Home, 64 Griffin Dr, Amityville, New York
This was transcribed from my three 1971 handwritten journals in 2011, when I was 60 years old. This trip occurred 40 years ago, yet 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 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.
So let me try to set the stage for this time in my life.
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.
As a young kid I was smart, inquisitive, a bit smaller than other kids, and by 16 years old, was tall and gangly.
Brooklyn Preparatory High School
|
But all this came together when I got to Brooklyn Preparatory High School, a private Catholic school. There, as many teenagers do, I began to grow up. It really wasn't until the last year (1969) though that I really began to change as a person. First you have to know something about Brooklyn Prep and the amazing & inspiring teachers they had.
Brooklyn Prep (Brooklyn Preparatory School) was a highly selective Jesuit college preparatory school founded by the Society of Jesus in 1908. The school educated generations of young men from throughout New York City and Long Island until its untimely closure in 1972.
The Prep was located on 1150 Carroll Street in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. Located next to the Prep was the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, which was also run by the Jesuits. In addition, the school had its own small, intimate chapel where we went to Mass.
As a Jesuit institution, Brooklyn Prep was noted for its religious values, classical roots (e.g., Latin and Greek), and dress code (ties & jackets) - all part of its goal of turning out well-rounded, educated men. Most of its graduates matriculated to four-year colleges. It was part of a group of seven Jesuit secondary schools in New York, New Jersey (Regis, Xavier, Loyola, Fordham Prep, St. Peter's Prep and McQuaid).
|
But more importantly, you have to understand something about the Fathers, Brothers, and Lay teachers - they were good! Very, very good! They taught us how to actually use our brains and to THINK. No subject was off limits for discussion, analysis, debate. Granted we did what you'd call a full curriculum of book learning too, but that was almost secondary to the real learning that took place.
It truly was a “Preparatory“ school in that it was preparing us for the world. I can honestly say that the education I got there was indeed priceless, though I had no clue to that at the time.
To understand this part of me, you have to take a few side journeys to some other sites. So please take a few minutes to read these articles:
- Brooklyn Preparatory School (Wikipedia)
- Jesuits (Wikipedia) - important!
- Charlie Winans Obituary To understand the teachers, you have to read this article.
Of course my Mom & Dad expected me to go to college...
So here I was, 18 years old, graduating from High School. I don't think I'd been on a date yet, and I didn't have any girl friends. I was pretty much an isolated hermit, a world unto myself.
Music
But there was hope.... Several years earlier I had discovered music - Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Peter Paul and Mary, Neil Diamond, Linda Ronstadt, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Joan Baez, The Bee Gees, Janis Joplin, to name a few.
Simon and Garfunkel's songs somehow penetrated the wall I had around myself. “Sounds of Silence“, “The Dangling Conversation“, “Fakin' It“, “Scarborough Fair/Canticle“ all hit home inside my heart and brain. They got me thinking seriously about myself and the life I was leading.
|
“I am A Rock“ was the catalyst I needed - this song described me to a “ T“ at the time. I didn't like what I saw. After listening to this song, I knew I had to change. The big questions were how and to what. I was still grappling with that when I decided to go on the big trip in the summer of 1971.
Speaking of music, I almost went to the Woodstock, August 15th to 18th, 1969 in New Jersey. But I hadn't gotten tickets for it and I'd heard it got hard to get to...so I didn't go - at the time I thought it was just another music festival. Oh well, I missed what might have been an eye-opening experience.
So here you have an intelligent but nerdy, socially uneducated, 18 year old kid about to graduate from High School that was preparing him for college.
|
Except I knew I was not ready for that. My two older sisters had a similar education and were just as intelligent as I was. They both went off to good “Seven Sisters“ colleges. (The “Seven Sisters“ colleges nickname came about to associate them in the public imagination with the eight Ivy League men's colleges.)
They both lasted less than a year. I knew that would be my fate also if I went straight from high school to college. I knew I was not ready, probably even less so than they were.
When I rebelled (in my parent's eyes) and refused to go to college, it must have broke their hearts. This was a hard thing for me to do at the time - not only not obeying them, but making a hard, life altering decision for myself. (I guess this was a first step as an adult, but I didn't know that at the time).
Vietnam and the Draft
|
There is another huge factor in this decision.... the Vietnam War and the Draft.
The Vietnam War was at it's peak in 1968. For a young 18 year old male, there were three basic choices - go to college, get drafted, or enlist in the armed services. The US Army of course took in the greatest number of the draftees. (If you don't know much about the draft at that time, this site has a wealth of information - The Military Draft and 1969 Lottery.)
