Banning, California - 1970

My plan to leave Crawfordsville, Indiana in May 1970 was based on timing. It was the end of the school year at Wabash College so I checked the ride board for trips to Los Angles. Why LA? I’d served as an Apprentice Engineer in 1969 on a four month cruise courtesy of the Calhoon MEBA Engineering School after attending school for six months and thought I could get a job as an ordinary seaman on a ship, as I wasn’t keen to reenter the engine room. Finding a student who lived in Los Angles who was leaving in a few days, we agreed on a fare and I’d still have fifty dollars left when I arrived. Writing my parents a note resigning from my park ranger position at the woods, I figured would avoid a scene and a messy good-by.

The only thing worth mentioning about the trip from Crawfordsville to Los Angles is the incredible marketing plan of a restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, which had posted over 1000 signs of all ilk for 300 miles in both directions along the road boasting, “If you can eat our 72 oz. steak, we’ll give it to you FREE.” Like millions of other suckers I ate part of it, but couldn’t finish the whole thing, thereby incurring the disastrous bill of $25, or half my funds. It was the last decent meal I had for quite awhile.

Once in Los Angles, it became clear I was in the wrong place and headed for San Pedro, the shipping mecca of the West Coast, a further 100 miles to the south. Getting a job on a U.S. flagship at this time was a catch-22. You had to have sailed to get your seaman’s papers and you couldn’t sail unless you had seaman’s papers. However I believed myself in an envious position because I still had seamen’s papers.

Once I reached the Union hall, my naiveté swung into full bloom. Substantially more funds were required than I had in my possession in order to secure a position through the Union because it was necessary for me to first join the Seaman’s Union for $500. This unforeseen expenditure altered my plans and caused me to rethink the situation. While in hindsight there may appear to be a grand plan at work, rest assured I was making this up as I went along. Hanging out at the beach, sleeping under bridges, eating Snickers to survive, I should have joined the Troll Union. It took me awhile to figure out what my next move should be.

Remembering I had a Great Aunt who lived somewhere nearby I called home, to get the details. Armed with new information I set off hitchhiking to Banning, California, a sleepy little village out in the desert about 100 miles east of Los Angles. My Aunt Edith was in her 70’s, a robust woman with a twinkle in her eye and a great sense of humor. She was delighted to see me and took me in with open arms. It was a propitious time for her as she was in the midst of a transition. Her husband Charles was in the hospital in poor health.

Her home was on a five acre track which backed up to the railroad track. It was a small three bedroom, ranch style abode. Suffice it to say housekeeping was not Aunt Edith’s forte. This applied to her five acres also which was strewn with what she referred to as “Gold” I mentally referred to it as junk, but each to their own and she was nothing but kind and generous toward me. She had ducks and chickens roaming around from which she gathered eggs and she bought goat milk from her neighbor two doors down. It was her attitude that impressed me most as she always saw the positive in everything.

I hadn’t been there very long when Aunt Edith came up with the notion to buy me a car. She said she thought I needed “wheels” and she needed a chauffer, a match made in heaven. It was a 1958 two tone green, six cylinders Chevy Bell Air. She bought it for $85; it had 58,000 miles and had been sitting for some time. She gave me the title and said to put it in my name. It took some work, a new battery, tires to make it run and a several cans of rally car wax to bring out the old girl’s color. In short order I landed another job pumping gas at a local station which provided funds for repairs.

I would drive her to the hospital for regular visits to see her husband, Charles, whose health appeared to be deteriorating. This routine went on for a few weeks until one day we received a call informing us that Uncle Charles had died in his sleep. I took Aunt Edith to the funeral home while she made the arrangements. It was a small funeral, not more than twenty people; the flowers made it look like Easter morning. Aunt Edith seemed relieved, like now she could get on with her life.

Contemplating my life I applied for a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad. Uncle Charles had been a railroad man; it sounded interesting, lots of travel I assumed. The man who interviewed me was polite and honest, he told me straight out not to hold my breath. One day I met a couple of deputy sheriffs and stuck up a conversation. They encouraged me to think about joining the force. I considered it briefly before concluding it didn’t feel right for me.

By a twist of fate on a summer morning in Buffalo, New York in 1968 as I was hitchhiking to class at SUNY I got a ride from someone who was to change my life. We hit it off and became fast friends. He was a record promoter for a singer by the name of Glenn Yarbrough. His name was Steve Washburn. He was 5’11 about 160 pounds had long blond hair and was prematurely bald on top at 24, but he made the comb-over look cool. He was deep into the philosophy of fun and his beach-boy Zen was irresistible. He made me laugh and think at the same time. Steve met Yarbrough when he was a Hawaiian beach boy and became so indispensable in assisting Yarbrough with a concert there that he put him on the payroll. Steve moved in with me temporarily as he worked the area for the next week. We had a blast together and kept in touch through correspondence.

