Big Trip 1971 Introduction

This journal was transcribed from my three 1971 handwritten journals in 2011, when I was 60 years old. Even though this trip occurred so many years ago, what happened way back then is still part of me.

While this journal is about many things, many events and thoughts, many life changing experiences, it is significantly centered around one person that I met and had a wonderful time with. I wonder how my life would have been different if I knew half as much about relationships back then as I know now....

But I was just at the beginning of my journey to become a different person than the hermit I was at that time.

Although this page is about navigation, etc, let's briefly set the stage for this time in my life, noting that there is much more of that in other pages.

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Certainly the way my parents (very good parents, btw) brought up all the six kids in my family has a huge part of the person I was then and am now. Living in the apartments in the city (New York City) and then in the Long Island suburbs left indelible locations and memories behind. And of course, my experiences with my siblings and my friends through those early years also had much significance in my life.

In 1969 I had just graduated from Brooklyn Prep High School. I did well there though I never got socialized with other people. I still hadn't dated a girl yet, in fact I had just discovered those mysterious, baffling, and alluring creatures. Overall I wasn't happy with the way my life was going, I knew I needed to make major changes in my life. But how to do that???

Then I made the situation harder in late 1969 .... I told my Mom & Dad that I was not going to college. I felt I was too immature and I'd flunk out very quickly. Their response was,If you're not going to college, then you need to start paying room and board. Ooookkkaayy, how do I do that? I quickly got a job at Box-Crafters where after a few months I became a Foreman in charge of a team of 15 women. Yikes! Got a very quick education from them.

In 1970 I dated Emily whom I had met at Box-Crafters, and whose Mom took both of them to New Zealand just as we were starting to get intimate. Wow, what a way to stop a relationship of your daughter! In 1971 I starting dating MaryFaith, who was a friend of my Sister. That was an interesting time! But I was also worried about the Vietnam Draft which was trying to snatch me up, what I should do as a career, etc.

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I was growing up, but slowly. I needed to do something, but what? I was still unhappy with my life. I got the crazy idea to take a trip to the West Coast in our little Volkswagen Bug. So I told my parents I was taking the Vw Bug for a trip to somewhere.... maybe the West Coast or wherever it takes me.

It took one day to pack up and say my goodbyes, and it was not certain I'd be coming back. I got on the freeways and within an hour I was lost.

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So, how do these web pages work? It seems like there are quite a few pages to this journal. There are navigation buttons on top left to start with. They show the date(s) you are looking at and they will let you go to the NEXT page, go BACK a page, or go to the HOME. (That is actually the next page after this one that you are reading. It's basically a map of the trip.) These buttons look just like the small picture, so look for them in the upper left! You can easily use these buttons to read the journal page by page.

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~13,575 Miles ~89 Days 3 months!

Next up is the home page, what would we do without a map? Or many maps? This map shows my whole trip that I actually did. Below the map are links to each individual date/page (like in the smmall picture). It is very handy and lets you easily go back to something you might want to re-read, or forwards to a particular place/city, etc. Feel free to skip around unless that gets too confusing. ;-)

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Plus the map gives you a high level overview of the whole trip - for example, you can see that I went down to California and if you know anything at all about the 1970's, you know California would be a wild and crazy place to be. It was!

But what's that blue colored area to the right of the screen? That is a sidebar - in the journal, when I had some extra or miscellaneous information, I (or a person riding/hitch hiking with me) would write the information there. This section has no navigation, just addresses, notes, some links (added when I put the journal on the web), etc. It is part of the journal pages, so I put it in like this.

I'm sure you noticed I've included a lot of pictures. Full confession - I did not have a camera in those days. All these pictures came from the web and are not mine. I tried to use pictures that illustrated things that I actually saw or experienced on my trip.

That's it for navigation, it's pretty simple.

This Journal covers from June 4th 1971 to September 1st 1971. There are some pages that I think are interesting that I wrote long after the Journal. I'm listing them below:

Big Trip Extras Location Description
Prologue Amityville, New York Here I describe what I was like before the trip, some of the big issues on my mind, and influences on me.
Epilogue Amityville, New York Some thoughts about what I learned and how I went to Washington State University.
Could've Been Martinez, California Tiffany's Song, "Couldv'e Been" and it's impact on me.
How to Make Out in a Volkswagen Beetle Amityville, New York In 2024 I found this funny article. My own personal experiences were a bit similar but not as bad since I altered the front passenger seat to be able to lie all the way down flat.
What to do when your paths diverge Fountain Hills, Arizona I found this article a couple of years ago and it had some words-of-wisdom for me. I've seen some of this in my own personal experiences. I'd add another bit in regards to divore - what to do when the person you used to know turns evil

Now, let the adventures begin!

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