There were 475,200 Army & Marine soldiers in Vietnam in 1969, plus additional Sailors and Air Force men. In the 1969 Draft Lottery I got number 275. They picked up to number 195 that year but when I made my decision not to go to college, no one knew how high they would go.
Back in 1968, I, like many Americans of the time, believed that the United States Government had the best interests of its citizens as its guiding principal. That seems so naive now, but it was very common back then. But as protests against the war grew, and as I read more about the history and our Governments activities there, I slowly, ever so slowly, began to change my beliefs.
|
When I graduated from Brooklyn Prep High School in June, 1969, I still believed that the United States should be in the Vietnam War. I believed in what the Government was telling us. Earlier in 1968 I had gotten a draft notice and went in to my pre-induction physical screening. They rejected me at that time since I was the proverbial “95 pound weakling“. I weighed too little to be inducted - yet . They also told me that was somewhat common and they'd get me next time when I had put on a bit more weight. Which I had by mid 1969.
By late 1969, my political beliefs were just beginning to become anti-war. That posed a huge problem for me. It was extremely likely I'd be drafted - if not in 1969, then in 1970, or in 1971. I was against my conscience to be a draft dodger, so if I didn't go to college, I knew where I was going to end up - in the Army or the Marines. Infantry... First because of their voracious need of warm bodies and second because I was a great outdoors person, excellent at finding and following trails, good at tracking, had excellent night vision, and was also an expert rifle marksman.
I'd be an ideal infantryman.
I was still very thin and small. So besides being a point man, where the life expectancy was not very high, I'd probably also have been a tunnel rat, an even riskier job. And I'm sure that if I had to cover a grenade with my body to save my buddies, I would have. That's just the way I was then.
|
In my head I thought the chances were extremely high that I was going to Vietnam...and if I did, I was going to die. I was 100% certain of the latter.
Strangely, that didn't bother me too much. I guess I considered it an almost done deal. I didn't like it - but it was on my mind that I might die young and not get to live a full life. The fact that I was named after my Mom's brother, who died about this same age in World War II did not seem like a coincidence to me.
Don't get me wrong here - I wanted to live a long, full life. I'd had an Epiphany several years before that thoroughly convinced me that a person should strive to live as long as possible, that overcoming the adversity that life throws at you is better than surrendering and dying. That has stayed with me through my now 60 years, perhaps tempered by an addition that the quality of life may justify a peaceful transition to the after world.
|
In the 1970 draft lottery, I got number 117, so it looked like I was going to get inducted, but in the end I didn't.... Since I was heavy enough, we all thought I would be inducted, so we had a going away party. That morning I had leftover cake, my big cup of tea with 4 spoons of sugar, and ate a candy bar while on the bus to the US ARMY TRAINING CENTER - INFANTRY, FORT DIX, New Jersey.
So they rejected me again! They said I was diabetic.... which was fine with me because I didn't want to be drafted.
In the 1971 draft lottery, I got number 283, and troops were being withdrawn from Vietnam, so it looked like I wasn't going to get the wonderful free training provided by the US Army. I think that year I finally felt like I actually had a chance to live past my early twenties.
|
On May 4th, 1970 Ohio National Guardsmen fired into a gathering of Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators on the Kent State University Campus. It was a shocking and horrible event. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
They were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia, the latest escalation that President Richard Nixon was trying in the Vietnam War. Given his super strong anti-Communist views, and the increasing war violence, I wasn't so sure the not-so-Cold War was going to become a nuclear holocaust. Shortly afterwards, Neil Young of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young wrote “Ohio“, a song still seared into my head.
| What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know? |
All in all, it was a very harrowing few years. I felt so young, yet so close to dying.
So back to just past my High School graduation. My parents decreed that if I didn't go to college (which they'd help pay for, hint, hint), then I had to get a job and pay rent. Oookkkaaayyy. Since I figured I wouldn't be around for long anyway, I first got a job selling vacuum cleaners (really selling credit but that's another story), a job loading paintings to be sold at auctions, and then a job in a small sized, family owned factory not too far away from my home.
Box-Crafters, INC
|
This was at Box-Crafters INC, on Dixon and Bayview Avenues in Amityville. I started in 1969 as a regular worker doing odd jobs around the plant. Soon the Senior Foreman, Red, made me his assistant. After about three month, I got a promotion to Foreman in the metal box fabrication and finishing section.
So in early 1970, at 19 years old, I was the foreman in charge of 15 women. Boy do I have fond memories about that job. I think that's because over time I've blotted out almost all the headaches from that job. It was challenging to say the least. Not in terms of meeting our goals, or managing the equipment, or anything like that.
