Oh, I would like to think that we were eagles soaring high and free, but we were not. I speak very fondly of the time I spent traveling the country with my dog Chopper in an old ’65 Ford pickup I bought off my brother.
It started out as just myself and my German Shorthaired Pointer, and by the time the ride stopped, our group had covered five different states, an untold number of bars, and we ended up being seven members strong when we each went our separate ways.
But what a ride.
For some reason never revealed to me, I was our de facto leader. Probably just because I was the one with the vehicle and without me, the ride stopped. But I always thought it was because I was the LEAST responsible of all of us, willing to do just about anything and go just about anywhere.
DJ, Tommy and I hooked up at a pool bar just outside Tucson, Arizona. I ended up winning most of DJ’s money and some of Tommy’s. DJ was a country boy from Wyoming and Tommy, the quiet one, ended up being a deserter from the U.S. Army.
Off we went.
We picked up the Woodstock twins in Flagstaff on the dance floor of Shakey Drakes. They were born at Woodstock, more precisely, during Alvin Lee and Ten Years After’s I’m Going Home. They would end up with two crazy fuckers we met in Corpus Christi, TX. It was the last I ever saw of either Press or Share (seriously weird first names which were never explained to me) but they were both very plain, no makeup-types, who were also strikingly beautiful. But you’d never know it from them. Truly two of the coolest people I have had the pleasure of meeting in my lifetime. I made out with both of them when we had a party, but that was as far as it went.
I hope they have had a good life.
Everything was going along great from my perspective. Unlike everyone else in our group, I always had money. Everyone else was left to their own devices: they would get part-time jobs from time to time, but I still ended up feeling a responsibility to at least make sure these people, all extremely loyal to me for some reason, had enough to eat.
All we did was party.
No idea where or how, but my group always had drugs to pay their way and our LeaseBuster parties were the things of legend.
Like all things based on the tenuous principles of hedonism, they tend to end far too soon.
But what a ride.
I am not one filled with regrets.
I wouldn’t change one single thing.
I wouldn’t want to take the chance of not being where I am now: warm, safe, next to my soulmate, and my two Cocker Spaniel doggies.
The world keeps changing and we keep adjusting.
It’s called life.
Stay well.
