As I recall, my final days in Oregon began with my mother screaming at my brother, John (as usual) to clean the ‘stinky drawers out from under his bed’. The mental and emotional aggravation escalated to a point where my mother began to physically punish him. When I could no longer take my mother beating my 15 year-old brother with a wooden coat hanger, I burst into the bedroom where the abuse was taking place and grabbing the coat hanger from my mother, I pushed her into a corner.
I said something to the effect that I was tired of her beating on John, beating on us all. We were her children, after all. My mother always selectively chose what she cared to hear, rationalizing the rest. I remembered way too many torturous episodes and internally flinched at the hundreds of bruises I’d already sustained over my 17 years. She dismissed me to wait in my room for my father.
Weeks before, I knew The Grateful Dead were going to be in Eugene, Oregon at MacArthur Court on the University of Oregon campus and I’d finally talked my parents into letting me go with Carol as her mother had agreed to chaperone. The concert being that very night, I’d likely not be there. This would be another of the many disappointments in my life.
My brother, John had looked at me as if I had wings on and I’d grab us both and fly away. But, I knew the reality would set in once my father came home. I’d waited the remainder of the day in my room. Waiting for my father although I knew he hated the idea of physically punishing his children - his babies - but my mother’s incessant nagging, screaming and fits of outrageous psychotic behavior usually drove him to do what he was asked: beat his children.
And so rather than wait for my father to initiate, I grabbed my handbag, stuffed into it what little money I’d been saving up from various odd-jobs and babysitting, walked out of my room, down the hall and into the living room where my father was sitting, contemplating, dreading what he was expected to do.
I remember "announcing" that I was leaving and added something about being a ‘good person’, a ‘good daughter’, but somehow unable to maintain that personae for any length of time and finally said, "I’m going and I’m never coming back."
"Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out," my father tossed off the comment, although I saw a flicker of relief pass his eyes, in that instant when he knew he wouldn’t have to hit me ever again in provoked anger. I exited as if being chased by demons, never looking back. Although I didn’t know it at the time, one day my father would tell me he knew it would be the last time I’d walk out the door as a child.
Freedom smelled like a 5am mist. Fresh, new, I was my own person now. I could do anything I wanted to do. If I didn’t want to clean the bathroom for a week, no, a year, I didn’t have to. If I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t have to (although I did want to and went one week after I officially ‘ran away from home’, but never actually "finished" my High School requirements until some years later). For the last time, I would leave the house where my parents lived. I’d run away so many times before, starting with that "incident" when I was a year and a half, I’d lost count, but this time my skin knew, my whole being knew this was it, the change in current. I sensed more new growth on the already blossoming trees. I felt weightless, gliding down the street to Carol’s house, taking those first steps to begin my journey. In later years, as I’ve grown to know and, to quote a favorite phrase, "what a long strange trip it’s been".
I’d have to tell Carol what had happened, but since her mother had our tickets to the show that night, we would have to act our way along.
Carol affected concern, but her eyes were electric when she asked me what I was going to do now.
I didn’t have a clue as to what I was really going to do with less than $200 in my bag, but revealed some spur-of-the-moment plan about hitchhiking to San Francisco so I could be free, live in a commune and ball guys all the time!
If only I could reach back through the years and say to that person, "What in the hell were you thinking? Did you really think there would be much difference?" We all have to tow the line. Not that in anyway I have become a course person, but idealism and naivete are two strange and vulnerable companions.
Carol burst out something about ‘leaving this place’ and started stuffing some things in her bag, throwing a couple of t-shirts at me, instructing me to put them in my bag. Carol continued to jabber on about her Mom and how we could tell her to drop us at the show – she was just going to go over to her boyfriend’s house anyway – and then tell her to pick us up afterward at the Student Commons. But we wouldn’t be there because we would hitch a ride with the band since they were heading back to San Francisco after tonight’s show.
I felt like I’d just inhaled laughing gas. The Grateful Dead…give us a ride to San Francisco? What? They already had an album out! They were famous!
With simultaneous thoughts, Carol and I would change our lives forever. Our priority at that point: to experiment with our sexuality (i.e.: ‘ball as many guys’ as we could) and leave ‘Corn Valley’ (as we disdainfully called Corvallis).
From the hallway, Carol’s Mother let us know it was time to go. I was certain my parents had called, but Mrs. Nudge didn’t seem to let on. She was a short, round woman, her daughter a cookie-cutter image. Although prone to hysterical pregnancies, Carol’s mother always seemed cheerful and I wasn’t quite sure how or why, but suspected it emanated from the many bottles I’d seen when I’d taken advantage of rummaging through their medicine cabinet one day. I didn’t know what was what, but thought about taking one of each to see what it would do, how it would phase me. In later years, I would know for certain.