The challenge was in trying to figure out 15 women ranging in age from my own to probably late 50s. And to stay sane while doing that.
I can still picture my favorite gals. Yes, this was a sexist time and place and some of this may sound terrible, but it really wasn't to us, living through this at the time. There are a lot of stories I could tell, but I won't here.
It was a fun, challenging, wild time for me. We had a lot of flirtatious fun, but never anything more than that - no dating or seeing each other after work, etc. We joked a lot, gave each other heck at times, occasionally talked seriously, cried at our tragedies, supported each other, and went through all the normal experiences you encounter in each others lives over the course of a year and a half.
|
It was a fantastic, eye-opening education for me into the world of women, someplace I'd never ventured before!
I learned a lot from Red also. He had worked there for a long time. He only had a high school education, if that, but he was wise in a lot of ways. He saw, and let me know, that my future was not with Box-Crafters, that this was just a temporary place for me. The women let me know that too. They all helped me get my head straightened out a little, each in their own ways.
I also grew up and learned a bit about life on my own also - to give you an idea how little I knew of life at the time, I'll tell how I got in trouble with the Accounting girl and the Owners. About four months after I began working there, they hauled me up to the front office to the Owners Office. I wondered what was up. They asked me about my paycheck - specifically was I cashing them?
“I wasn't“, I told them. I had them all piled up on my desk at home. I didn't need any money yet, probably only having spent about five dollars in all that time. I didn't know how to cash them, and I didn't have a bank account to put them into. They gave me a crash educational course in the financial part of life and let me know that it was affecting the Company's books.....“So start cashing your paychecks!“, I was told.
Maybe if I'd been dating I would have spent a bit more.
Dating
|
Actually sometime in 1970 I did start dating. I don't know how I got up the courage, but I asked Emily out on a date. I'm sure I must have been floored when she said yes. I'm also pretty sure that the other women at Box-Crafters told me she had a small crush for me.
Emily lived nearby in Amityville when she got a job at Box-Crafters for a few weeks and then quit. After I asked her out and we had a relatively short but intense relationship. There were a lot of things wrong with us even dating since she was so much under the control of her Mom. We had some fun dates, but the repercussions once she got home were not good. In the end we broke up and shortly after her Mom moved both of them to New Zealand.
Even back then all I could think was “Wow, that's a radical solution!“
My heart hurt a bit, partly because our breakup was unexpected by me, but also by the hard way the breakup occurred. Basically it was along the lines of “Our date is canceled, don't ever talk to me, write me, or even think about me. Bye.“
Ouch!
Mary Faith, my younger sisters best friend, then came into my life. Talk about living dangerously! I knew even back then that it wasn't a good idea to date anyone your sister knew, but the two of us took a chance at it. We had a great beginning relationship and enjoyed going out with each other a lot.
|
She was 17 3/4 years old, yearning to be 18 and free, I was 19 years old, and both of us braved all the turmoil and troubles of the situation and found ways to go out on dates.
She and her Dad were fighting about his teenager daughters growing independence and our dating was not helping that. However the times she visited my sister and stayed over at our house, and, when she could get permission to go out from her Dad, the Volkswagen let us get away from him every now and then, and led us into some good times and some hilarious adventures.
We made mix tapes for each other, wrote letters back and forth, talked on the phone when her Dad allowed it, went on picnics & flew kites, got sunburned, and held each other a lot.
We were definitely exploring the bases in the back of the Volkswagen. I'd made a seat modification so you could put the passenger side all the way down. By June 1971, I think we'd pretty well explored second base, which was quite an experience for this very straight-laced, Catholic Nun educated girl. In our letters we laughed about hiding the evidence of our explorations - she had long fingernails!
I think we were also pushing at her comfort limits with some third base activity. At very least we were talking about this, reading books about it (including “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex“ by Dr David Reuben who's cover I replaced with an innocuous cover and gave it to her - she got a huge laugh out of that!), and she was deciding what she wanted to do or not do.
|
I don't think that was straining our relationship, but it was a factor that I know was on her mind. We were growing closer but we both saw danger ahead.
So why did I leave? I knew that Mary Faith was not the long term person for me. We could be boyfriend/girlfriend, but eventually I knew someone else would come along. I knew that she also expected someone else in her life later on. We were both young and knew we had the rest of our lives ahead of us. So for now, just having fun was enough.
