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I was born and raised a Midwesterner; and schooled there through completion of my undergraduate degree. Even so I consider Southern California my adopted home. It’s not a question of being disloyal to my roots, but a declaration of devotion to a place where my most significant life events occurred. It was there after an era of wonderfully hedonistic, boisterous, non-stop carousing that (unexpectedly) I found graduate school, a career, love, marriage, and children. My brothers later followed me to the left coast, and today everyone with whom I’m close—what’s left of my immediate family—resides in an area from San Diego to Palm Springs to Huntington Beach. I recall high school corridor conversations. Many of us talked of moving west like it was some kind of panacea for every imagined personal oversight, affront, frustration or failure. But most talk in high school is just that: talk. Soon after graduation people settle down with college studies, career ambition, the world-of-work, marriage, children, and the accompanying responsibility—AND the trap it represents. I do not intend the word “trap” as a negative. I’m simply trying to communicate that “shit happens”, and we often get sucked-in by the lobby trying to satisfy another's expectations. Oh, the “California” dream stays alive—for a while. Forty years later we look back, and discover we’ve lived someone else’s life—maybe a repetition of our parents’ journey. And that’s not necessarily bad. Hopefully it’s quite fulfilling and rewarding. But maybe, just maybe, we wonder what if… In my day the Golden State represented hope to those of us too young to understand much of anything. We were ignorant, unsophisticated, self-centered, and thought the world spun about our axis. In other words, we were pretty much like today’s teens. There existed a romantic notion of the universal search for a fresh start that (I know now) remains with us through life. We wanted to hit Jack Kerouac’s road with Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity. The so-called unpleasant past and/or present could be erased, and “do-over” button would be in a land of endless sun, beaches, surf, great jobs, and attractive girls. Actually, for me it pretty much turned out that way, but my timing was good in that I hit the Southland in the midst of California’s golden age. My buddy Dennis and I were also a couple of young guys with the dream. All the anticipated attributes described above were a definite pull, but we also had another reason. See, we were pseudo intellectuals and (I loathe to admit it) impudent snobs—just too damned special to waste time among the local yokels. We were full-of-it, but fearless! It was with a great sense of delightful anticipation that we loaded up Dennis’s Triumph TR-3 and hit the road west. Others we knew made the trek before us: Dennis’s older brother, Jan, and the Ryan brothers whose reports did nothing to discourage us; in fact, they accomplished the contrary. There were two others that didn’t make it, but that’s another story…or is it? Oh, what the hell, why not? I’m not doing anything else, so here it is… Jack was in love with a girl probably four years his junior, and they were steadies for a few years. As far as I know she was Jack’s first and only girlfriend. He was truly smitten, and my guess is, that he felt if he lost her, he’d never find another paramour. You know how love struck, sappy, young people think. Anyway, one fine spring day she gave him his walking papers, set him free with absolutely no chance for reconciliation. Yes sir, the old dumperoo. Poor guy was devastated; didn’t know what to do with himself. A lover’s leap would put him out of his misery. (Yeah, that’d and show her—and, boy, would she be eaten up with remorse.) Trouble is there really wasn’t a lover’s leap, and that would put any slim chance of reunion out of the equation for sure. So Jack decided to show her by “leaving forever”. She’d be sorry then—a-a-and then maybe she’d send word for him to return. (Yeah, that’s the ticket.). Meanwhile, the town also had a version of Al Capp’s character, Joe Btfsplk. (NOTE: According to Capp, the last name is pronounced like a raspberry or Bronx cheer.) Joe was the poor sap who walked around with a permanent rain cloud over his head. Ron was such a guy, but unlike Joe, his misfortunes were almost always self-imposed. I never knew a guy who could make so many wrong decisions. He was pitching in a Pony League baseball game when his shortstop encouraged him to get the ball over the plate. Ron took it as an insult, left the mound, and didn’t stop walking until he reached his backdoor. Before another game he decided to indulge in a bit of self-pleasuring, and was caught by his dad who uttered the universal line, “Ballplayers don’t do that.” Ninth grade he received an “A” for the first term of General Business; next term he got an “F”—and made it worse by telling everyone. A neighbor lady passed him on the street in broad daylight and a manically grinning Ron fondled her while saying, “Grab (roll the “r”) a tit!” He wasn’t in the Air Force for the blink of an eye before receiving a screwball discharge. He was fired from every job for insubordination or attempting to start a wildcat strike. By the time he was twenty-two he lost his driver’s license permanently. What a pair. Here’s the scene: Jack is leaving to forget his unrequited love, but more accurately hoping she’ll come running after him saying, “Please, oh please (sob), don’t leave!” Ron hears jobs and drivers licenses are easy to come by in California, and figures he can be a movie extra. And so they’re off—so to speak. The first night they pull into a motel in Fort Wayne, Indiana after a “grueling” drive of almost 50-miles. They get further the second day, but Jack tearfully regales his passenger all day long about his broken romance. The guy absolutely loses it when he shows Ron a picture of his former love kept in a frame over his heart. Finally, near St. Louis Jack can stand it no longer, turns the car around, and heads back with Ron cursing at him all the way. Neither ever got that far west again. During the time of my residency California was booming with the fourth highest economy in the world. Then the politicians started tampering with the system. From promised land to train wreck in twenty short years. What a shame. I wonder if today’s teens have similar dreams… Copyright by Gene Myers, author of AFTER HOURS, Adventures of an International Businessman (2009), Strategic Publishing Group (New York, NY) - a hilarious account of overseas travel; and SONGS FROM LATTYS GROVE (2010), PublishAmerica (Fredericksburg, MD) - a mildly sinister but amusing tale of fiction. Both books are available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble; and available in Amazon Kindle and Nook formats.
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