Travels with Charley - Part III

Hoover Dam before 2010 and the bridge

I had never been further west on Route 66 than Flagstaff, Arizona the summer I graduated from high school. Dad took the family on the grand tour of National parks in the four corners area. All other vacations had been to visit family in Missouri at Christmas, or fishing trips in Colorado. Now I was hitch hiking with a Playboy bunny from Chicago and three other class mates who had been rewarded with summers in Europe after prep school graduation. I grabbed shotgun. And they climbed in the back to get some sleep.

Riding shotgun, my pilot father used to explain, is a lot like being co-pilot and navigator; duties I was more than willing to fill because I could see the entire panorama of the scenery before us. It also meant keeping the driver awake and engaged. So I knew more about Charley, our host, than the others by the time we got to Hoover Dam. Charley was the first man I had met outside my high school English teacher who did not look at me sexually. He didn't even look at Bunny that way.

I did not know about homosexuality. It was the 60's. We didn't talk about such things. I was riding in a just off the assembly line car which did not come with factory installed seat belts. Seat belts were only used in drag racers. Air bags were not yet invented. And the convertible did not have a row bar. The term serial killer was not coined until 1974. None of us were concerned about dying let alone rape and murder. It was a time of innocence. But I just knew my parents would not approve.

Charley was the only person besides my roommate from Clovis, New Mexico whose existence was more sheltered than mine. He was in his thirties and this was his first time ever out of Michigan. He didn't live with his mother but his mother lived with him. It was not my first time lying to my parents but this was probably the biggest lie. I technically was still a ward of my parents but I did not think I was ever going home. I considered calling my mother when we got somewhere with a phone, and elaborating on the lie to keep her from finding out I was riding west across the desert at 80 mph in a convertible with leather bucket seats.

Mother had fostered in me what I term the headline mentality. When I slipped off to Juarez with some college friends the year before the headline in my mind was "Coed thrown in Juarez Jail for Sex Trade in Mexico." This one would be "Four Coeds and Pimp Apprehended Crossing State Lines." There was always a sub-headline where my mother would swear I had always been a good girl. Frankly, that line always bothered me the most. In spite of always being a good girl the major headlines in my head always sounded sort of fun. But this time I was not going to let anything get in the way of the fun I was having. I drunk in the western badlands while chatting with Charlie about the process of designing car interiors. He had designed the one we were riding in. Who knew someone got paid to do padded dash panels?

I was enthralled with Hoover Dam. I was sent off to college to get my MRS degree. I returned my sophomore year because I wanted to be an engineer, or architect, or now car interior designer, or anything but a wife and mother. I was seriously, but unconsciously, looking for other female role models. While on the dam tour I watched Bunny work Charley and our guide. She was the only woman I knew in my brief history who was not afraid to be her sexual self. I also watched Penny be jealous over the attention Bunny gave all the men in the tour. Barb-from-Santa-Barbara saw nothing because she was irritated with everything and everyone one it seemed. She was expected home already, and we hours yet. She had a call with a lie to make for herself. Though hers was less a lie than mine because we did have car trouble. It just wasn't fixed.

Making our telephone calls would not happen until Las Vegas, Nevada. No calling cards then. Coins. Or collect in which case you got your first dime back. Collect was out because the operator would say, "Collect call from Jacqui in Las Vegas, Nevada." Yes, a real operator. Not voice activated machine. I gave Barb my change so she could make her call. I decided the less my parents knew the better. I had learned as a military brat, lies were easiest to keep, if they were very simple. And Dad always said it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. We were long past permission. I knew the bigger a lie got the more distance it put between you and those you lied too. But after the summer there was already a chasm between my family and myself.

