In Love And In California

Many years ago, I drove from Indiana to California and back again. I drove an old American Motors vehicle that spewed blue smoke like a mosquito fogger. I would pull into a gas station exclaiming to the attendant (yes, they still had attendants), ?Fill it up with oil and check the gas.? It was the dead of winter and I had just enough money for gas, food, and none for shelter. I slept at truck stops and roadside rest stations.

Why did I do this? I was an idiot. Why do you think? Why would anyone want to do it? Actually, I was going through that stage in life some men go through, menopause. I let my hair grow long and wore a raggedy tweed knee-length coat that made me look like a chubby Colombo. I smoked weed, drank cheap wine, and slept in the cheapest motels I could find with money I borrowed from friends I knew in Sacramento. I never went out at night for fear of being mugged or murdered. Fortunately, I lived through the entire experience.

Since the car I drove to California choked on me, an old American Motors? Matador, I had to earn some money to buy myself another vehicle. I found a job working with kids straight out of Juvenile Hall in the state capital, what a trip. I spent a month working in a group home day and night because the agency I worked for couldn?t find anyone to relieve me. I asked my boss if he could come over and relieve me long enough to go home and take a shower. He did. I never went back. My paycheck was just enough to buy myself a Toyota with the floorboard falling out of it, no heater, and no radio. Needless-to-say, the trip back to Indiana was a long one without heat and music. When I finally arrived back to the Hoosier state, I had thirty-seven cents, not even enough to buy a pack of smokes.

You?re saying to yourself, ?what a wild man that Stan is, why did he do it?? Love. I came back to Indiana because I realized I truly loved the woman I eventually married and am married to today. I thought I was running away from my problems when in actuality I was running away from the solution. Again, I was going through that crazy ?man? thing.

A few things I learned from this experience, California made me sneeze, helicopters with spotlights looking for criminals at night screwed up my sleeping patterns, and freeways suck.

There were good experiences however, the ocean was beautiful, the sun shined almost everyday, and I enjoyed watching sea otters swimming along the rocky shoals of the Pacific. In northern California I found a wonderland. Eureka, California was fantastic, temperatures reaching 65 degrees when the rest of the country was choking in July?s heat waves.

By the way, the floorboard fell completely out of my car just I pulled into the driveway of the place I was going to stay at back home. The driver?s seat was dragging on the pavement. Is there a moral to this story? "Fly to California."