Eager, ecstatic, we grabbed our handbags which had grown due to the extra t-shirts and jeans we’d stuffed in them. Carol’s mother oblivious to the girth of the bags we carried, cheerily humming an old Sinatra tune, opened the side door to the carport, allowing us entrance to her late model Ford.
The drive to Eugene seemed like forever. I could have been 2 years old as I constantly asked Mrs. N ‘if we were there yet’. When we finally arrived at the University of Oregon campus, MacArthur Court area was already a cacophony of student activists mixed with assorted Pranksters. Carol and I didn’t know anyone or anything, but joined in. We did have our tickets to the show, after all, so felt a total inclusion into hippiedom. It was May 31, 1969. My first Grateful Dead show, one of hundreds I would belong to.
Carol and I both thought we were the most far-out chicks we knew in Corvallis, but against the back-drop of the Pranksters, we were pretty tame. Being the consummate actor I’d been all my life, I effected an air of knowledge of all things ‘hip and cool’, as if I’d already seen it all, been everywhere (although the make-up around my eyes gave me away to a more established ‘sense’ of style) and done everything. Someone came up to me and offered me a joint. I’d only smoked marijuana a couple of times, but didn’t seem to feel the effect like other people. That night was different as the effects of the herb finally took hold just as we entered the Court area, scrambling for floor space near the stage. As the lights dimmed, Carol gave me a little purple tablet saying something like, "I think some guy named Oswald made this". Of course, I took the tablet as Carol knew about such things and I somehow trusted her and that she wouldn’t try to poison me. I’d taken acid only once before and thought I was a candle being burned at both ends, dripping wax on the sofa where I lay, unable to move. Certain that I would be able to handle this ‘trip’, I downed the little purple domed pill, swallowing a sip of warm beer someone had offered me noticing I was attempting to take the pill dry.
I literally stood on my feet for 4 hours that night, unable to extricate myself from the spot I’d claimed on the floor. Others around me pushed, swayed, danced to the Band’s music, while I, motionless, watched the stage heave-up before me like a giant wave, black-light lit, swirling images flying over the heads of the band members. I found myself concentrating on Bob Weir’s guitar, actually ‘seeing’ the notes drop from the strings, then back to Jerry Garcia’s hair, flying in arches above his head like ravens flying into a purple-hued sunset. With the final strains of ‘And We Bid You Goodnight’ still echoing in my ears, I knew my ‘trip’ was not coming to an end anytime too soon.
I’d lost track of Carol a couple of hours before and was now being entertained by some long-haired poet (or so he said, or did I just imagine that he was spouting poetry?). As I stared at an undulating, pus-filled ingrown hair that protruded out of the scruffy beard growing from his chin, I wondered if this was the guy, the first guy I was ultimately going to ball?
Just then, like a pudgy fairy, Carol appeared in the now clearing auditorium, introducing me to ‘Far-out Gary and Greg’, pointing to two semi-long haired, gangly boys with varied shades of tie-dye t-shirts on. I was having difficulty telling them apart. They blended together in one giant male flow of energy. They had told Carol they went to Oregon State University and had this really big, groovy house where we could crash at for as long as we wanted to!
I said something like, "Wow, far-out, man," watching the words tumble out of my mouth. I imagined them bouncing up and on the faux Poet (who had now taken a step backward when Carol and Company surfaced), exploding the giant pimple on his chin. Ugh! The overwhelming visual sensation almost made me puke.
Our original make-believe plans of an euphoric, acid-trip ride to San Francisco with the Grateful Dead scraped for a ‘free crash pad’ just off the OSU campus. Exiting the university grounds in Eugene, we piled into a VW bug and headed back north to Corvallis instead of south to California.
It was just a couple of weeks before finals and my Senior Year of High School would be over. Regardless, I was doomed to remain in Corvallis for a little while longer (it seemed Carol was no longer a virgin and liked it like that). Therefore, my next few days consisted of ducking in and out of school during the day while smoking pot, drinking beer and ‘sucking dick’ at the ‘guy house’ just off 4th Avenue at night. Although ‘technically’ still a virgin, I was allowed to stay and told, "You give good head". It was during this time at another ‘guy house’ party, I met Tony Ewert.
I’d seen him but, didn’t really know him ‘before’. Tony was one of the cool, hippie guys at Corvallis High even though he was rarely there as he and his notorious brother usually showed-up at school after some lengthy probationary period, only to display more erratic behavior and once again be tossed from school grounds. It was said that Tony always had the best drugs and seemed to be drunk and/or stoned most of the time I saw him. Of medium stature, he walked with a side-to-side motion, sort of like a white-boy pimp-roll. His liquid brown eyes consistently featured drooping lids and he parted his lips in such a way that his tongue peeked out of his mouth in a little point. Tony was all about the party and about who could be the "stoned-est". He usually was and I respected that thinking how terribly brave of him to test the limits. I had no physical attraction to Tony, although we’d fumbled at ‘first and second base’ from time to time, usually in a semi-conscious state. Tony became my savior, rescuing me from permanent puckered lips at the ‘guy house’, suggesting Carol and I come crash with him and his friend Dave at Dave’s house.