Las Vegas Strip in the 1960's

As Barb and I left the phone booth, Charley handed us each two rolls of nickels for the slot machines. Yes, they took real coins in those days. I wanted to just pocket my $10 because I knew we were all short of funds to get home if the Buick wasn't fixed. Charley wanted to make us happy so we played. I loved the bells and whistles. The sounds of coins when someone won. I won a small jackpot on nickels. Cashed in for quarters and went quietly to the more expensive slots. Ultimately I cashed out with $250. Worries of how to get back to college were over. Barb's parents had believed her lie. Charley had won at Black Jack and wanted to buy us dinner. He was indeed thrilled to have company. We started with oysters on the half shell. Everything, in the words of e.e.cummings, was "puddle wonderful." Except the General Motors was still on strike.

To be continued

Side note: 96 workers died building Hoover Dam. None are buried in it. It was built by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. And decades later I would work for one of those six, Morrison-Knudsen, as a cost engineer.

Seat belts would not be mandatory until January 1, 1968.

Legal age to gamble is 21. None of us but Charley were.

Travels With Charley - Part II

I had originally stated on part one I would be continuing the saga of Travels with Charley on Sidetracked Charley, but following several requests, have decided to also post it here too. It is, after all, the beginning of my own personal creative journey.

Welcome to Kingman

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

Actually to be precise the Buick did not blow up in Kingman, Arizona but outside of Kingman. That particular day we saw Kingman three times. When we drove into the town on Route 66 just before dawn the car was knocking, and we again needed gas. Fortunately this time a station was open. There was no self serve in those days except for illegally siphoning it. You pulled in, waited for a gas jockey to make it out to your car, said fill it up with regular, and check the oil. Then we all made a dash for the bathrooms. They were always gross. But in the Route 66 days there were no rest stops with or without facilities.

The attendant said the Buick was two quarts low. He added oil and some STP oil treatment stuff in case we had a crankshaft leak. The Buick was a year old and had just been serviced by the dealer in Albuquerque. We were all a bit road weary. Nobody questioned the information until the first long steep hill on the California bound side of Kingman when there was a big bang and then flames.

This was the 60's so there was also no cell phone. In this day and age with six coeds there would have been six cellphones. Out west there wasn't anything between towns and the towns were few and far between. No Google Maps, no roadside emergency telephones, no gps. But we were not worried about that just then. We were looking for anything to put out the flames. Oh, and no bottled water. In much of Arizona no water at all. You bought soda pop from the vending machines when you stopped for fuel.

There was a lot of sand. And any engine gloriously in flames would not be hurt by sand. So while Penny and I flung sand on the flames, and the others unloaded the trunk and car of our worldly possessions we didn't notice the pickup with the three men pull up. "You little ladies need any help there?" one asked. In 64 we were still fighting for civil rights for blacks (they were blacks then) and nobody had considered equal rights for women. When we heard the question we all stopped and noticed there was hardly an inch of the pickup which did not have an Elect Goldwater for President bumper sticker, so good we didn't argue the little lady comment. The passenger got out a fire extinguisher, and more effectively put out the fire. I quietly walked to the back bumper to peel off the Kennedy sticker (we had not yet replaced it with Johnson) to find it covered with a Goldwater sticker. 

Penny caught my eye about then and I shrugged and smiled. We did know one young Republican. In point of fact, Penny was dating him. We all stared in disbelief with our political conversion, but grateful, very grateful about then. Coats were surrendered to stupid but freezing college girls and our bags flung in the back of the pickup. And we climbed in on top. Except for Bunny and Penny who got to sit up front. Then back to Kingman to get the car towed. "It should be cooled down by now," we were informed by the pickup driver, who bought us good Republican ladies breakfast at the Frontier Cafe while we waited for the Buick dealership just down the block to open.

Seems like we spent a lot of time in the Frontier that morning waiting for an assessment by the mechanic, "It's toast. Your block is cracked. Threw a rod through the oil pan. Hence the flames." And the verdict. "No half blocks available. There's a strike on. Can't tell you when it would be fixed. There's a strike on."

