Day Twelve (Thursday, July 8, 1971)

I woke to the lullaby of Otto’s snoring. Warm and cozy, I lay on my back with my hands under my head, eyes sometimes open, sometimes closed. I was glad we didn’t choose the sand pile. Workers were well underway over there with cranes and air hammers and heavy trucks.

Corrugated cardboard made a good double bed. It made the concrete slab underneath comfortable. It felt good to hug Mother Earth, to get horizontal and touch all points of myself onto California.

Remarkable, I suffered no aftereffects from staying up thirty-eight consecutive hours.

Otto began the new day on the right note, too. He smiled early on, said he was fresh and alert, and seemed ready to work toward a goal. All grudges were erased.

A young bank executive got us started for The Final Push. He had premature gray hair and blue-tinted glasses that were shaped in squares. He was tall and dashing and wore a loud, pinstriped suit. He looked groovy, but was boring. It was a long, tedious ride through dry, pallid land.

Two rock ’n roll notes headlined radio broadcasts. Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, was found dead in a bathtub in a Paris hotel. They didn’t know why or what from. He was twenty-seven. It had to be some tough age I was living in to have witnessed three rock ’n roll deaths in less than a year. First Jimi Hendrix, then Janis Joplin, now Jim Morrison. I was glad I already owned L.A. Woman, the group’s latest album, before the rush to get it started.

Former Beatle George Harrison rented Madison Square Garden for a benefit concert August 1, to help the people of flood and hunger-stricken Bangladesh. Bob Dylan reportedly agreed to play, and there were rumors of a Beatles reunion. You’d have to camp out at the box office two weeks in advance to get tickets for that one. Sorry, I’d be nowhere in the vicinity.

The bank executive took us through the two V’s, Vacaville and Vallejo, then past San Pablo Bay. We wound up in Novato, off I-80 for good, but within easy striking distance of San Francisco from the north. The road was U.S. 101, about eighteen miles distant.

Three Chinese girls advanced us to San Rafael.

A sloppy guy who looked like a LSD burnout brought us down to the local grocery store to buy a six-pack. He had a swelling gut under a rumpled teeshirt and knotted, unkempt hair. He deposited us on a wide sidewalk in front of a multilevel viaduct. What’s more, already lined up with thumbs out and signs posted, were six freaks—three sets of two—all tawdry males. Otto and I made eight.

“Tee-hee. That’s sumptin’ ’bout California,” the sloppy guy said. “More’s hitchin’ then cars to pick youse up. You’s better get used to it.” “Hello lads,” Otto and I said. The first pair was going to Berkeley, the second to San Francisco, the third to Richmond. Otto and I walked past demurely.

What gave Travel By Thumb Inc. the edge? In the shortest time, a guy with fuzzy sideburns screeched to a halt in the middle of the traffic lane and pointed at us. “Quick. Jump in before I get into a smack-up.” He squealed away.

“Hey man, thanks for stopping.” I was almost questioning him.

“Shucks, that’s all right. You guys were last in line and I felt sorry for you. Besides, you’re the only new faces I’ve seen standing here all week.”

“Going to San Francisco?”

“I only work there six days a week.”

We curved past billows of dry yellowish mountains, past high-end modular homes, yachting clubs, and fishing supply stores. Traffic was swarming. The guy talked with Otto up front. All I heard from my perch was piano trickling down the keys, Tony Bennett ringing out, “I . . . left . . . my . . . heart / . . . in San Francisco.”

How dramatic, the bridge we would cross was the Golden Gate Bridge. My toes curled in my shoes.

Hey man, what’s with the color? The bridge was burnt orange, not golden yellow. And what’s with those puffy, low-lying clouds? For miles the sky had been crystal blue, not a cloud in sight. Now—just like that—half the bridge was fogged in. The city was blanketed.

Even so. The steel suspension. The mighty girders. Even the potholes—were reminiscent of the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River. But I wasn’t in New Jersey, friends. This was the Golden Gate Bridge. I was three thousand miles distant in San Francisco, California. Right here, right now. Cross that line. San Francisco. California. I wanted it and I got it.

The guy hustled off the bridge and onto a cobblestoned street. We bumped swiftly past wharfs, warehouses, statues, Victorian apartment houses, rising steep hills. We rocketed around a sharp curve and closed in on some of the city’s modern office buildings.