Dave’s "house" turned out to be a one room converted tool-shed down a narrow wooden gangplank, behind a ‘real ‘house. Tony and Dave discussed philosophy as they were more interested in existentialism than in unzipping their pants and displaying their wares for Carol and I. It was a temporary relief from the over-exuberant testosterone driven environment we’d just vacated. That night at Dave's, I lay on a tattered mattress against one of the four walls, accepted the herbal delight that was passed to me, lazily laid my head down, drifting off to faint strains of Tim Buckley. This would be my last night in Corvallis for many years.
The next day, my brother who was a Sophomore at the same High School, cornered me in the hallway to tell me that our parents had the police out looking for me, investigating my disappearance and they’d already talked with Mrs. Nudge too and were looking for Carol. I hugged my brother fiercely. My brother John, just 18 months younger than I, the only boy I’d known for any length of time. The willing Lewis to my aggravating Martin in so many childhood schemes I’d forced him to take part in. My innocent, handsome, talented brother. I’d never know another like him with so much potential unrealized, lost forever. I sit here now, many years later, my eyes begin to tear just thinking about the last time I’d see him in that transient moment.
I left the school grounds and ran over to Dave’s. Carol was there, slightly stoned from sitting most of the morning discussing Proust with Dave and Tony. I told Carol what my brother had said. My hands were sweating as I took haphazard inventory of the few things I had stuffed into my tattered cowhide bag. I remember mumbling something about ‘should have tried for a ride with the Grateful Dead’, whereupon, Tony commented dreamily that we must have really been stoned, as if somehow we’d missed the Mothership to a new colony on Mars.
Dave had a beat-up Mustang and agreed to drive us as far as Cottage Grove so we could continue our way south. We caught a ride from a guy going to Reedsport, which would put us right on the Coastal Highway. We felt it would be safer if we just stuck to 99 all the way down the coast to California. Since it was getting dark, ‘Reedsport guy’ offered us a crash space at a commune where some of his friends lived, just east of Scottsburg, along the Umpqua River. He had a kind face, offering us a joint to smoke while we drove along. I felt cleansed of everything I’d known, on my way to California with my best friend in the back seat and a joint between my fingers. I could be anyone I wanted to be. Re-inventing myself had always come easy, this time I would ‘invent’ myself into being a hippie. This would not be the time when something unpleasant would happen to me. I had no fear of such things, those things only happened to people in books and movies and certainly weren’t real. Unknown to me at the time, those things would wait for me in California.
Other than getting stoned, eating some bean stew, and talking about life in California as if we were going to Eden, Carol and I, the ‘Reedsport guy’ and two of the commune members passed an uneventful night. With an offered blanket thrown over me, I crashed out on the cabin floor around midnight.
The next morning, cramped and aching from having slept on a hard wood floor, I graciously accepted the warm tea and toast that was offered to me and would suffice as my sustenance for the remainder of the day. Carol and I hugged farewells to the few commune members as ‘Reedsport guy’ took us the rest of the way to the junction of 99 where we parted company with him.
A local fisherman going all the way to Crescent City picked us up. We’d hit the jackpot! We’d be in California tonight, out of Oregon and on my way to adventure, a new life in the hub of the hippies: San Francisco, California.
Although ‘fisherman guy’ lived in Crescent City, he offered to take us to a roadside stop just south of Crescent City where he’d said we’d ‘probably get a really good ride’. It was almost sunset and lightly drizzling when ‘fisherman guy’ dropped Carol and I off in front of an informational shelter at the roadside stop. I thought it was colder than usual for a June evening, but the Pacific Northwest weather can trick you, just like that. Slightly damp, with no real shelter in sight, we huddled in the corner of the crude lean-to, throwing on the few extra clothes we had over us. The moccasins I’d been wearing featured a large hole on the bottom of the left shoe. Fortunately, the only pair of socks I had were dry, so I put them on my clammy feet, a bit wet from the water that had soaked through the footwear.
Crouched in a corner, with Carol’s warm breathe on my neck, I closed my eyes listening to the rain fall heavier now on the shelter, and tried to imagine away the chill that threatened to find me. I drifted off into a sort of semi-sleep, dreaming of some cute hippie boy rescuing me and taking me away to his commune where they grew marijuana and organic vegetables. We’d dance in the sun and smoke pot all day and ball all night while the Grateful Dead practiced in the cabin next to us: California.