We dumped all our money in the middle of the table. Funds were not equal but clearly we couldn't all catch the train. There was a Greyhound bus. We could afford that, but then have no money for our three days in Los Angeles let alone the trip back to school. We were all out of the dorm on a lie. Calling our parents was not an option unless we wanted to start putting ourselves through college.

The Princess, I really cannot remember her name, had the most money and obviously the most moxie because she called her parents and got money wired to her to catch a small commuter plane. To be fair she surrendered her extra funds to us so we could afford the train, but the next train was going back to college. It didn't leave until later in the day.

Throwing caution totally to the winds we decided to try our luck at hitchhiking. There were four of us after Marge chickened out. Marge, never one of us, said she was going to take her share of the joint funds, and take the bus back to Albuquerque. Omens were not good. The rest of us agreed we would try hitchhiking for two hours, and if we had not gotten a ride we would take the train back to UNM. And defeat.

But we figured our chances were good to get to California. We were after all not on a back road but Route 66. America's highway. We picked a sunny and well traveled spot. Made ourselves comfortable on our luggage and launched in to the first round of Get Your Kicks on Route 66

And that is when Charley, who worked for the Pontiac plant which was also on strike, cruised into our lives. He designed interiors for the luxury cars and was on his first ever vacation without mother. "I can take you to LA if you are willing to tour Hoover Dam and Las Vegas for a couple hours on the way."

He looked like he needed company so we said yes.

To be continued.

Travels With Charley - I

Map of Steinbeck's Travels with Charley

After my father got out of the military we settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I can remember being really upset when after a couple of years there and we didn't move. Military children are used to moving. As I remember we lived in three different states in the second grade. One was a base in Roswell, New Mexico and my first look at mountains. Then it was Missouri again and El Paso, Texas. Most of my truest friends were dogs and books. And after leaving Roswell I missed the mountains more than my school mates.

So Albuquerque, I thought, would be just another temporary stop and I was quite upset when I was informed by my parents we were staying. I was a freshman in college before they moved again. And they left me behind in the dorm. Dad used to joke, after a couple drinks, that they could not get me to run away from home so they ran away from me. My family are elephants. They never forget what they think is an amusing story. I never found them that funny.

College, especially as an inmate with homey knowledge, was amusing. And it was freedom. The only time I went to visit my folks, then in Denver, was when the dorm closed and kicked us out like at Christmas and term break. Us underclassmen were suppose to go home. It took me only one horrific summer in Denver to know I didn't want to go home again for long. My dorm friend, Penny, a graduate of eastern prep schools was very experienced at ways around dorm hours and sign out rules. And semester break of my sophomore year I signed out to the house of a classmate from high school and hit the road with Penny and four other coeds for California.

Mother would have had kittens if she knew I was on the highway in the middle of the night through the mountains of Arizona in the beginning of winter with only girls, instead of safely with Mrs. Berry and her family in the valley. It was bitching, big word at the time. Bunny, a former Playboy Bunny, taught us how to remove our bras without taking off our sweatshirts or stopping the car. She even did it while taking her turn at the wheel. Barbie, from Santa Barbara, siphoned gas from a car at a dark house, when we ran out of gas in the middle of the night while we stood around shivering watching for the police.

Everyone but me was from big cities and crowded areas and didn't believe they closed filling stations and they were at least 300 miles apart.  We laughed and told jokes. Most of us had just been through finals and not had much sleep. And we had packed for California. Always sunny in California. The high deserts of Arizona were freezing cold at night. Six girls in a Buick Special was crowded.

 Then Penny's Buick blew up just outside Kingman, Arizona. Middle of the desert in the middle of the biggest General Motor's strike I can remember up till then. Just before dawn. Only thing hot was the engine.

(To be Continued on Sidetracked Charley)

Note: I began this on Creative Journey because it is really a part of my personal creative journey. The events set off by this trip to Los Angeles turned me from an art student to an artist. It made me a voracious reader and a writer even if I could not spell.