It was late June in Banning when in response to my request, I get a letter from Steve inviting me to pay him a visit at his home in Portland, Oregon. The next day I quit my job, packed my bags, expressed my gratitude to Aunt Edith jumped in my car and sped off to Oregon to see what the future held.

Hoosier Logger

My Dad inherited ten acres of heavily wooded ground on the southwest outskirts of Crawfordsville, Indiana from his Dad in 1949. Granddad had bought the rustic acreage as his own private hunting ground and built a two-bedroom cabin. It was a three hour drive from our home in Indianapolis before the freeway was built. We went hunting, fishing and played there over the years as I grew up.

The east side was bordered by a creek that was twenty feet wide and two to five feet deep in places depending on the time of year and rainfall. There were nettles mixed in with the big walnut and cottonwood trees along the creek’s sandy beaches. The old cabin had a 1920’s ambiance; it had a wood-burning stove, great springy beds, an old wooden table and four chairs. It had a kitchen great-room where we played cards and told ghost stories. From the cabin you had to walk a 100 yards along a ridge overlooking the creek, which was about another 75 yards down below, to get to the outhouse.

My Dad and I used to sit along this ridge at dawn when I was a boy to hunt squirrels. My Dad had an automatic shotgun and I had a .22 single shot rifle. I never killed anything but empty beer cans. My Dad however could easily bag a squirrel with ten rounds from his automatic. He usually got two or three squirrels. We’d take them home where my Dad would clean them and my Mother would fry them for dinner. They didn’t taste bad; but you had to be careful you didn’t break a tooth on the buckshot.

When I was a teenager the cabin burned down mysteriously. They said it must have been some depraved kids from Crawfordsville. This was a sad loss for me as I loved the old cabin; strangely the outhouse had not been touched. Thirty years later one of my Dad’s best friends, Walter, a fishing buddy and fellow fireman traveled 2,500 miles to tell me that my Dad had set the place on fire himself. Walter had kept this secret long enough and was able to sooth his conscience. What’s ironic is that my Dad was a professional fireman and could have lost his job over this.

After the cabin burned down my Dad entered his tree cutting phase. I don’t know where he came up with this but he bought a chain saw and decided he’d become a weekend Hoosier logger. This was a dangerous occupation because my Dad considered it absolutely essential to drink beer while cutting down trees. I was in charge of stacking and holding while he cut; I always got the boring jobs and I didn’t even like beer. What I couldn’t figure out was when half of the big tree in our backyard at home fell down after a horrendous windstorm, my Dad could care less. He gave me an axe and told me to chop it up. It took me three weeks, what happened to the chainsaw?

Roustabout – Bay Marchand, Gulf of Mexico - 1970

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a time of fasting and prayer and the day after Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) 1970, I had fifty cents to my name. It was time to seek employment. My hosts, yes I was still freeloading at the same place, suggested Harvey, Louisiana, on the other side of the Mississippi River. “Dude” lent me his VW beetle to drive over. Finding a row of industrial-type business I parked the beetle. Walking down the seedy road, I would stop at prospective businesses and inquire if they had any job openings. One company, “Oil Field Maintenance,” had an employment office. I entered and asked the old fat redneck, at the desk if I could fill out an application. His answer surprised me. “Don’t need no application, name and phone number, I’ll give ya a call.” “Sure you will” I remember thinking, he looked as stingy as his speech and continued my search. I quit about five and went back home, somewhat discouraged but thinking tomorrow is another day.

That night about 8:00PM I received a call from, would you believe it, old fat redneck, “Be at the yard at 6:00AM tomorrow morning.” “Dude” let me drive his car again that day. The yard was right next to the office and I worked until 6PM that day as a welder’s helper. When my shift was over I inquired as to whether I should come again tomorrow. “Ain’t got nothing” said old fat redneck. “But I really could use the work” I pleaded. “Then be back here at 2:30AM,” he conceded. “OK” was my only reply. Now how stupid is that? Not “What’s the job?” or “Why 2:30AM?” just “OK”. “Dude” turned out to be much smarted than I. He said he wasn’t loaning me his car to drive over to Harvey at 2:30AM but since he was a really nice guy, he agreed to drive me over.

