Date:         Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:40:26 -0700
Reply-To:     Jeffrey Olson <jjolson@GWTC.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jeffrey Olson <jjolson@GWTC.NET>
Subject:      Re: Roadside Troubles while on Vacationing
In-Reply-To:  <BAY103-F82C5B7913248AC8576042BABE0@phx.gbl>
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I had driven a girlfriend from Sacramento to Hampshire College in
Massachusetts in early 1974 in my Green 66 camper.  I remember driving
on I-40 through Albuquerque around midnight with our sleeping bags on.
I had a two and a half pound down bag on with my feet sticking out to
operate the pedals.  Annie had on her bag as we drove at 25 mph into a
40 mph headwind on the freeway.  I was 21, an aimless college grad, she
19, and we were in love.

The closer we got to Hampshire, the more hyper she got.  We arrived in
the late evening and she had a kind of nervous breakdown.  After 24
hours of moteling and talking I left her and headed south to visit
friends in Chapel Hill.  I stayed there three weeks, writing her every
day, waiting for a return word to come back and build our lives.

I got increasingly depressed and finally left, heading north in early
february to and uncertain fate.  I distinctly remember driving along the
blue ridge parkway through its dull, brown and snow covered landscape.
I had very little money and little hope.  It was one of the supreme low
points of my life.

To make the proverbial long story short, I arrived at Hampshire to find
she was sharing a dorm room with a rich kid from NYC.  I talked with him
for an hour before she showed up.  Annie and I went to a bar and got
drunk (the drinking age was 18 then) and I left for good, with closure.
I had like $20 to my name so I went to Boston and got a job at a temp
agency for a couple weeks and lived in my camper on the streets of
Cambridge.  I would get up at 5AM and take the T into the city center to
work, and return home at night.  I kept water and perishables in the
icebox so they wouldn't freeze.

At night after I'd cooked dinner on a bluet backpacking stove I'd put my
trusty portable olympia typewriter on my lap and write my heart out.
I'd monitor foot traffic, of which there was little, and stop typing
when I heard snow crunching footsteps walk by.  Now, it's really hard to
read what I wrote, so much youth, pathos and confusion.

I put an ad up in Harvard Square somewhere for riders back to
california.  I met an Iranian who was full of grandiose plans and
ideas.  He said he'd get me a case of cartons of lucky strike cigarettes
as part of our bargain.  He didn't show up.  A woman whose sister was
having a baby came along with me.  Here's the roadside troubles while on
vacation content.  Shortly after leaving Cambridge my generator went
out.  We were driving on the six volt battery.  I know that as soon as I
turned the headlights on to drive at night, everything started to get
dim.  WE pulled off the interstate at one of those toll road truck stops
and had the battery charged for six hours while we slept.  We made it to
Youngstown, OH in the early morning to her drunk brother-in-law whooping
it up.

The woman had stopped speaking to me over the last couple hours - she
was pissed we'd had to stop, and when we arrived, she was just plain
disgusted - she'd missed the birth of her sister's child.  The
brother-in-law insisted I smoke a bunch of pot before I headed out on my
drive to California.

The problem was I had only $60 or so, enough to get me home without
buying any food, but not enough to fix the generator.  I drove in a
potted haze to Alliance, OH where I called a friend and asked him to
wire me another $60 so I could get a generator.  Of course in those days
it took a day to wire money.  I spent the night in a VW used car lot,
pulling my bus into line with the rest of the near relics for sale.

I got the money, purchased the generator, installed it, made it as far
as Kansas City, where I spent seven months driving a school bus to earn
enough money to get home.  That's a whole other story, of which bus
related content is part of the major weave of my life.

Jeffrey Olson
Martin SD