Keeping in character, the guy screeched to a halt without pulling over to let us out.

I heaved my duffel bag high into the air. “Whooopeee! Hey man, we’re here! We done did it! We—is—here!”

Otto dropped his backpack face down, circling with his hands on his hips. “Franny San Fran Cisco. Is this you I’m seein’? The boys have just landed.”

“You know it, baby! We’ve done struck!” I stamped my feet on the pavement.

“I believe it,” Otto said.

“And they said we couldn’t do it.”

“Who said that?”

“No one. But they probably thought it.”

“Travel By Thumb gets you there on time,” Otto said.

I sang the TV jingle, “Rice-A-Roni / the San Francisco treat.”

Otto laughed and looked skyward. “Take me, Lord. I’ze seen it all.”

My head floated around in a stiff breeze of chilly air. Those baffling clouds drifted somewhere else. The sun was back shining, beautiful blue sky. I scraped my sneakers along the sidewalk, a San Francisco sidewalk. And these weren’t just buildings. They were San Francisco buildings, tall, graceful, cosmopolitan. All within the sublime state of California.

Sheer luck brought us to a crowded peoples’ festival at a large, diamond-shaped park. It featured jug band musicians, fire twirlers, food vendors, and arts and crafts displays. Psychedelic love children milled about in embroidered clothes and beads, passing out “Stop the Vietnam War” buttons. A fountain encasing a giant sculpture spouted water from rectangular tubes into a tub. Thick leafy palms rustled from huge planters. A good representation of the city’s office buildings twinkled against the sky. Three levels of freeways provided artistic backdrop.

“Hey sons, take a seat.” Otto spoke from a long, concrete slab. “Before you start a commotion.”

I backed up and sat down. “Yeah, let the air circulate in our lungs for awhile.”

I realized for sure: I was in love with life. How joyful to be a part of it all, a living substance on this spinning ball called Earth, in the Western Hemisphere, North American continent, country of United Sates, state of California, city of San Francisco, southeast corner of Ferry Park, over by the popcorn vendor. Next to a street with a funky name, “The Embarcadero.” I was Roger Jonathan Winans, constructed of bones, blood, and tissue, run by a functional mind, guided by a divine spirit. This assembled unit, after seventeen Januarys, swept me from east side to west side, NJ to SF. Currently my physical self existed in the renowned city of San Francisco, California.

“Dig it!”

“How many rides d’ya think it took?”

“Let’s count them up.” I got out my pocket notebook/diary and researched. “Hmm. Fifty-five rides, over twelve days. Is that good or bad?”

“Good, I guess. Maybe it’s the record.”

“Might be.” I laughed. “Maybe we were the first ones to do it.”

“Nah, we weren’t the first,” Otto said. “Lewis and Clark were first.”

It felt good to be at your zenith. The slow ascent was worth it. Hitchhiking was my identity. Everyone needed to try it. It was charismatic. Enlightening. Healthy. Fun. Maybe someday I would be in demand. I could be a Professor of Hitchhiking, Ph. D, instructing great enthusiastic crowds on the proper way to thumb long distance.

Otto and I came across the main drag, Market Street, and hung around for several hours. It was busy with shoppers, freaks, gays, and a heck of a lot of Oriental businessmen. A popular enterprise was selling flowers. I was surprised at the number of people wearing winter coats, but they had reason. It was 52 degrees. The wind on this July 8th felt like October. I liked the old-time wrought iron street lamps. I liked the way each street name was embedded in concrete at each corner. I saw my first street car glide past, though the correct name was “trolley coach.” Now careful, they were different from the more famous San Francisco cable cars. We found them, too, clicking past with their clanging bells. Otto and I grabbed a window booth in a coffee shop and sipped milkshakes. We observed people and soaked up atmosphere. He and I were happy dogs. I knew what we had accomplished. Otto knew, and our families and friends would know soon enough. Does anyone matter past that?

My lone obligation to my parents this whole trip was ridiculously minimal—“call when you get to San Francisco.” Maybe I was jumping the gun, but I felt the urge to fulfill that obligation. I counted off the three-hour difference from my watch. In Eastern daylight terms it was 6:50 p.m. My overly-predictable mother would be loading the last of the dinner dishes into the dishwasher. Dad would be arranging the chairs around the table, after having been on his hands and knees sweeping crumbs off the floor.
I went into a Pacific Bell phonebooth on the sidewalk. The operator put me through.

