Crawfordsville Sojourn - April & May 1970

In April 1970 I began living alone in a camper in the woods in Crawfordsville, Indiana at the behest of my parents, I was twenty-one. Today it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment; there was no electricity, which made for a somewhat primitive lifestyle. I even had to bathe in the creek. My parents expected me to work, cut down trees, and clear brush. They had a dream to build an RV camper park. But being my parents they had no money and they weren’t paying me. They figured free camper rent was enough.

The camper was designed to sit in the back of a large four door, dodge pick up truck. It was set up sans truck on steel poles designed for that purpose in the clearing at the top of the hill. It was an odd looking domicile, but I did have a nice view of the farmer’s field across the road. It was isolated and solitary. I thought of Henry David Thoreau and Walden Pond, but it didn’t help much.

I soon figured out I should get a job if I wanted to continue to eat. There was a Sunoco station out on the North end of town by the highway, gas was $.36/gallon. I got a job there and began my gas pumping career. Not ever having lived in a small town before, this job gave me an opportunity to meet the locals.

One day one of my customers approached me about a job. He said, “I believe you have potential.” By this he meant he’d like me to do a ride along while he sold his “Prairie Farmer Life Insurance”. Naively I agreed; his most important point, always show the “Prairie Farmer” bumper sticker stuck on your brief case, this should get you in the door. We visited a number of farms that day and I distinctly remember one old geezer who didn’t look like he had nickel to his name. He had a ramshackle house and a bunch of kids running around barefoot. We didn’t make a sale and my mentor’s comment was, “This guy has millions.” A million corncobs, maybe. I continued to pump gas.

The next encounter was even more bizarre. Two young women around my age started getting a lot of gas, practically every day; finally one of them asked me out. She had a car and a huge pair of bosoms; we went to the drive in. I don’t remember the movie. A few days later we decided to rendezvous at my camper in the woods, a romantic getaway if there ever was one. Before long we were both naked; a short while later and suddenly an awkward realization. A bell did not go off in my head; just a realization, there was an absence of passion. Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. There was little conversation and she quietly got dressed and left, never to be heard from again.