Origin Issue

It was August 1974. The dark clouds of depression were my best friends. I quit my job at Montgomery Ward, wrapped up my puny affairs in Glen Burnie, Maryland and hit the road for my first great solo adventure. My destination: Kalispell, Montana. The reason: I read in my Atlas of the United States that in Montana cattle outnumber humans ten to one. Kalispell had a Montgomery Ward store, so I thought I might be able to work there. Plan A, however, was to wander into the wilderness and live by my wits. Boy, was I witless!

I fancied myself to be a writer in those dark days. It's true I wrote a lot in those dark days. In fifteen years I would come to the devastating realization that scribbling private thoughts and fantasies on lined paper does not a writer make. But that's another story.


I boarded a Greyhound bus in downtown Baltimore on Thursday afternoon. My first leg: Chicago, where I would stop in to visit my buddy Al Shewbridge. As the bus rolled away from the station, I felt the darkness lifting. This wasn't the same old life with the same old patterns, the same old people, the same old scenery. The evil spell was broken and I was free! Witless.

That night as we crossed from Pennsylvania into Ohio, my hobby of collecting states began. Indiana went by the windows in the dark. Early on Friday morning I got off the bus in Chicago. I didn't want to call Al at 6:30, so I went for a walk. Walking around cities is another hobby I started this trip. I went by a movie theater on State Street that was showing Uptown Saturday Night starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, first show at 8:00am. Perfect. I ate breakfast in a little hole in the wall nearby, and mosied back to watch my movie. It was fun, and there were only about ten people there. Perfect.

Al drove into town to pick me up, cheating me out of an opportunity to try the transit system. I was a long-time veteran of the Baltimore system, but to tell the truth I was a little timid back then. I was glad for the ride. I spent two days in Wheaton, Illinois, sleeping on the living room floor and hanging out with Al and his wife and newborn son. On Sunday we all went to downtown Chicago and walked around a bit, enjoying the cacaphony of preachers and other passionate speakers on every corner. Fascinating. They drove back home, and I went to the bus station. This was to be the last I ever saw or heard from Big Al.

I bought my next ticket to Kalispell, noting that there was a bus north at 11:30pm. This gave me time to walk five or six blocks to a little movie theater I'd seen Friday morning, showing Animal Crackers starring The Marx Brothers. That was fun too.


My next tradition started that trip: diarrhea. Luckily it hasn't happened a lot, but that night it was a long uncomfortable walk back to the station, with a hurried pit stop in between. So Wisconsin went by the windows, and breakfast was in Minneapolis. Lunch in Fargo. What happened to the trees? I only saw about a dozen trees in North Dakota. Supper in Bismark. Then came the long, long sunset, barreling west, following the sun over the plains. Breakfast was in Billings, where I was served a huge stack of pancakes I couldn't finish. When we left Billings, we could see the Crazy Mountains far in the distance over the flat flat treeless plains. The climb up the Rockies was labored. The trip down was a roller coaster ride of terrifying proportions. We were in Butte in time for lunch- I had my first Montana steak- yum! I decided a bath and a change of clothes was in order. I spent $8.00 for a hotel room. 1974.

Steak and eggs for breakfast, and I was on the road again. Lunch in Missoula, a little college town. I walked around between lunch and bus time. Nice. Then on to Kalispell. I pulled out my Super 8 movie camera to film the train we raced over the hills and mountains on the way.

I spent two nights in beautiful Kalispell. I inquired about jobs in four or five places, and was told there were no jobs in Kalispell. By the time I arrived there, I had figured out that plan A was a bust. There were no places to get lost in the woods. If there was water, there were humans. The forests looked dense from a distance, but up close I could see that hiding out in there was close to impossible. After two days I decided to follow John Denver to Denver. I picked up Idaho, Utah and Wyoming on the way to Colorado. It snowed in the mountains on the way to Laramie. In August.

It was pouring rain in Denver. I bought a newspaper and found no jobs for me. I had my first and last Colorado steak, and was on the road to Vero Beach, Florida. The dark clouds rolled in on me again. Plans A, B and C had all failed. At least I was among friends. Kansas and Missouri were my last two states collected on that trip.

Soon I was back in Vero Beach, living with my parents. I worked seven days a week as a forklift driver for a season in a grapefruit packing house, which served to finance my next great adventure. See you there, later.