GLORIA WINANS (timidly). H-hello?

OPERATOR. Ma’am, I have a collect call for anyone from a Joe Pepitone. Will you accept the charges?

GLORIA. Who? Oh, I know. Yes, I’ll accept.

ROGER. Hi Mom! Roger.

GLORIA. Is that you, Roger?

ROGER. Yup, alias Joe Pepitone number 8 of the Chicago Cubs. How you doing? Well, Otto and I have reached the big time. I’m calling from San Francisco.

GLORIA (meekly). I thought that was you.

ROGER (excitedly). How you doing all the way back there in New Jersey?

GLORIA. We were wondering when you were going to call. ROGER. Well, here I am. How are you?

GLORIA (mildly). You say you’re calling from San Francisco?

ROGER. San Franciscooooo, Cali-forn-i-a. We got in this afternoon. Can you believe I’m three thousand miles away?

GLORIA. (unemotionally). Your father and I were just talking, while we were cleaning up the dinner, about when you would be calling. You gave us no idea how long it would take, where you’d end up, or if you’d even make it all the way out there to California.

ROGER. Well, we made it, we’re happy, we’re healthy, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Shoot, go ahead and ask. Fire away.

GLORIA (ignoring). Your father and I are the only ones home. Nancy went out to play with the dog, and I guess you know Willis and Sally are up on the St. Lawrence River with the Collins family.

ROGER (getting frustrated). We got to San Francisco around noon today. We pulled into California yesterday evening. That was a nice moment. Otto and I counted up the number of rides it took, and came up with fifty-five. That’s not bad at all. Don’t you think, Mom? Want to hear about the most memorable ones? I’ve got tons of stories I want to tell you.

GLORIA. Here, Roger, your father wants to speak with you.

WILLIAM E. WINANS (businesslike). Hel-low!

ROGER. Hello, dad?

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Hi there son, how you doing? Making out okay?

ROGER. Yeah, we’re doing good. We got in this afternoon to San Francisco and I wanted to call, like you asked.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. San Francisco, huh? I bet you’re running around like a coo-coo bird.

ROGER. Well, maybe, a little bit. It’s an accomplishment, isn’t it?

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Any cops get ahold of you yet?

ROGER. No. A couple cowboys in Nevada ordered us to get out of town by sunrise. But no cops.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Well, if I was a policeman I’d throw your fanny in the slammer for vagrancy. Right?

ROGER. Nope! Nothing you could pin on us. We’ve been too slippery.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Money holding out?

ROGER. Seems to be. We’re doing fine on our budget of four dollars a day. I’ve only gone above that once. Otto eats more, but he brought $50 more.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. You and lanky George are still two peas in a pod? Wait’ll you get on each other’s nerves.

ROGER (laughs). My man Otto and I are getting along swimmingly, thank you. No problems.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Any dirty hippies roaming the streets out there in San Francisco?

ROGER. There’s all types, dad. Educated people. Interesting people. People you can learn from. I love it.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. I can imagine. You fit right in with your long hair and bellbottomed pants, don’t you?

ROGER. Ah, come on, dad, my hair’s not long.

WILLIAM E. WINANS. Here Roger, your mother is going to talk to you again. Be careful.

ROGER. Yeah. Okay, dad. See you.

GLORIA. Roger?

ROGER (frustrated). Yeah, I’m here.

GLORIA. Do you know when you’ll be coming home?

ROGER. Mom, we just got out here! I don’t even know where I’ll be sleeping tonight!

GLORIA (timidly). Well—all right. We just ask that you call again a day or two before you come home so we can have some idea when to expect you. If we’re not here, we’ll be down at the shore visiting the DelRozes. That’s the only place we’d be.

ROGER. I’ll keep that in mind.

GLORIA. Okay then, Roger. Your father doesn’t want me to run up the bill. It’s been nice talking with you.

ROGER. Nice talking to you, too. Say hi to Nancy for me.

GLORIA. Yes, I will.

ROGER. See you later then. Otto wants to use the phone.

GLORIA. Okay. We’ll see you.

ROGER. Right. So long.

GLORIA. Goodbye.

