Strange Days

Back in 1970 I devoted a lot of effort to trying to get connected with a band in Tyler, Texas. It was kind of frustrating because Karina was having flings with some of the top local talent (I won't name names) and even they couldn't help...

The issue was that all the really good musicians were in established bands (two of them had songs on the billboard charts) and there were no "lower tier" bands because there were so few rock venues in town... In southern California you could get gigs simply hanging out in music stores but that just didn't happen in Tyler...
Of course - if you were willing to play country it was a whole different story. I knew lots of guys who hated country music but played it at truck stops and redneck bars (excuse me - private clubs) because that was the only way to make ends meet... Yeah - Smith County is technically dry but you can go to any number of places and pay a couple of bucks for a "membership" and drink. It's totally hypocritical - but I digress :-)
The point is that if you insisted on playing rock and weren't in one of the top bands you pretty much had to move to Dallas to survive... I wouldn't play country and really wasn't in a position to move so I was stuck.

And that's the "backdrop" for one of the strangest evenings of my life. I really don't remember all the gory details but I'll try and hit the highlights:

I've mentioned before that I played a lot of tennis in the nearby park that summer. There were a few guys I used to play with regularly and one day I found out that one of them was involved in an effort to start a new band. The "bonus" was that one of the prospective members had inherited a bunch of money from his grandmother and could afford the "communal" equipment (like mics and a PA system) that most groups don't have the resources to acquire.

So we agreed that the next day they would pick me up after supper and we'd go somewhere to practice... Simple enough - right?

The first thing I remember was we ended up in some guys front yard and everyone was standing around B.S.ing for 1/2 hour while I impatiently waited. I think the issue had something to do with getting hold of a van to transport the drums and other equipment... When we finally hit the road I was sandwiched in the middle of the back seat of a 1964 Chevy Impala with 3 other people.
Now -that wouldn't have been an issue except that the person to the left of me was a 13 year old girl and the guy on the other side of her had his hand up her skirt and she was making all kinds of interesting noises and was trembling and stuff. I was trying really hard not to get aroused but it was kind of impossible because we were seriously mushed together and I could feel every twitch and quiver. It was an "uncomfortable" experience to say the least :-) Enough of that...

Tyler is not a big place. You could drive from one end to the other in less than 10 minutes. Yet it somehow took these guys 3 hours to find everybody, ditch the girl, get hold of a van and load up all the equipment... It was 10 PM by the time we pulled into the intended practice location - a service station on the south end of town. A friend of a friend worked there and had agreed to let us set up in one of the service bays.

We had just started playing when the owner called and told the employee to get us the heck out of there. I don't know who complained to who - there were no houses within hearing distance - but we had to pack everything back into the van and head off to find another place. There were no backup plans so we spent the next 2 hours crisscrossing back and forth across Tyler accomplishing absolutely nothing... Before long it was abundantly clear to me that these guys were a bunch of complete tools :-)

It was a little after midnight when we arrived at an abandoned building outside of town. But apparently it had never dawned on them that not having electricity might be a problem for a rock band. So we turned around and were headed back into town (yet again) when we encountered a blond girl running down the middle of the road playing chicken with oncoming traffic. At first she wouldn't let anyone near her but one of the guys knew her really well and eventually managed to calm her down a bit. She had apparently dropped a bunch of "Orange Zonker" - a mixture of LSD and meth - and was having a particularly bad trip.

Aside - I really don't understand why anyone would take LSD or meth let alone mixing them together. But it was really popular with the hippie subculture in Tyler at the time...

We had just gotten the girl off the road and into the van when the sheriff's deputy arrived. I was not privy to the conversation that ensued between the deputy and the driver of the van but the officer was apparently somewhat sympathetic to the situation and gave us the option of leaving the county as opposed to turning the girl over to him... I suspect he just didn't want her (or us) causing any more trouble in his jurisdiction that evening. So we were escorted to the nearest county line... And as a result I can legitimately claim to have been kicked out of a county :-)

BTW: That was yet another uncomfortable ride because I ended up sitting next to the tripping girl and every once in a while she'd look at me and freak out and her friend would have to calm her down again... I hope it was some sort of hallucination because I was trying really hard to be non-threatening. It sucks to think that one look at my face could trip somebody out that bad :-)