I knew I'd miss her and fully expected to see her again when I got back from my trip and certainly had no idea what would happen on my trip. Looking back, I also was probably not thinking very much about what was going on in her life. It amazes me today how little I knew about the people around me on an emotional and life's issues level.
I also think I had the crazy (or perhaps not so crazy after all) notion that there were many fish in the sea - if one girlfriend doesn't work out, then there are always others out there. It was a naive notion, one of many I remember that got drastically changed as I got better experienced in life.
The 1960's, The Era of Free Love
|
For my generation, the 1960's and 1970's were a time of huge social change. It was an era where women were becoming liberated, the institution of marriage was seriously being questioned, and the social mores were in turmoil. It was the time of counterculture and social revolution. It was also a time of huge danger.
With the Cuban Missile Crisis, the President John Kennedy assassination and other assassinations of famous leaders, we knew that there were no guarantees that we would live a long life. For me, the Vietnam War and the draft loomed large as a menace in my life.
|
I loved the social freedoms that were happening and had absolutely no clue that those also came with responsibilities and that “people were still people“ with their whole range of internal emotions. Which might not fit well with the new social mores. What could be wrong with “Free Love“?
I had such naive ideas in my head! One that is pertinent is that marriage was an ancient, obsolete idea. It was an “institution“, fostered on society by the Government (about which I had serious misgivings by now), and seemed like just another form of a prison sentence. I truly believed that if two people loved each other, they should just live together.
|
Somehow life would work out for them that way. Of course I had no knowledge about legal matters, especially in regards to family matters. Things like child custody, estate planning, etc were not even concepts to me.
Communes were just starting to be popular. While I didn't know much about them, and even less about the possibility of their being cults, it seemed like a neat way to live. Sort of like one large family who all loved each other. Today I'd be a lot more skeptical and probably would have a number of red flags flying inside my head.
|
Never the less, for me in mid 1971, living together was the equivalent to marriage, a big, probably life long, commitment to each other. Who that might be with was a complete unknown - I had no preset ideas in my head what that person had to be like or what their likes and desires were, etc. Okay, they had to be a woman - of that I was certain!
Without a doubt, I had certain characteristics, both physical and personality wise, that I liked more. But I'd not yet really thought about that. I think I believed that whatever attraction I'd have would just be natural.
I still had to learn those things for myself. I suspect that is also a part of why I did my big trip.
What was going through my head in 1971
Wow! Should I start with not liking who/what I was?
|
I don't mean that in a bad way. I was basically a good, caring, kind, smart person. I just wasn't “socialized“. I didn't want to live alone with myself for the rest of my life. I had finally realized that was not a good life - that I needed to need other people as so well sung by Barbara Streisand in “People Who Need People“.
I had a lot of confusion going through my head. How exactly does one change themselves? How do you learn the switch from very introverted to somewhat extroverted? Will you get badly hurt if you do open up and put yourself out there?
Why are girls suddenly so darn alluring, attractive, and mysterious? How do they get to be so soft and why is kissing them so very delicious? Why are they so darn illogical? And worse, why do I like that? I'd always ignored them previously, so why am I so attracted to them now? What is it about mini-skirts that drags my eyes away from everything else and makes it so possible to run into street poles? Am I losing my mind?
|
What is sex like and why do people like it? Seriously! Before 1970 I had no need for that - it just got in the way. I think the women at Box-Crafters had a lot to do with my changing my mind about that! I know we flirted outrageously and I think they gave me some hints as to what I was missing out on.
I was still pretty nerdy - I knew I should and could be different if I could just break my current mold. But if I did, what would I become? I had no idea. I was having a lot of deep thoughts and soul searching about who I really was inside. What were my core values? Are they good values to have? Are they getting in the way of becoming a better, more socialized person?
I knew I was very inexperienced with people and that I needed to become more mature. I didn't know how to improve those things, yet I was confident in myself.
What did I know about women?
|
I don't know if I should laugh or cry at this item. After I graduated from High School, I think I slowly moved past the “Girls, yuck!!!“ stage. There are a few memorable occasions I remember where girls transitioned from totally alien creatures that I wanted nothing to do with to totally alien creatures that had soft bodies, delicious lips, perfumed necks, attractive clothes, and brains that worked in mysterious, captivating ways.
Yup, that transition period that all teenage boys go through. For me, it happened at least five years later than it should have.
What was my emotional maturity level?
My chronological age was 20 but I think my emotional age was easily 6 years behind that. I was a very young kid, not hardly grown up at all, not close to being an adult. It's not that I acted like a kid, I just didn't think like an adult, or have the confidence of an independent person, or realize the consequences of decisions I made for myself, especially in regards to relationships.
