Joe helped me prepare for my departure. I knew nothing about nothing, so he took me to a camping store. The Long Island, city girl that I was, I didn't know anything about this. I somehow already had a good sleeping bag. I think he might have helped me pick it out, in New York before we left. Now he tells me I need a pack back and a tent. I really didn't even know what these things were. He got me all set up, and I was on my way.
I arrived at Kirk Creek and the hippies were still there living on the cliffs. I received a warm welcome and I was home. I was so naive ( did I already mention this??) I thought that was it, I am here forever, in paradise. Not. I was there a week, everything was going great. Along comes this forest ranger with a sign and a hammer. Right by where we are camping he puts up a sign " No Camping". Uh oh. We have to leave. Now what. I have no idea. I really don't even have any idea where I even am. I just know I am at the ocean on these wonderful cliffs. Now what should I do??
Well, I think my innocent naivety must have been apparent to everyone because... There was the wineo couple with the two kids. Their life purpose everyday was to pan handle enough money to get a gallon of Aldeman Wine everyday. They had a beater car, and they were going to the Rainbow Gathering in Utah. I didn't really know what a Rainbow Gathering was, but I had driven through Utah with Joe and didn't like it too well, and besides they seemed a little unreliable, drinking all that wine everyday. They said " You can come with us."
Then there was this nice guy, who seemed just fine. He said " You can come with me."
Then there was Doc. I met him on the beach, while I was looking for a joint. He was too, so we decided to look together. We became fast friends. He was living on the cliffs with us. He looked at me and said " You can come with me". Now there was just something about Doc that I trusted. I thought to myself, "Yeah, he will take care of me. I'll go with him."
It turned out that Doc was hitchhiking up the coast for the summer. His goal was to go to the Rainbow Family Campground by the Spokane World's Faire. It fit my plans, because this is something I forgot to tell you. One of my friend's, Phil, from Syracuse, was going out west too. He said he was going to Idaho. We agreed to try to find each other on the west coast. The plan was to both call his girlfriend in New York on August 1st to find out where the other was. Spokane was heading towards Idaho, so that seemed perfect.
Me and Doc headed out. We first went to San Francisco. He ran into a friend who took us to the famous Haight-Asbury district for a party. It was awful. We would be in a room, and people would be hostile, and tell us we had to leave that room. We would go into another room, and it would happen again. We stayed maybe two hours and left. I asked him why people were being so weird. He said " Oh, don't you know. They wanted us to leave the room so they could shoot up." That was the only time I was ever in Haight-Ashbury. We spent the night, and decided to get out of that awful city. That is when the true adventure began.
We hitchhiked a little ways to a small little beach town called Belinas. We headed down the beach, away from the town until we found a nice place to camp. We camped there for 3 or 4 days, eating brown rice on a campfire and orange juice. We just lived close to nature. I had never experienced anything like that before. I collected shells, found clay and made some pots. It was a wonderful time.
After that Doc decided we should head on out to somewhere else. We spent the summer, two carefree individuals going with the wind. We lived on beaches and ate brown rice and orange juice. We were outside most of the time, and got plenty of fresh air and exercise. He took me to a few towns, to visit some of his friends.
We went to Chico, Cal. That is where I found my first Taco Time and ate my first burrito. I never heard of Mexican food back east. Also, at his friend's house is where I first learned about herbs and natural healing. This is important because this has been a major part of my adult life. His friend had a book called " Back to Eden" by Jethro Kloss. Jethro Kloss was a Seventh Day Adventist back in the 1800's and early 1900's who used herbs and other forms of natural healing to help sick people. Right away, the book caught my interest and I believed what it said. That book changed my life and way of thinking about being sick and healing. I was already a vegetarian, but had no idea that it was healthy for me. I learnt about that too from Jethro Kloss.
Doc also took me to Eugene, Oregon and the Saturday Market, which is a weekly crafts market there. I think it is one of the very first of it's kind. Now, they are all over the place. In 1974, this was innovative. I absolutely loved it, and I was developing a new found love for arts and crafts. The whole time I was growing up, academics was what was emphasized and not the arts. I was discovering that I loved arts and crafts very much. I had been doing pottery in Syracuse, and there was lots of pottery in Oregon. I found out there was a nice crafts center, that was not a college, a person could go to to take classes and make pottery. This interested me very much.
We continued on up into Washington State, sleeping in the mountains and being with the earth. One night we slept in a field, in a terrible rain and lightening storm with only a tarp over us. How exciting!
We finally made it to Spokane. It was August first, the assigned day I was supposed to find my New York friend in the west. We stopped at the bus station to call Phil's girlfriend back in Syracuse. She hadn't heard from him. Oh well. We decided to continued on to the Rainbow Family Campground, Doc's destination. We caught a ride, and made it to the campground. As we drove in, I started to yell, "Stop the car, stop the car!" cThere was Phil, standing there with his backpack, on the exact day we said we would find each other out west, four months before! It was unbelievable. I got out of the car, and you can imagine his surprise when he saw me. He said he had just got there, and was just standing there, trying to figure out why in the world he was there. Now he knew.
I ended up hitch hiking with Phil after that to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington and down the coast back to Northern California. I parted ways with Doc in Spokane. I thought that was that. I probably wouldn't see him again. Well, a few weeks later I was in Eugene with Phil. We were in a car going back to spend the night at Doc's friend's house. Who was on the side of the road?? Doc! Once again I am yelling, "Stop, stop the car.". Doc got in and it turned out that he was going back to the same friend's right then too. We all arrived together, the friends never knowing Doc and I hadn't seen each other in weeks.
That is how it was with me and Doc. We never stayed formally in touch with each other, and we wove in and out of each other lives. This was before Internet and cell phones. We both would go to festivals years later and see each other, and always be overjoyed. We shared a deep love for each other, from that magical summer we had together. When we would see each other he would tell people, " We were teenagers together". Not quite but almost. I was 21, he was 22. This is a tribute to Doc, my dear friend. He passed away from cancer about 7 years ago. He will always be in my heart. He was my first friend on the west coast, and he did take good care of me. And yes, that was his real name.
copyright 2010 © Stacey Bander. Please contact for any reuse.
No comments:
Post a Comment