Last  Exit to Nowhere

 "Seeking only workman's wages, I come looking for a job, but I get no offers, just a "come on" from the whores on Seventh Ave." - Simon & Garfunkel

" My thumb goes up, a car passes by, oh won't someone please help a guy, hitchin' a ride, hitchin' a ride" - Vanity Fare

Hitch-hiking and looking for a job. Two pastimes that took up a majority of my time back in the 70s.

The road had a loneliness that appealed to me. It gave me time to think, really think about what might lie at the end of my journey and all that had come before. Introspective demeanor, I guess. There is no shortage of stories in this blog about my hitchhiking adventures. My stab at poetry is littered with them. It was a time that was unique to my early manhood and has not nor cannot ever really come back.

"The Road"

All I have are memories of the greatness that once was, the freedom, the angst, and the fear of tht long ribbon of blacktop heading to far distant places. What might hppen between this poin and that was a complete crap shoot. Getting rides from nice families, servicemen on their way home on leave, a van filled with smoke and long hairs pasing the bottle round, even a stolen car with a maniacal sledge hammer head that I was lucky to escape. Then there were the frequent unexpeced thunderstorms, the long line hitchers on an on ramp who arrived before you did and last but not leaset, the odd jobs I would find along the way.

One of the great institutions during the 70s was a company called "Man Power". Almost every town had one. Like WPA and the CCC during the depression, these joints doled out day jobs to wiling stewbums where you were promised a days pay for a days work. I a pinch it was alright, however, the work could be especially tainted with dollops of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" so you had to be vigilant. You were not guaranteed a job on any particular day, so you had to arrive early to get in line. I'm here to tell you, no matter where you are in the world there is nowhere quite as cold as 5 am in the morning in anytown USA. Having an empty stomach at the same time is no fun as well.

Jobs I performed ran the gambit from carpet installer to book bindery machine operator. The only saving grace being that at the end f the day you could collect your cash and finally get a bite to eat and then head on back down the road. It is the connective tissue of all Americans, the thing that keeps tethered together, for better or worse. Songs, books, and movies are filled with road stories, there just might be something to it.

 

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it"   

- General Robert E. Lee

The Hill

This country celebrates and is based on war. In our short history as a nation, we have either started or gleefully participated in no less than 10 wars. Besides the use of bullets, we have declared war on a myriad of things: The war on drugs, The war on poverty, The war on hunger, The war on equal rights, and a boatload more that don't quickly come to mind. Being a kid in the 60s was to wallow in the celebration of war. It was the Centennial of the American Civil War, with parades and celebrations throughout the country. The media was overloaded with the war in the movies and television. The weekly show "Combat!" on ABC was one of my favorites. A show based on small platoon action mostly in Italy and later France and Germany. Lots of death, lots of "Amerikaner Dog". Is it any wonder that little boys everywhere had all forms of small arms weapons and used them in their everyday adventures?

Little Johnny mowing them down

 

The very mention of "The Hill" fills me with thoughts of warm late summer afternoons when my friends and myself would go on neighborhood patrol looking for the "enemy", might be "Japs", might be "Krauts" whatever our imagination could come up with. Armed to the teeth we began our walk along the well-worn trail in between the houses on the adjoining blocks. It took nerves of steel and the ultimate in stealth to make our way without getting caught as we weaved our way over fences behind garages and lightly traipsed through gardens of begonias and tulips, getting caught and yelled at would abort our mission.

Pausing behind a garage we took a breather and then quietly looked around the corner to see if any old informants might be watering their lawns. The all clear given, off we moved in single file watching out for big piles of branches and other lawn debris that might slow us down. Late afternoon sunshine turned a golden hue as we approached our objective. A cool breeze caught our faces and braced us for the coming fury of battle. Strange, as a child I never remember really sweating, being cold, yes, but not sweating, don't know why this comes to mind it's just a thought to set my mind to a time more than 50 years ago.

The trail ended at an expansive area between two garages, our jumping-off point. Upon a short column of concrete and brick, it is here that another twisted saga of boyhood took place. Conveniently and cleverly called "The Worm Torture Factory". It was here that we turned the compost and found large, juicy worms and decided to pounce upon them with reckless abandon. To my knowledge, none that were involved ever became serial killers, that's as far as we took our baby boomer dementia. Looking back I can only feel disgusted that I would have the temerity to look upon a living creature with such callousness, my cross to bear.

As we peered through the smoke and "fog of war" we saw a small ridge known to all kid-dom as "The Hill". In reality, it was about 1 to 1 1/2 feet high, some hill, huh? It sat at the far side of an expansive suburban lawn, the owners of which, we had no idea. In our minds, it was shortly after D-Day1944 and our small platoon was slowly making our way inland from the beachhead looking for machine gun nests and enemy activity in general.