There are multitudes of possible scenarios for what might have happened that night; luckily it was an adventure not a disaster. I got out of the car, thanked “Dude” and said I’d give him a call. There were about thirty guys milling around, nobody knew what was going on; we waited about half an hour when three pick up trucks appeared and we climbed in. The trucks took off and we rode for the next two hours through swamps and alligator country until about dawn, when we arrived at a marina. We boarded two cabin cruisers and headed out into the Gulf of Mexico, it was another three hours before we arrived at our final destination, now referred to as the Bay Marchand Fire. Chevron had eleven fires burning on one platform out in the Gulf.

Our base of operations was a barge. On arrival we received our instructions. We were told we needed to be up at 5AM, breakfast at 5:30AM and work started at 6AM. We boarded three tug boats, which is where we were work detailed. For the first few days the tugs would take us to the barge for meals, but this was hazardous as the weather wasn’t always cooperative. The waves could be ten feet high. This meant that as the tug came alongside the barge you had to be very careful you timed your jump from the tug to the barge and vice versa very carefully or you could be one dead roustabout.

On day four we were permanently detailed to the tugs, which meant no more trips to the barge, we would dine onboard our tug. This was our first sign that they were making this up as they went along. Going to the barge had been exciting, Red Adair was there. John Wayne had starred in a movie entitled “Hell Fighters” about the life of Red Adair, so I was impressed. But the tugs were safer and provided less supervision. Life on the tug was fairly laid back. For three for four days it so rough we couldn’t work. I woke up and smelled the bacon from the galley and realized I was seasick, a new experience. It was either work or be seasick. I was out there over two weeks, after believing I was showing up for just another twelve hour work day. I battled seasickness, not having a toothbrush or a change of underwear etc. and chastised myself for stepping into something without having a clue as to what I’d be doing or for how long. On the bright side I had a job, wasn’t working that hard and was getting a lot of overtime.

When we finally got around to the work we were supposed to do, we figured it out as we went along. On board the tug we had 5’x 5’ x 3” heavy foam-filled squares which were chained together and supported by buoyant cylinders on either side, so that about a foot of the foam would stick out of the water. This must have been some experimental Rube Goldberg marketing plan to try out these things. After we located an oil slick we would toss them off the stern of the tug into the water until we had about two hundred yards trailing after us then the tug would try to encircle the slick. This is the theory anyway. Once the oil slick was encircled another device was brought up which would supposedly suck up the oil. We could have picked up more oil with a turkey baster. When we pulled the contraptions out of the water they were covered in oil, which soaked into our clothes, and shoes.

Once it became obviously to everyone that this particular product was a waste of time we were released and taken back to the Oil Field Maintenance office. Our job was done. In a little over two weeks I’d earned $600 plus, a small fortune for me at that time. Upon returning to “Dude’s” and reassessing my situation, it became clear that they didn’t need a third roommate. On a Tulane bulletin board I found a posting for “Roommate Wanted”. It was a four bedroom house in a nice neighborhood shared by three Tulane students. My rent was $50/month, they were nice guys and I moved in. I bought a Chevy Corvair for $100 which promptly broke down and spent another month or so in New Orleans before getting a call from my mother pleading with me to return home. Being a dutiful son I complied and bought a one way stand-by air-fare back to Indianapolis. I could have had a life in New Orleans; things were beginning to jell, another crossroad.

Eye Abrasion - Mardi Gras - New Orleans February – March 1970

Waking up the next morning I wished I hadn’t. My head felt like overnight I’d had surgery and someone implanted a five pound lead sinker behind my right eye. Nothing in my previous experience prepared me for the excruciating anguish; it felt like I had a splinter in my eye. Realizing something was seriously wrong; I acknowledged that I required a physician’s services. Somehow managing to find a walk-in clinic, I spent the requisite $20 to find out that, “You have an abrasion of the eye”. Not sure what this meant, the doctor explained that it was a small cut on my eye. Evidently getting incredibly drunk, blacking out and not removing your contact lenses over a forty-eight plus hour plus period can create this condition. After receiving medication and being told to stay still, evidently walking around is not only throbbing torture but detrimental to the healing process, I managed to return to my lodgings.

The next four days I spent nursing my injured eye back to health. My hosts were gracious for the most part, but I could sense the restrained annoyance on the part of the reluctant roommate. However he nursed me back to health with a steady diet of red beans and rice. In good time I was able to continue my Mardi Gras shenanigans, however my partying was greatly restrained and I carefully monitored my alcohol intake.

One evening during the festivities I met a young lady who invited me back to her home. When we arrived I was duly impressed. It was in an old-money, expansive lawn, 100 year-old oak trees, two-story vintage historic home. Somewhere in the course of the evening it dawned on me that I was the entertainment; that this was a family tradition. Dinner was elegant, authentic New Orleans Creole cuisine and her parents were intensely gracious.

