Hwy one

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San Francisco (1977): The next day Russ and I go for a walk around Lake Temescal ..get stoned in a wooded area ..drive across the Bay Bridge ..stash the car ..and go on a walking tour of The City. He shows me how you can get anywhere in San Francisco by using cable cars, muni, taxicabs and the Bart. The next morning we go for a walk around Lake Temescal ..drive across the Bay Bridge ..stash the car .. hang out at the Mark Hopkins hotel and attend the APA convention .. asking irreverent questions at a symposium on juvenile delinquency. The guy sitting next to us is doing his internship at San Quentin. Says he’s counseling an inmate who threw his co-worker off a telephone pole while they were repairing the line. When he asked him why he threw his co-worker off the telephone pole, the inmate replied “..because I didn’t like the way he looked” as if it were a perfectly legitimate reason. “Now I’m on edge” the intern says “..and you wanna’ know why? Not because I’m sitting there talking to a psychopath, but because I’m sitting there wondering what he thinks about the way I look.” 

 

Along the way I remember eating at fish restaurants in North Beach .. giggling while watching a floorshow at Sutter’s Mill ..another one on Broadway .. going to see ‘Beach Blanket Babylon goes Bananas’ at Club Savoy ..and falling in love with San Francisco. A few days later Russ drops me off on highway 101 near the airport and, in spite of his objections ..I begin my hitchhiking expedition back to LA. 

 

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Hwy one

Rusty: One of the more memorable events of my life occurred during the summer of 1977, between college and grad school. I rode up to San Francisco with my friend Russ ..then hitchhiked back down the coast, on my own, camping-out along the way. But first we were going to spend a week in San Francisco. Russ is from the Bay area, and since this was my first visit ..he was thrilled about having me there to show around. Our first destination ..as well as where we were going to stay ..was his father’s place in Berkeley. On the way up, Russ told me that he had planted marijuana in the garden during spring, so he was rubbing his hands in anticipation of ‘the harvest’ ..unless his dad had mistakenly ripped them out while weeding (he told me his dad wouldn’t know the difference). This did not turn out to be the case, however ..and we were in for our first surprise. When we arrived, his dad was in the kitchen ..trimming and cleaning freshly dried marijuana like a pro. The aroma hit us the moment we walked through the front door. Stunned, Russ rushes in screaming “Dad, what are you doing ..?!” He shows us the other packages in the freezer and tells us how his girlfriend had turned him on ..and how they found them growing in the backyard ..and how it was helping him with deal with his anxiety (Russ’ dad was an executive for an energy company). Now Russ’ biggest concern is how to divvy up the ‘bounty’ between him and his father ..who was like “Oh, those were yours ..?”

 

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