In fact,I was just beginning to have relationships that were not my family members. I was so closed off to other people until the mid 1970s that it wasn't funny. So I was just beginning to open up.
I think this was probably a very mixed, jumbled up bag of “stuff“. For example, I could easily buy gas for the Volkswagen, but I doubt I could flirt with a girl. I was very well educated in the book sense, yet very ignorant of the real world of human beings outside my own upbringing. I could observe hippies in Greenwich Village and was envious of their apparent freedom, but I had no idea how to be that way myself.
What made me want to go?
|
I think the “Big Trip“ was an inspiration. I don't know where the idea came from, but I instantly latched onto it. If you ask me today where it came from, I'd say my Guardian Angel.
I don't recall any particular trigger. I was happy at work, I wasn't fighting with my parents, life was basically okay. But I think I knew I wasn't maturing very fast, or maybe I should say fast enough. I think I sensed that I needed to make a dramatic break.
I do remember that I made a quick decision. Very quick! I think once I decided to go I gave the bosses at Box-Crafters INC two weeks notice. (I knew Red could fill in until they found someone else). Likewise I told my Mom & Dad I was going and I don't think I gave them a time I was going to be back. I don't think I even gave them an option to try to talk me out of it. So they also only had a two week to process this and say goodbye to their son.
|
I think they were outwardly supportive, inwardly worried, and probably thinking I'd be back home in a week. Today, if I had bet on myself at the time, that's about how long I'd think this young, somewhat naive, un-worldly kid would have lasted. There's no way I'd believe he could actually make it for a whole summer.
With the knowledge of what happened in my whole life so far, and how some things do seem to happen in my life, I think I was driven (no pun intended) to this. Use whatever terms you want, but I'll say it was “Fate“ in the classical mythological sense that intervened and sent me on my way.
The Journal
Hence the Journal... two and a half ring bound binders in all, going up to mid August.
|
Some notes about my transcribing
In a few places I put in editorial comments. I tried to make these as few as possible. They will show up in this distinctly different style.
In the journal, there are comments written in the side margins - these are shown on the right sidebars to capture the feel of the handwritten journal. In some cases, these were added at a later date after I had arrived home.
The body of the journal is written in this script font, mimicking the sloppy handwriting of the Journal....but readable.
What about the pictures?
|
In my later life, pictures have been very important. I have a website with thousands of pictures, some even pretty decent, of all the places I've been and things I've done. But in the days of this trip, I didn't own a camera. So I have no actual pictures that I took from those times in the 1960s and 1970s except a few from my parents.
Some of the places I visited back then, I have visited since. Where I could, I used my own pictures for those sections. For example, I've visited the California Redwoods since 1971, so I used the pictures I had. And that gangly cowboy wearing a straw hat on the mule riding down into the Grand Canyon, yessiree, that's me!
For the most part however, I got the pictures you see from the web. I tried to make them as applicable as possible. However none of the people in these pictures were the people I actually met in 1971.
One very fortuitous find were the green Volkswagen pictures. That is almost exactly how the VW Bug I drove for thousands of miles looked....on the outside at least. Inside it was packed with camping gear, food, etc. It was a wonder that the hitch hikers I picked up could fit in there.
When I saw the VW pictures in the various places, I thought to myself that was just how it looked.
Why does the Journal end in mid August, 1971?
|
The easy answer would be that I was in a rush to get back home and was traveling a lot. I don't think that is the real answer though. I also don't know what the real answer is - it just stops with no indication of why. Even thinking about it and searching my memory doesn't bring anything up.
And it isn't because I have no memories of those days up until the beginning of September - I do, and wrote those in the August 16th page.
My speculation... I think I was in shock and denial after my last visit with Christy in Seattle. I think I was running, didn't know what to do, and was trying as hard as I could not to think about that day.
Maybe if I didn't think about it, it never happened. If I wrote it down in a Journal, then it did. Whatever happened, since I don't remember it, was too traumatic to let it exist....so I just stopped writing.
Going Back Home
|
I had a lot more adventures traveling back home across Canada. The ones I remember, I wrote up on a supplemental page when I created these web pages. So even though I didn't journal them, they are not all lost.
By the time I was heading back to Seattle, my Mom had let me know when school was starting at the local community college - Farmingdale State College. I had about two weeks to get back. I made it just in time to register.
The Epilogue page continues with my life after the Big Trip and for several years while I attended Washington State University and Christy and I exchanged letters and visits.
So to get started on the Journal, click on June 4 th, 1971, the first day of “The Big Trip“.