After dinner her father and I sat in the family room and had brandy and cigars. He began asking me questions and I began to spin out my story. He inquired about what I intended to do with my life. I mumbled something about wanting to help people. What he conveyed next stuck a nerve and resonated. He said, “First, you have to be in a position to help people.” In other words vagabonds were in no position to help anyone. A bit condescending but then I was only twenty-one and had my life in front of me. I decided it was good advice, but how I was going to get from A to B was poignantly unclear. The young lady made it clear as she dropped me off that this was a one night only event and that was fine with me. I later discerned that the evening was part of a ritual that was required as part of her family’s krewe. A Krewe (pronounced in the same way as "crew") is an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the Carnival season. The term is best known for its association with New Orleans Mardi Gras. (Wikipedia)

The rest of my Mardi Gras celebration was mostly uneventful. As I began running low on funds, somehow I got hold of a bugle and ripped off bugle calls and my own rendition of bugle jazz. This was the one and only time in my life when I made a living as a musician. It was short-lived, I wasn’t that good and it’s just that when you’re drunk you’re more likely to part with your spare change. It wasn’t much of a living anyway as I made perhaps fifteen bucks.

My mother bought me a trumpet when I was eleven because she and my grandmother thought all those musicians on Lawrence Welk always appeared to be having such a great time. Like I never had a good time and needed to have more fun. How my mother could ever speculate that I needed more fun defies comprehension, I was the biggest practical joker my family ever produced.

At eleven I was enrolled in the nation’s only Boy Scout Band and religiously attended weekly practice on the third floor of Fire Station Eleven in downtown Indianapolis. This is vivid because my trumpet and I often took the half hour bus ride there alone. Playing the trumpet continuously until I graduated high school had finally paid off. Fun had nothing to do with playing the trumpet; the guys on Lawrence Welk were smiling like crazy because Mr. Welk was paying them generously to do so. In the end I was no different.

Mardi Gras Day was a letdown. It was more a wrap up than a climax. The only notable thing I recall was running across a number of grossly attired, obnoxious gay guys whose repeated attempts to proposition me left me wondering how the hell I ever got to this part of town.

Mardi Gras - New Orleans, LA - February 1970

Leaving the Louisville airport I was overtaken by a sense of gloom; or was it fear, uncertainty? It was late, it looked like rain; I had an old knapsack but no tent or sleeping bag. Glimpsing a motel not far away I opted to spend about 1/4 of my funds on a room for the night, not a propitious start. My somber mood turned brighter as the room was cozy and safe. The next day was bright and cold and feeling renewed I continued my journey.

At about the half way mark, I stopped for the night at a university, it might have been Mississippi State, it certainly felt old south. There I found the Phi Delta Theta house, my old fraternity from the University of Buffalo. They took me in, fed me and gave me a bed for the night. The next day everyone was up early and off to classes, I figured I should be off as well. I don’t remember any of the rides except the last one. If you remember the character, Freakshow, from the movie, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, the creepy guy in a pick up truck who gives the boys a ride, it was very similar. While my ride was menacing and intimidating he was also gracious enough to take me all the way to Tulane University, my final destination that night.

It was dark when I arrived at Tulane, around 8 PM. There wasn’t a Phi Delta Theta fraternity on campus. So as a former jock, I asked where the jock dorm was. I found it and scanned the floors for a good spot. Finally settling on the eighth floor TV room where I found a nice sofa and fell asleep. Around 1 AM I awoke as a security guard was rousting all of us up. It was something like, “Clear the room boys, go to your rooms or get out of the building.” A student who’d been watching TV took notice of us and said, “You guys can sleep in my room if you want.” Options being extremely limited we took him up on his generous offer and slept on his hard linoleum floor.

The next day we awoke late and sore. I say “we” because the night before I’d shared the floor with three guys from Ohio State who had also come to party at Mardi Gras. We teamed up and began to explore New Orleans. Mardi Gras or Carnival is a festive season preceding Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, which is Mardi Gras day. Different communities celebrate it different ways. At this time in New Orleans the Carnival spanned several weeks gradually working itself up to a crescendo on Mardi Gras Day. I had arrived two weeks prior to the big event.

The guys from Ohio State had a car and I threw my knapsack in their trunk and off we went to explore what was going on in the French Quarter. With my limited funds I bought a bottle of port wine because it was about 21% alcohol by volume and another bottle of Bali Hai (cheap soda pop like wine) as a chaser. I drank both of these in a span of perhaps twenty minutes. My idea of having a good time in those days was to drink a lot of cheap liquor quick. This night was to teach me an excellent lesson about why this is not a good idea.

