When I was 17 and in my senior year of high school I worked
slinging hamburgers at an upscale burger joint in Sacramento, CA. The
place was called the Hamburger Hut and was located on Broadway near my home and
I continued to work there for a few months after I graduated. One day, on a whim, and seeing no future in
the hamburger business, I decided to take a trip to England to see my
grandparents for the first time since I left there as a baby in 1946. At the time, there was an older man working
at the Hamburger Hut named Noble and I asked if he wanted to buy my car. When he accepted, I was committed and started
making plans.
Within a day or two of selling my car, a grey 1957 Pontiac,
I applied for and received my first passport.
I scraped together all the money I had, which was only about $1,500
after paying for the cost of the round trip tickets on the seagoing vessels of
the Cunard lines; the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. To save money I chose to hitchhike to my
point of departure in New York City and to make my adventure more memorable I would
begin my trek at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco so that, upon my return, I
could claim to have hitchhiked from “coast to coast.” I packed a full size Samsonite suitcase with
everything I thought I would need, painted “New York or Bust” on the side and
headed out.
ME, SHORTLY BEFORE I LEFT SAN FRANCISCO
I stayed for a day or so with Uncle George in San Francisco
and then took the cable car out to Fisherman’s Wharf to begin my journey. It took an hour or so to get my first “ride,”
which only took me to the entry ramp of the Oakland/Bay Bridge. It was already two P.M. and I wasn’t even out
of the city yet! In a short time my
second “ride” came along and I soon found myself passing through my hometown of
Sacramento and travelling on highway 50 to Placerville, CA in the Sierra
foothills; that’s as far as my second “ride” was going. It was late by the time we got to Placerville
and there wasn’t much traffic on the road.
Normally, truckers are a good source of transportation when you’re
hitchhiking but most of them avoided the older highway 50 that took you through
the congested South Shore of Lake Tahoe for the newer and faster route around
the North end of the lake and into Reno, Nevada.
It was very cold in Placerville that night so I was forced
to spend the first of my meager funds for a room in a local motel. The next morning, at breakfast in the diner,
it was easy to find a “ride” headed in my direction. My benefactor was a local trucker who had
just delivered a load of goods from Reno to Placerville and he was headed back
to Reno; I was in luck! My “ride”
dropped me off in Reno and it was only a few minutes before I was picked up by
an “Artist” (oil on canvas) who had just left San Francisco the day before,
just as I had, and was on his way home to Omaha, Nebraska. What luck, I had found a guy who was looking
for someone to help with the driving and we were both headed the same
direction!
He was driving a 1956 blue
and white Ford “stationwagon” but there was barely enough room for the two of
us. The remaining space in the vehicle
was taken up by frames of canvass on which he had apparently spent some time
painting scenes of San Francisco.
During one of my driving stints I happened to hear an
unusual noise that sounded like rubber slapping the road. I pulled over, got out, and checked the tires
only to discover that the tread was separating from the right, rear, tire. When my benefactor awoke and realized that we
had stopped, he got out to see what I was up to. When he saw the tire he was beside himself
praising me for being so alert. “You
saved my life!” he said. We were
standing there on the side of the highway on the Nebraska prairie and this
lunatic was going on and on about what a “godsend” I was. “Ok, ok, I said, “it’s cold out here let’s
get to some place where we can get the tire changed and keep warm at the same
time.” It was when we stopped at the next
“service” station that I discovered that my benefactor was broke! He didn’t have the money to purchase a new or
used tire! I was almost at the point of
offering some help when he began bartering with the station attendant to trade
some of his precious oil paintings for a tire.
He ended up trading two of his works of art for a used tire. It was a bad deal for him but it got us back
on the road.
I continued driving after we got the tire changed and my
benefactor climbed into the small space between his canvasses and the roof of
the car to stretch out and get some rest.
A few miles later as I was approaching a curve in the road he asked me
to hand him a blanket that had fallen to the floor on the passenger side. I reached down and got it and turned my head
a little to hand it to him. When I
turned back I was dumbfounded to discover that I was headed directly toward the
first of many steel posts that had been erected alongside the road to prevent
vehicles from careening over the side of the embankment. I jerked the steering wheel to the left just
in time to avert frontal contact with the post but then realized that the
overloaded rear end was swinging into the post!