The late afternoon sun ducked behind a small cloud, giving us a moment's chance to dash down the driveway to "The Hill". We hit the dirt just as the Vickers Machine Gun opened up on us, shooting clumps of dirt just above our heads. Our boys responded with shots from their M1s and our Sergeant gave the krauts a short burst of his Tommy gun. We were pinned down. We needed to eliminate this installation before the main body came up. We all turned our heads to look at ol' Greenie, as he was the best crawler in the platoon. Slowly John edged his way to the end of the hill and as we kept up covering fire he made his way around until he was close enough to lobe a grenade into the midst of the enemy. The ensuing explosion showered us with dirt and bits of metal. We peered over the top. There stood ol' Greenie grinning from ear to ear looking down at the dead Krauts. We had lived to continue our patrol.

I had probably the best of childhoods. my friends and I could conjure up any one of a multitude of games just using our surroundings and the things we had at hand. Life has held many treacherous turns in the ensuing 60 years. No matter what may happen, I have these memories that warm my heart and reminds me how wonderful it was to live my best life.

"Cryin' won't help you. prayin' won't do you no good 

When the levee breaks, mama you got to move" - Kansas City Joe McCoy

It's hard to know what I'm talking about if you didn't live through it. Sure there is no shortage of print and other media explaining the times, probably one of the most famous episodes in American History, certainly the most flamboyant, until now.

We were all dancing on a warm summer breeze with nothing but a nice fat joint to pass the time with. Underneath, however, everyone had a gut-wrenching fear that the whole thing could explode any minute. Then Viet Nam ended, Nixon resigned, Manson was behind bars and everything settled back into a tense but placid normalcy. Most everyone I knew felt that we had dodged a bullet, we took the worst that could be thrown at us and come away somewhat unscathed. But the fear was still there and it crept along a little bit each day. Politicians regained control and oh so slowly began to tighten their grip.

 The "Free Love" generation was dead and buried, what's worse is that many of these same idealists switched sides, secretly they thought that they could change things from the inside. It seemed plausible, it might even work, but, and this is a biggie, they had no clue that a leather-chaired, wood-paneled boardroom at a prestigious law firm could twist you into a mold of their choosing, or the easy money that could be made after the super tight grip of the weasel special interest groups, lobbyists, sunk their fangs in deep. They thought "What the heck, I lived on alfalfa sprouts and yeast for two years in a commune, I've done my comeuppance". The only problem was that by the time they got chewed up and then spat into the halls of Congress, they became far worse than any of their predecessors.

So that brings us to the here and now. My innards are tied up into knots and I don't think I've felt any emptier than I do now. The media and their belching screaming heads have compressed my world into this tiny area, and even here I feel that unless we get some help, and fast, we might be headed down a treacherous path where child molesters and flagrant liars rule the day. No t for me, uh uh. 

On my back patio sits a large styrofoam cooler that contains a copious amount of bottled beer, long necks only, please. Digging in I pull out a new flavor Sam Adams. It goes well with how I feel and the time of year, I think it's called "Banshee Blue", guess I'll find out why. Taking a deep drink I walk into my living room and head up the stairs to the bedroom. There, in the top right corner drawer is Dad's sock drawer. The same place where my father hid all his illicit and fun shit, even the girlie mags he swiped from me vowing to chuck 'em but never did. Guess we had the same taste in smut. With the advent and advancement of the internet, there is no more need to hide mags in the drawer. Now the contents reside in a hidden folder deep within the dark confines of my own personal dark web. Dark indeed, I frighten myself with how far down the corridor my depravity has taken me. The brain, being the erogenous organ, happily views this nonsense even if nothing else twitched much anymore, "Big Lou's like you, he's on meds too"

The great bandaid of this world, medication keeps most everything in check, but there is no telling when the dam might burst and Redeeming Love would be all but lost by the fury of the flood waters. I crave redemption from my stupid life, from this stupid existence filled with trivial crap day in and day out, waiting for the other shoe to fall. One of my friends on Facebook posted a cartoon after one of my particularly vile venom-spewing whining outbursts, they seem to come more frequently these days. Anyway, he posted a cartoon of Homer Simpson's father saying nothing but shaking his fist at a passing fluffy cumulous cloud. Very apropos, Bravo!

I seem to have strayed a bit. Actually, I might be able to answer my own musing about yesteryear and now. There, in my sock drawer is a complete set of "Heroes of the Blues" cards drawn by that master complainer, Robert Crumb. They pretty much contain the answer to everything or at least point in a good direction. Produced by the Yazoo Recording Company, these cards are what I refer to when I think of "Make America Great Again". They were produced at a time when the Arts seemed to be having a revival and good old times recorded music was resurfacing thanks to the CD. Many hate the format but so much has become obtainable that was not earlier with vinyl, So, praise the Lord, I have been saved! Sometimes all it takes is an old sock drawer.

While I am at a high point on this emotional roller coaster, I'm going to cut and run and save the rest for another day, enough spewing for the moment. Adios.