She was a cheerleader for the New Orleans Saints, a svelte witty brunette tall and voluptuous. We went out to dinner with a group of friends; we marched around the French Quarter collecting beads, laughing, talking, and frolicking in our youth. It was a magic night. She was fascinating and I was charmed. Alas, these are the only bits and pieces that remain. It was a lost night, what all happened is a mystery; my memory fades in and out like tuning a distant radio station on a crystal set. Never saw her again, couldn’t remember her name and didn’t get her phone number. Crossroads.

There was a beer in front of me and it felt like a dream as I sat at the bar talking to a guy next to me when suddenly my mind rebooted. I’d been awake but my brain suddenly switched back on from some other mode. A few minutes later and a question popped into my head, “What’s my name?” Not knowing was unsettling and bewildering. It took some moments of complicated concentration and finally some time later an answer, “Russ”, that’s my name. WOW! What a relief! But what’s my last name? Same process. My celebration of self discovery was short lived, the bar was closing and we were soon ushered out the door.

Walking down the deserted streets alone, I began my self-examination. Where am I? How did I get here? It was another twenty questions before I hit upon, “What happened to those guys from Ohio State?” Abruptly realizing all my worldly possessions were in the trunk of their car was a profoundly depressing thought. Oh woe is me! Where am I walking too? Do I even know? It was around 5:30 AM and I’d been walking about twenty minutes when who whirls around the corner but the guys from Ohio State. One of them yells out the car window at me, “We’ve been looking all over for you!” Thank God they found me. I’ve since wondered if I could ever recapture the events of the entire evening perhaps under hypnosis. What really happened remains a blank enigma.

We drove to a city park and went to sleep; sometime after noon we woke up with ravenous pits in our stomachs and went off to campus to scout around for food and better lodgings. After lunch we were walking across campus when I spied a friendly-looking student. Hopping he might point us in the right direction I asked, “Hey Dude, you know where we could spend the night?” This was 1970 and I did use the word “Dude” probably entering it into the official future lexicon of “The Simpsons”. He replied in the affirmative that we could stay as his house. He was renting a place off campus which he shared with a roommate. His roommate wasn’t thrilled but acquiesced to the idea. We anted up some rent money and lived in their house over the course of Mardi Gras.

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.

U.S. Army Enlistment Day - January 1970

In January 1970 I had decided to enlist in the U.S. Army. The draft had been hanging over my head for four years just waiting to explode like a blowout on the highway. I’d had a draft deferment while in college and then the merchant marine, both of which had vanished like pizza at a fraternity party, now I was fresh meat. Enlisting, and getting it over with, seemed smarter than waiting around for the inevitable. How bad could it be? Maybe I could play Army football, I’d heard of that. By joining the Army it would all be over in two years; four years in the Navy or Air Force sounded like a lifetime.

Most of the advice I’d received about joining the Army had been bad. For example, I’d heard of this “foolproof” way to get out and avoid the military from more than one source. “Just spread plenty of peanut butter in your butt crack and when you have to bend over for your physical the doctor will ask you, ‘what is that?’” That’s your cue to grab some, stick it in your mouth and say, “Tastes like crap to me!” These and other ideas just didn’t sound viable. I conjured an image of a sergeant yelling, “Got another peanut butter A-hole here, make sure his butt ends up in Viet Nam!”

When I arrived at the building in downtown Indianapolis I was surprised to find enlistees for the other services as well. One guy in particular was adamant about joining the Marines. He was so excited he acted like he’d just won the lottery. I thought to myself, “Haven’t you seen The D.I. (1957), Jack Webb is going to chew your butt, you moron.” But I kept my thoughts to myself. Soon we were ushered into a room to take a placement type test. The test was basic stuff, but as I looked around the room I detected puzzled expressions on many faces. I began to realize I could be a searchlight among dim bulbs, which wasn’t at all reassuring.

We had to fill out many forms and mechanically I began this task, already resigned to my fate. I tried to answer as best I could. When I got to the medical forms I simply described how I’d torn two ligaments and the cartilage in my right knee playing football in college a little over a year before. No big deal. Then we stood in lines and wasted more time in preparation for our new career of hurry up and wait. Finally it was my turn and the officer looks at me, then looks at my forms. He says, “We want you to see a doctor.”

I didn’t spend much time at the doctor’s office, it was a brief visit. He looked at the file, looked at my knee and said, “Would it break your heart if you didn’t go in the Army son?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing, without hesitation I replied, “No Sir.” I got my draft card with the 4-F deferment shortly thereafter. I was free at last.