I cut back to the right and that caused the rear end to swing back to
the left, thereby avoiding the post but, to my dismay, after this deft
maneuver, I was headed for the next post!
I avoided the next post using the same strategy but I was slowly losing
the battle and made rear end contact with the third post. It was a very slight contact that left a
scratch and a small dent in the rear fender on the passenger side. My benefactor didn’t hear it but I did. I pulled over to see what damage I had done
and, once again, my benefactor got out to see what I was doing. I was caught off guard by his reaction. His first comment was “oh my God, what’s my
mother going to say”? He then started to
blubber like a baby with large tears streaming down his face and accused me of
ruining his life. Only hours before, I
was being praised for saving his life and now I had ruined it! Anyway, I stood there for a few minutes
trying to be consoling until the cold air got the best of me. I asked him several times to get back in the
car so we could get warm and continue our journey but he was inconsolable. Finally, I told him to get in the car or I
was going to take it and he could pick it up in the next town; he got in. We rode in silence the remaining distance to
Omaha where I got out, thanked him for the ride, and went my own way.
It wasn’t long before a young couple and their 4 year old
son picked me up for an uneventful ride to Ames, Iowa. They dropped me off at a remote truck stop in
the middle of nowhere. I had visions of
being marooned there but in a short while a trucker gave me a ride and dropped me
off near an industrial area just south of Minneapolis and I was on foot
again. It was cold and rainy and I was
getting behind schedule, but I was soon picked up by a gentleman driving a
Rolls Royce. I remember driving into
Minneapolis that cold rainy day in a Rolls Royce with “Big Girls Don’t Cry”
blaring on the radio. It’s a memory that
remains clearly etched in my mind. I had
originally planned to spend some time with friends in Minnesota but I was
behind schedule and couldn’t take a chance on missing my sailing date so I
continued on to Chicago with another family.
The husband told me about a company in Chicago that paid people to
deliver automobiles to other cities and I opted to check it out as soon as we got
there. It was late in the day when they
dropped me off at the automobile delivery business and I went right in and
asked if they had anything that needed to be delivered to New York. “We sure do” he said. I was elated and feeling good when I filled
out the forms, thinking I no longer had to worry about missing the boat; then
he asked me for my driver’s license.
When he discovered that I was only 17 years old, the whole scheme fell
apart; they couldn’t insure me.
Back on foot again, I caught the first trolley car headed
toward the east end of Chicago and a connection to interstate 90. I rode the trolley to the end of the line and
found myself in the worst area of Chicago.
Chicago’s east end is comparable to the Watts area of Los Angeles. I hesitated to get off the trolley, thinking
I would rather ride it back into the city than get off in that neighborhood but
then the conductor told me I was on the last train for the day and they would
not be returning to the city! There I
was, suitcase in hand, walking through the ugliest area of Chicago. I suffered a few derisive remarks but was
otherwise left unscathed by the experience.
I sure was happy when I reached the highway and connected with my first
“ride” after only a few minutes. I think
my benefactor realized what a predicament I was in and picked me up to save me
from a premature death. The remainder of
the trip to New York was accomplished by multiple “rides” but I got there with
two days to spare. I got a room at the
YMCA closest to the docks and awaited my departure time. Little did I know that the YMCA I had chosen
doubled as a “halfway” house for Juvenile delinquents! I passed the time shooting pool with a bunch
of thugs and actually got to walk through Central Park to experience it’s
dangers.
On the day of departure I boarded the Queen Elizabeth and
was assigned a berth in the lower bowels of the ship. Being in “steerage” didn’t matter much since
I spent most of the trip in the passenger lounge drinking myself into a stupor
on “lager & Limes” with the rest of the younger crowd. Being on the open ocean was a new experience
for me and it was exhilarating. I Inspected
the ship from Bow to Stern and managed to find a pathway to the “First Class”
section to see what that was all about; it didn’t seem much different. To this day, I have never been on a “cruise
ship” but I imagine it to be much like my experience on the Queen
Elizabeth; Excellent food and free
flowing booze were the order of the day.