We ended up driving to a lake (I no longer recall which one) and sitting on a dock eating watermelon and talking about nothing in particular for a what seemed like a particularly long time... Finally, around 2 AM the girl had recovered to the point where she was more or less coherent (she was also puking and not looking very perky in general) so we headed back into Smith County (hoping the deputy didn't spot us again) and they dropped me off at home. The whole thing took about 8 hours and we never did get to practice... I don't know if that would have been considered a "typical" evening for those guys but I had no intention of ever finding out. It really wasn't my idea of a good time :-)

Epilogue: I didn't mention it during the narrative but it was my tennis playing buddy who was messing with that 13 year old girl in the back seat. (He was 16 at the time.) We still played tennis together from time to time afterward and a few months later he told me he'd gotten her pregnant and was being "strongly encouraged" by both of their fathers to marry her. (Think shotguns.) He had cut his hair, dropped out of school and gotten a job... The whole thing had him pretty much scared sh*tless... I made a mental note that if I ever had a girlfriend I should really try and avoid getting her pregnant :-)

Mom's Last Job

In the late summer of 1970 mom got a job - and I got a learner's permit. And yes - the two events are connected.

I never got to take Driver's Ed because we moved around so much and therefore could not (theoretically) get a Texas driver's license until I turned 18... However, there was a "hardship" provision and since mom's new job required her to be out of town most of the time I qualified... There were restrictions (daytime hours only), but it was better than nothing :-)

OK - mom's job is a bit hard to explain: Her boss provided TV monitor systems for cattle auctions that displayed the "vital statistics" of cows as they were being auctioned off. And between cows the monitors displayed ads for local businesses. Selling ad time was how he made money on the deal... It seemed like almost every rural town in southern Oklahoma and east Texas had a cattle auction and this guy had signed up just about all of them.
BTW: He was way ahead of the times. A lot of airports didn't even have that kind of technology back in 1970.

Anyway - the guy couldn't keep up with all his customers so he hired mom to go from town to town touching bases with existing advertisers and signing up new ones. She was really quite good at it. Her whole charming / ditzy routine with the thick Hungarian accent seemed to go over pretty well with folks in those small towns. They had definitely never encountered anyone like her before...
Her boss also gave her a company car - a dark green 1964 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. (He wanted her to look successful.) I have to admit - I loved that car. Mom let me drive it when she was in town and I even used it for my driver's test. I could parallel park it and everything.

OK. This really puzzled me:
Mom's boss was a pudgy 40+ year old guy with scraggly hair and a lazy eye - definitely not much to look at. He had a ranch up near Wichita Falls and one weekend mom had to go there on business and took me along... Now - I had never met the guy's wife. All I knew was that she was a brilliant businesswoman and was married to a decidedly goofy looking dude, so I was a bit apprehensive. I mean - I didn't want to laugh out loud or anything...
I thought I had prepared myself for anything but there was one possibility that hadn't crossed my mind: She was exquisite... And I don't say that lightly. I was barely 17 at the time and not particularly attracted to women over 30 let alone over 40. But this woman was an absolute stunner... They'd been together since high school and were totally devoted to each other - and I was mystified... I'd heard the expression "looks aren't everything" before - but I'd never encountered such a textbook example :-)

Anyway - it was a memorable trip for reasons other than meeting a "goddess":
I rode into town with one of the ranch hands to get some tractor parts. That was when I found out that pretty much everyone in rural Texas drives over 100 MPH on dirt roads. We actually ran a stop sign going 115. (You could see for a mile in every direction so it wasn't that crazy...)

And in the afternoon the boss and his wife took me for a ride in their Piper Cherokee. I'd never been in a private plane before - I was totally fascinated... Of course - it wasn't until after we were airborne that they mentioned they were trying to diagnose an engine problem (stumbling at low throttle). The wife assured me that he was an excellent pilot and even if the engine died we'd be able to land safely. (The terrain was pretty flat and barren. You'd almost have to go out of your way to hit something.) The engine stumbled (as expected) but it didn't die and we landed at the airstrip as planned.
You know - it just now occurred to me that he might not have been licensed what with the lazy eye and all... I guess I'll never know :-)

It was only a couple of months between the time I got the learner's permit and took the driving test. When mom wasn't around Al (from the guru followers) gave me lessons in his Manx dune buggy (converted VW beetle). Hmm... I had totally forgotten about that dune buggy until now. Had a lot of good times in that thing :-)
Those 2 months before the driving test were really rough... Karina was constantly pestering me to take her places in the 1963 Fairlane (which mom had bequeathed to me) and I kept explaining that I only had a permit and if something happened (even if it wasn't my fault) I'd never get my license. I only gave in once to take her to K-Mart. On the way there someone ran a stop sign right in front of me and I barely missed them. After that I absolutely refused to violate the terms of my permit again.

