Comments:
After Paly, I spent 4 years at University of Pacific in Stockton. Took a smorgasbord of classes that didn't add up to anything coherent. Lived with 3 other guys in a house where we split $120/month rent! Moved out in June and sent a letter to Richard Nixon: told him I'd heard he might soon lose his job and the house that came with it, so he could have mine. He never wrote back.
Moved back to Palo Alto, worked retail for a while. In 1975 I was visiting my old friends in Stockton and was arrested for possession of something no loner illegal and spent a delightful weekend at San Joaquin County Jail, not recommended!
In 1977 was on a backpacking trip in the Minarets (SE of Yosemite) with two Paly Classmates (Charlie Ogle and David Hale) and a college buddy, Colin Perry. We were in a saddle between two mountains when a thunderstorm came in. No shelter in sight. I was dead center when the lightning struck, was pulled out of my body, looking down on it from 100 feet in the air. I said, "I'm not ready to go, I have things to do" and a hand pushed me back into my body.
Travel bug bit me in 80s. Did a 3-month loop from London all around Europe. After a crazy time in Yugoslavian Belgrade, I used my last dinars to buy a train ticket to Athens. At 8:00 am it was already 90, the train was standing room only and I was broke, at least until I reached the Greek border. A Croatian guy who'd been living in London, came home for Christmas and was drafted, adopted me: he'd buy me all the beer I wanted as long as I filled him in on the music scene in San Francisco. I told all sorts of stories about my close friends Jerry Garcia and Carlos Santana. Finally, he got us some seats in a compartment filed with peasants and their chickens. "Now, Frisco," says he. "You pay. Sing us that song!" "What song?" "You know, about the little cable cars." So I did an A Capela rendition of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" that would have done Tony Bennett proud.
Spent the 80s and 90s in Health Care. I think I did some good but saw a lot of tough things. By 2000 I was ready for something new and spent a decade editing and uploading content to a college textbook publisher's website.
2010: Living life. Traveling, working, riding my bike on every trail I can discover, listening to music, reading endlessly. Occasional bursts of idealism and energy, middle-age doldrums. Need to move soon, considering hitting the road, gap-year around the world was too poor to do 30 years ago...
In 2011 I did the Gap year thing. Quit my job and hopped a plane for Mexico City and over the next several months wandering mostly overland to Rio, swam (well flew) to Johannesburg, South Africa and overland to Zanzibar.
Remember how depressed the animals look like at the Zoo? See them in their home out in the African bush, they seem so much more alive.
Then onto India for a month looping around the north from Delhi, then Thailand and (40 years after my government wanted to send me there) Vietnam.
Last stop was Taiwan then it was back to a serious case of America shock. I've freelancing since then, doing OK, keeping my head above water. The crazy rents pushed me out of the area, I know live near Oakland, scheming my next move.
Really, it's getting harder and harder to live decently on what I can earn and on Social Security. Having seen the rest of the world, I know that the dollar can go so much further in places like Peru or Nicaragua. And they are not scary at all. I'm getting ready to bail.
Update 2025: Never did move out of the country, probably won't unless that guy whose name rhymes with Chump decides I'm on his "home grown" list. In the 2010s drove for Uber for a while, quite a few stories there. Even got a call (on a dark and stormy night) to a cemetary in Colma. No one was there, I called the number requesting the ride and was told it was a discontinued number. Got outta there, I don't give no rides to no zombies.
In 2018 I was driving my friend's dog Layla from Alameda to Walnut Creek. Must of done something to piss somebody off, or maybe they were so miserable they couldn't stand to see a happy puppy. They hosed the car with twelve bullets. I felt like a punch, put my hand on my neck and it was bloody. Layla was on the floor whimpering. Somehow I steered to the center divider, 911 got there and dragged me away before I could say thanks to the dog who saved me. Was on the news and everything.
Spent the early 2020s as live-in helper, driver, dog walker, errand boy to Nakaya the lady who owned Layla and soon got Bruno. She had a cardiac arrest last August, her section 8 apartment gave me the boot, oh yes you gotta put down that dog.
Almost was became homeless but at the last minute a friend of a friend had a basement room just two blocks from Nakaya's place and they'd let me keep Bruno. So I've been rebuilding my life, wondering what is next...things looked a lot more positive until November. I was going to publish my decades in the writing book, start a Podcast Obviously Kamala was going to win. Sure she wasn't perfect but there'd be openings to do something good. What!?! No!! We aren't that stupid.
Any way see some of you next month.