There always seemed to be some kind of activity going on. One day, a shuffleboard contest, then a “guess
how far we traveled today” quiz, or a “Theme” dance that required one to wear
an article of clothing suggesting a musical theme; the passengers were always
kept busy.
Before I knew it I was disembarking at Southampton, the
hometown of many of my ancestors and near the place where the Mayflower set
sail in 1620. I found my way to the
train depot and caught the first train headed for London. I arrived at Waterloo station in London and
had to find my way across town to St. Pancras station and the train that would
take me to Burton-On-Trent, the hometown of my mother and grandparents. I boarded the train early and was lucky to
find an unoccupied cubicle where I settled in and was soon fast asleep. A short time later I was awakened by a cold
chill in the air. It seems that another
person had entered my cubicle and opened all the windows. I noticed that he was wearing a heavy winter
coat so I got up and closed the windows, suggesting that it might be better if
he removed some of his winter clothing.
The interloper got up to open the windows again and I suggested that he
might be more comfortable in another cubicle.
He sat back down and started to tell me how he had just been released
from an asylum and was undergoing rehabilitation. I wasn’t intimidated and the windows stayed
closed.
I arrived in Burton-On-Trent early in the morning and caught
a bus from the depot to the district of Stapenhill, where I would find
Blackthorn Road and unit 36, the home of my grandparents. I had not told my grandparents that I was
coming and as I walked by their apartment my grandmother happened to be looking
out the window and recognized the suitcase I was carrying! My mother had made the trip a few years
before and had used the same suitcase. Grandmother
came out and we had a glorious reunion right there on her front lawn. What a magic moment.
I was only at my grandparent’s home for a couple of days
before I was invited to stay with my Aunt Doff (Dorothy) and her family which
included Uncle Len and Cousins Ken and Pam.
Pam was very young at the time but Ken was only a year or two older than
me and he invited me to go everywhere with him.
Ken was a member of the local “rowing” club and that’s where I got my
chance to row a single man scull for the first time.
ME AND KEN AT THE CLUB
The cross section of a scull is shaped like a half round and
the only way to stay upright is by allowing the oars to gently touch the
surface of the water. If the oars were
not on the surface of the water the scull would roll over like a beach ball. I think Ken and all his chums were amazed
when I managed to row a distance downstream, turn around, and make it back
without rolling over; I was proud of my achievement.
RON IN A SINGLE MAN SCULL
I spent the summer with Ken and his pals, attending many
racing regattas and other rowing events.
ME AND RON PLAYING AROUND AT THE REGATTA
The final event of the year was the famous Henley Royal Regatta
and I was privileged to attend as a spectator.
The Henley Regatta is often attended by the Royal Family but I didn’t
see any Royalty on this trip.
ROYAL REGATTA AT HENLEY
We
traveled to Henley by way of the many rivers and canals that connect most of
the population centers of England. We
all chipped in to rent an eight berth cabin cruiser and embarked on a river
cruise that turned out to be one of the highlights of my vacation. Passing through locks, waiting for
drawbridges, and stopping along the river banks to buy mushrooms, fresh eggs, butter,
and other supplies from the local farmers was a pleasant experience for this
“City Boy” and one that I will never forget.
All too soon, the summer passed and it was time for me to
make it back to Southampton where I would board the Queen Mary for the trip
back to New York City.
QUEEN MARY
It was a wild ride on the return trip. The ship brushed the edge of an unusual North
Atlantic hurricane and I can remember laying in my bunk watching ceiling move,
first away from me and then toward me as the huge ship rode up one side of a
wave only to come crashing down on the other side. Each such episode was followed by a rumbling
boom that reverberated from bow to stern and I wondered how long this behemoth
of a ship could withstand the constant pounding before it fell apart! In due time, we passed the Statue of Liberty
and were delivered safely to New York Harbor.
From the harbor, I caught a bus to LaGuardia airport and
boarded a Lockheed Super Constellation for the trip back to San Francisco and a
Greyhound bus that delivered me to my hometown of Sacramento. I was home; what a summer!