With a click of the receiver I felt the electrical connection recede from New Jersey all the way back to the phone booth on McAllister Street. Contact made, contact severed. “My freedom remains intact.” I emerged from behind the glass door, laughing.

Otto shook his head. “Tight family, he-he-he.”

“Don’t you want to call your parents?”

“Nah. I’ll crank out the usual postcard tomorrow morning. Keep ’em a few days off. It’s better that way.”

If arriving in San Francisco was our moment of glory, Otto and I had no idea it would be followed by the Crash of ’71: The remainder of the day was awful. It was horrible, bad, dreadful; equal to the most miserable times of the trip, maybe my life. What is the opposite of zenith? Nadir? I couldn’t speak for Otto, but I hit nadir, hard.

The problem was me. I had been so anxious to make our destination that I forgot we had to keep living afterward. Even though I claimed to like geography, I had neglected to do any advance planning—not only for San Francisco, but for the entire California leg and beyond.

The specifics were familiar: foreign turf; gear to lug around; hunger; no idea where to sleep, looking conspicuous. Only this was more acute. Our port of call was reached without a plan of action. No guide book, no travel agency agenda, no list from a ‘things to do’ pamphlet. Mayor Joseph Alioto wasn’t there to greet us with a circle of reporters. It was cold shoulder time, indeed.

“Geez. What did you expect, Roger, a brass band and roses?”

“I thought we’d at least receive keys to the city from somebody like the Elks Club.”

It was Otto’s fault, too. Not once had we discussed what we were going to do once we got to San Francisco. Not once over the course of six months. I guess it would have been considered presumptuous, or too ponderous.

Otto and I wound up conducting an aimless, marathon walking tour. It crippled the strength in my legs and numbed my brain. We were all over the place—the black Mission District; the homosexual Castro District; up Divisadero Street and down Scott Street, past all the ritzy sidestreets. Many times the steep elevation afforded a nice view of the San Francisco Bay. But my head got too knocked around to enjoy it. There was no place to stash our gear, let alone unroll a bag.

We looped out as far as Haight-Ashbury—a disappointment. It looked much worse than any street corner in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Everything was junky and decadent. Where did the Summer of Love go? Instead of finding a Be-In poetry reading, the Black Panther office, or one of those free peoples’ clinics, the building with the strongest presence was a toy store, surrounded by vacant stores for rent. The few hippies looked dirty and lethargic.

“There ain’t no place to turn on, tune in, and drop out,” Otto complained. “What is this?”

“I know something, Mr. Otto Goodbody. Just by you and me appearing here in person, live from the East coast, makes more of an impact statement than all these lowlifes put together.”

If it was an honor, we paid for it—by tramping. It was horrendous. Wore me down to the nub. That author, Alan Watts, mentioned by our second ride in New Jersey, was listed in the phone book. But what or where was ‘Sausalito?’ All I could acknowledge was the pavement in front of my feet and the void inside my head. This city didn’t even have alleyways; nowhere to discreetly empty your sac. Streets angled off each other in odd patterns.

“Where in San Francisco do you sign in? We need a Guest Registry.”

“We’re too lost to be found, Roger.”

We referred to Steal This Book. Abbie Hoffman touted many organizations as providing free or cheap lodging, and cheap meals. Off we trotted, only to learn the addresses led to flophouses or soup kitchens, with bums sitting around with brown paper bags in their hands.

Abbie came through in the end, though. An agency named Traveler’s Aid was good for helping travelers new to the city and low on cash, and its employees were helpful and sympathetic. We painfully walked to the bureau in the dark. It was located in the old Greyhound bus terminal on Seventh Street, in the depot waiting room. Since we had sleeping bags, he said, the thing to do was to take a bus out to Golden Gate Park, and crash. There would be ample room to hide away, and the cops wouldn’t bother us as long as we didn’t start any campfires.

Finding the right bus route in the dark took incredibly long. My legs and shoulders seared; my head pounded; my hands were getting stiff. My bags felt ten times their normal weight. I was nearly expired by the time I drank in the black seclusion of the park from the bus window. It was 1:05 a.m.

Otto and I found a great place to camp. Quiet and secluded, on a small upsweep of land. Close to the bus. My ribs hurt and I had a throbbing headache. Was I ever glad to crawl inside that bag!