Morning Thoughts: November 29, 2017

That old black ragtop Cadillac rolled by me coming to a stop, and I looked inside. I says to myself, “I’m going to die today. It’s all over, at nineteen.” That car hadn’t seen new shocks since the Truman administration and, as it stopped, the front-end rose and dove like a colt eating grass. There wasn’t any place to run. I was standing in the Wyoming wilds with the nearest city over two hundred miles away.

I think I mentioned not long ago about meeting a couple of friends once, when I was young and taking a trip from Jackson Hole, Wyoming down the west coast to Mexico. Well, I had to get to Jackson Hole first, and that meant hitchhiking through Wyoming to get there. There were bad and good assets connected with hitchhiking in those parts.

First, it was hard as hell to get a ride. There just weren’t that many people in Wyoming back in those days. But, and this is the good part, if you got a ride, you were going somewhere. There weren’t that many places to stop, either.

The first ride, the man took me to Cheyenne and asked me why didn’t I come stay with him for a while, get to know the city and all. I told him I sure would like to, but I had two friends waiting up north and they wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t show up. He understood, or said he did.

The second ride was with a traveling salesman who took me to where he turned off about 200 miles from where I was going. He acted as a hunting guide when he wasn’t selling and showed me plenty of prime places if I ever returned to go hunting. I never did.

He let me out and I was about the most alone I think I’ve ever been. The mountains off in the distance and the vast plains didn’t take long convincing me that I had maybe made a mistake. Would the winter snows find me there?

That’s when I saw the Cadillac coming. The closer it came, the more I wanted to take my thumb down, but I was in for this adventure like Sherman was in for Atlanta, so I waited. My apprehensions gathered force as the car came to a stop.

I mentioned that what I saw scared me.  It was three of the roughest looking hombres I had seen in a long time. All had cowboy hats ragged denim jackets. They had mustaches that made them look like part of Poncho Villa’s band. They were the kind of guys who could hush an entire pool hall by just walking through the door.

The driver was a tall, lanky man who got out, opened the huge trunk and threw my travel bag in with their gear. I supposed they would divide up my belongings after they had disposed of my body. Then they made room for me in the open seat in back and inquired as to where I was headed. I told them, and they told me I was in luck, for they were going right through there. The driver, before we started off, asked if I was comfortable and I said was.

Then something odd happened. He asked the other two if they were comfortable. That seemed a bit strange for the leader of a small band of outlaw killers.

Well, you know what? Those were the nicest three men I think I ever spent time with. They were cowboys, headed for work, and shared some good stories about the profession. Of course, they asked me about myself. I wasn’t about to tell them that I was a snot-nosed college boy spending a part of his summer indulging in insanity. I offered something vague about meeting some friends and then looking for work.

“You’re in luck,” one said. “We’re headed for Cody. They’re ‘haying’ up there and looking for hands. You can just come on up with us.” That put me in a pretty pickle. I allowed as how I would find my friends and see what they were up to first.

It was a fast couple of hundred miles. We stopped once for nature’s call and they just stood around afterwards talking about how they loved the smell of clover that time of year. We stopped near Jackson Hole for gas, and I pitched in. That pleased them quite a bit, though they hadn’t asked me to.

We reached Jackson Hole in a mood of high fellowship. They invited me to come have a meal with them, but I had to find my friends. “Well,” said the driver, “if you don’t find your pards, come on over to the diner, and we’ll all head for Cody after we chow down.”

I thanked them and, with mixed emotions, found my buddies on the other side of the square, talking to some locals. One friend was talking as if he had climbed mountains all summer, but I found out later he had only done a little “bouldering,” and had not really done very well at that. The locals seemed pleased that I had arrived.

That, and other tales are for later. Let’s just say for now that we headed off on our adventures and I left the three cowboys to their meals. Still, sometimes I wonder … of course holding back due to the knowledge that I would never have met my wife … I wonder, though, how things might have turned out if my “pards” hadn’t been there.

Life is a series of choices, no doubt.

Morning Thoughts: November 19, 2017

These two friends of mine and I enjoyed an adventure once. I won’t elaborate on all our antics. Let’s just say were young and foolish. Add some emphasis to the “foolish.”

It started in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the memorable portion of it ended in Tijuana, Mexico. Actually, before it ended up in Tijuana, it involved a side trip to a small bar in Ensenada, quite a memorable addition to our excursion.

It happened this way.

I joined the two in Jackson Hole, having ridden the bus partway there and hitchhiked partway. One friend had a car, and we set out down the West Coast, hoping to find sex, drugs, and guacamole in Mexico. We headed there after a stay at Palo Alto with some college buddies. Somewhere near Salinas (no, really) we picked up a hitchhiker who looked Mexican. He was. He had been in El Norte on a work contract and was headed home. We thought he might make a good guide. He did.

First thing we knew, he had convinced us that Tijuana was just a place filled with touristas, a fact we would never have suspected. He recommended that we motor on to Ensenada instead. That’s where he lived, and he described it in such extravagant terms that we would have faced expulsion from the Ernest Hemingway Fan Club had we refused his suggestion to extend our adventure the extra 30 miles or so.

Besides, he knew this bar. It was a real Mexican bar, not a trap for unsuspecting Gringos. We crossed the border without incident and soon found ourselves sipping Dos Equis beer and taking in the local color at this bar of renown.

It was then I noticed that there were about five or six old men, really old men, maybe in their fifties or so, scattered around the place in the darkest spots. They had two things in common. Each wore one of those “yachting hats” so common among rich tourists in coastal areas. And, each hosted, at his table, una joven señorita of such breathtaking beauty as to threaten blindness from too long a stare.

Here were ancient old men with young beauties who were totally oblivious of the three stalwart specimens sitting within winking distance. Something about this scene wasn’t fair. Somehow, life never has been.

Well, we ended up at our new friend’s house later, and met a family that was gracious, not surprised, but not especially happy, to meet us. Morning found us sitting on a curb waiting for the sun to rise and our heads to clear. An entire band, members carrying a tuba, a bass fiddle, an accordion, and several guitars, wandered by, fatigued by a night’s work, no doubt. They nodded, we nodded back, and they walked on. Evidently, not much surprises Mexicans.

Other adventures awaited us. For the time being, though, I sat in front of a house in a suburb far from home vowing to dedicate my life to amassing such riches that someday I could buy me one of them little yachting hats and find that bar again.

It’s good to form worthwhile goals for life when you are young.

On the way to Mexico: 1964