I still remember the driving test. I scored in the mid 90s on both the written and driving portions... But once I got my license and was free to go wherever I wanted I discovered that there wasn't really anywhere I wanted to go :-)
There was another major disappointment: I had never pushed hard on the accelerator while I was learning to drive and just assumed there was a huge amount of untapped power there. So the first time I was alone in the 63 Fairlane I floored it expecting the car to take off like a rocket and - not much happened... I was like "Are you kidding me? That's it????"... It was a moment I'd been looking forward to since I was a toddler and I was devastated. Thus began a lifelong quest for more horsepower :-)

With mom out of town our lives changed quite a bit. There was a lot less stress. I spent most of my time chauffeuring Karina around and trying (in vain) to prevent her from spending all the money mom deposited in the bank while she was on the road :-)

You know - like most kids - I had assumed that when I finished high school and got a driver's license I would somehow magically become a capable and confident adult and have a good job and a hot girlfriend... But nothing really changed... I knew where I was and where I wanted to be but could not see any way to get from here to there. It was quite disheartening... So I spent a lot of time lying awake at night feeling sorry for myself - and during the day I watched soap operas. (Rachel Cory on Another World was such an evil person.) ... Yeah - those days seemed to drag on forever...

Some Semi Off-Topic Topics

My prior post about my first job really highlighted the extent to which I tended to over-analyze things during my formative years.

But what really muddled it up was my overwhelming fear of being laughed at or regarded as stupid. Yeah - I was (and still am) extremely insecure... But over time I came to realize that all I needed to do was explain myself. I mean - It's not like I ever do anything without thoroughly analyzing it first. And when somebody finds my actions amusing it's usually because I thought of something that they didn't... And on the rare occasion when I do overlook the obvious I just admit it, have a good laugh and move on...

You know - I blame the schools for a lot of it... All that "rah rah" crap about always giving every task your best effort. Yeah - I'm back to my old pet peeve about focusing on the process rather than the outcome... A process will usually get you there (eventually) - but if you take the time to fully understand the objective you quickly realize that you can eliminate or simplify the vast majority of the tasks and actually improve the outcome... I've made a pretty good living at that despite being considered "difficult". Nobody ever complains about what I accomplish - just my attitude :-)

Enough of that... On to another topic:

I don't know why I found this so amusing... One evening Wayne and I were cruising up and down Broadway and I kept seeing "Hugger Orange" 1969 SS-396 Chevelles. My OCD kicked in and I made Wayne stop somewhere so I could count them as they went by. The final tally was 19 and there must have been lots more that weren't cruising that night... I just couldn't believe that in a town of 50,000 that many guys would own identical cars. It goes back to the whole "everyone must think, look and act exactly like I do" mindset... Never made any sense to me...

Finally:

Another thing that confounded me in Tyler was the distinction between a "good girl" and a "slut".
It all started one Saturday night when Wayne and I cruised out to Lake Tyler. That's where all the teens went to get drunk and rowdy... When we got there I saw one of the "good girls" heading off into the woods with a couple of guys and and a blanket. (I won't name names - suffice it to say I was shocked.) I asked Wayne (a) if she was doing what I thought she was doing, and (b) how come she wasn't considered a slut? The answers were (a) yes, and (b) because she only does it when she's drunk. (Wayne was as bemused by it all as I was.)

BTW: People in Tyler were really into the whole "blanket in the woods" thing. I remember Karina going on a rant about it after we'd been there for a while... She was muttering something about pine needles in the privates and bozos too cheap to pay for motel rooms... But I digress :-)

Anyway - the "drunk" excuse wasn't the only one. A girl could also maintain her reputation by saying "No" a whole bunch of times before "submitting"... I've always been deeply disturbed by that one - and it's not just because of the hypocrisy.
There are way too many guys playing the "conquest" game and way too many girls going along with it. That's all fine and dandy until an "innocent" wanders into the cross-hairs and everybody gets hurt...
I guess my conclusion was that the "slut" vs "good girl" distinction had nothing to do with level of sexual activity (or even actual willingness). All that mattered was the perception of willingness... It didn't make sense to me then - and it still doesn't now...