kind of validation. He was always so silent and distant, so reserved. He had barely said a word since we entered the bowling alley.

Of course, I wasn’t able to distinguish between how he was responding to my bowling game and the discomfort he was feeling from sitting so long on those hard benches. I didn’t know then about his four years in a Siberian prison camp in 1914-18, other WWI hardships he had survived. I had noticed small scars on his body at the beach (including a scarred depression right in his butt) from gunshot wounds, but didn’t understand how painful it was for him to sit so long without a cushion.

The second I released the fourth ball I knew it was doomed. It rattled down the smooth, waxed wooden alley, crashing into the pyramid of pins, but when the clatter ceased, one pin remained standing. My eyes filled with tears. I was shattered. I couldn’t go on. I had failed. I don’t remember him paying for the lane, returning the shoes for a refund, or the ride back home.

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How did this need for some basic acknowledgement from a parent affect me in adult life? When I found myself in a similar situation with a wife it started to undercut that relationship.

AVOCATION (1967)

What had started as a well-defined educational pursuit toward an industrial design degree (dreamed up by my wife according to her assessment of my manual dexterity and engineering skills back in Tucson) had now become something far different. Teachers Mrs. Murelius and Charlie Simonds had opened up my eyes to the idea of Art in the grander sense. What I had stumbled upon at CCAC was not, in fact, a career in a commercial art field, but a return to my own passion to create art things (which I always had as a youngster back in Chicago—sculptures made out of orange crates, paintings also). Being at the California College of Arts and Crafts had gotten me back in touch with all that.

Realizing that I had only so much time to create a solid body of work before I was either accepted in graduate school or pushed out into the real world, I quit going to my other classes at CCAC halfway through that Fall ’67 semester. Taking ‘Incompletes’ in required subjects, I continued to work in the foundry full time, cranking out new sculptures every month. I had figured out that what an art school was best for was (1) free equipment and supplies, (2) companions and helpers, and (3) the time to do the work. As long as I kept myself in the rhythm of making sculptures I felt that that was being responsible to myself as an artist and husband (to get some kind of job/teaching or whatever afterward). But my new drive for getting work done had repercussions on my marriage that I hadn’t foreseen. Where previously in my relationship with Mary-Ann, I had given her much of my attention, I now began giving that time to my work instead. And Mary-Ann became somewhat glum, perhaps overburdened as a housewife and mother, and under-challenged as an intellect (she finally got a law degree in her 50s). In any event, I wasn’t skilled enough as an adult to spot this negative trend and establish some balance in my life.

STILL-LIFE WITH FAMILY (1968)

Finally, about a week into summer vacation (early May) I realized that I needed a break to figure out my relationship and told Mary-Ann that I was going to hitchhike cross-country with a friend, just to give myself a breather, to try and work out my problems on the road. I left her all the money we had except for a twenty-dollar bill, which I figured would give me a dollar a day for 20 days if I was careful. I brought along a backpack, a sleeping bag, a suitcase and a warm P-jacket , Within a half-hour I was at the Ashby Avenue freeway entrance, again holding out my sign that read “East Coast.”

TRIPPING BUSINESSMAN

The first ride I scored out of Berkeley, at the beginning of my second hitchhike trip was with a businessman in a Chevy Impala. He looked very straight, dressed in a white shirt that was heavily starched and pressed, gold-rimmed glasses, a brown briefcase by his side, the back seat filled with samples of some kind. And he seemed rattled in some way, watching traffic, then looking over at me in my pea coat, beard, shades. Finally he asked a question.

“Why are you...you all doing this?" he blurted out. I remember thinking, How can I answer that question? He wanted me to be some kind of spokesman for my entire generation? The song from Bob Dylan, came to mind, about how, “something’s going on, but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” I was in the car with Mr. Jones! The businessman gave me about a forty-mile ride, before dropping me just the other side of Livermore Lab, barely outside the Bay Area.

Whenever the driver of the car or truck I rode in pushed me to explain what I was doing––I was hitting the road to “work out my marriage–– they almost always inevitably opened up, turning the conversation back to their real life and their own difficulties. I didn’t realize that I had signed on for an eight-day, 6000-mile cross-country group therapy on wheels, that I would be sharing emotional secrets with strangers all the way to Providence, Rhode Island and back.

FLAGSTAFF FLATFOOT

After a series of good long rides, out past the California cities, past Mojave in the desert, I arrived early on a Sunday morning in Flagstaff, Arizona, dropped off at the edge of town by a truck driver who was heading south from there. So, I started walking east toward some tall buildings I could see in the distance, assuming those skyscrapers represented the center of town. The temperature was chilly but I didn’t mind, because I had a warm coat and I knew that I was lucky to be cold instead of broiling in a typical Arizona summer. Whenever I saw a car or other motor vehicle I stuck out my thumb, but no one seemed inclined to stop. While I hiked along I noticed a couple of police cars cruising by, first from ahead, then passing me from behind, slinking along like a couple of hungry sharks just waiting for the right moment to strike.

Suddenly a passing police car pulled a U-turn and accelerated right up to where I was walking, jerking to a halt at the curb next to me. I heard the squawking of his car radio, then watched as the officer got out of his patrol car and sauntered over to where I was standing at curbside. After he spent a few drawn-out seconds eyeing me from top to bottom, he said he would have to search all my luggage. He ordered me to open everything up. So, for the next few minutes I complied, unrolling my sleeping bag right on the sidewalk, showing him the insides (he patted it down himself feeling around for drugs or whatever), unpacking my suitcase and letting him examine the various items it contained. Then he did a thorough frisking of my person, patting down my legs, checking pockets, taking a thorough look at everything I carried.

Finally, satisfied that I was clean – had no illegal contraband – he told me that it was illegal to hitchhike. He said that if he saw me make even so much as one little gesture with my thumb or head to a passing car, he would haul me to jail. And he added that if I ended up there, I wouldn’t like it one bit.

I was told to keep walking straight through town, in the same direction I was headed, instructed not to look anywhere but forward, and not to stop for any reason. As soon as I passed under a gray overpass at the outskirts of town, he explained, I could resume hitchhiking. With that he got back in his car and drove off.

During the next four hours I was constantly monitored by passing patrol cars. Avoiding eye contact, I couldn’t tell if it was the same policeman who had hassled me, or some of his buddies. All I knew was I was walking into an oven (the temperature was climbing into the 90s), and my suitcase seemed to be gaining weight by the minute.

Finally, after about five hours of hiking, I reached the designated overpass. Exhausted, Some patrol car eased over to the roadside about two hundred feet away and just sat there, as if stalking prey. I hoped I had made it to the correct overpass and not some other one that would get me in big trouble. I was still scared that these tough Arizona cops weren’t quite done with me. If you’ve seen the movie Rambo, where small town cops arrest the long-haired Sylvester Stallone character, hassle him until he becomes as crazy and mean as they are, you’ll know the kind of mentality I was dealing with.

Suddenly, the patrolman floored it, wheels churning up a dust storm before the sedan caught the edge of the pavement, burning rubber as it jolted back toward Flagstaff, its image reflecting off the hot asphalt. I can’t remember what kind of vehicle finally picked me up there, rescued me out of that hellhole, but I felt very fortunate to leave that town that afternoon.

(More 'hitchhiking stories' coming up, from May, 1968).

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