Episode notes
Chapter 1: The Renaissance of Wonder
Clouds coated the Boston sky like cataracts in the eyes of an insane old dog. The wonderful blue that had once shined behind the clouds seemed lost forever on the hounded features of the city. As my father fifty-fived his Oldsmobile up Route 93 toward the Boston skyline, raindrops crocodiled down the windshield like tears, distorting the foreboding pillars of capitalism, concrete, glass, and steel. With tear warped vision I imagined myself working in one of the countless office buildings, doing the same thing every day for the rest of my life. I wanted no part of that mindless routine. I had just turned twenty-two a month after graduating from college with a degree in sixties literature.
You see, I was finished waiting. I was finished waiting for the movie to begin, for the rest of my life to get started. I was finished waiting for somebody to really discover America. I was ready to wail. I was ready to go On the Road to discover my own America. I was not going to sit back and wait for a renaissance of wonder. With great resolve, I bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco on the Green Tortoise Adventure Bus for a ten-day tour of the northern United States.
My father parked his car on the corner of Essex and Atlantic Streets near Boston’s South Station. We sat silently waiting with my mother on the cold leather seats of his Oldsmobile. “I don’t love what you’re doing,” he told me in the rearview mirror, “but I will always love you.” My reflection nodded acknowledgement. My mother had been prodding him to apologize before I left. That was as good an apology as I was ever going to get.
It had been a rough few months at home, ever since I told him I was moving to San Francisco. He wanted me to have a job lined up before I left, but that did not happen. Fighting with him the previous year had soured me on the world. I had lost that quintessential sense of wonder I had always felt as a child, but I aimed to get it back.
Through the misty rain-streaked windows, the only person I could see outside was an overweight Hippie wearing blue denim overalls, sitting on a suitcase under the overhang near the door to South Station. He looked like a Hippie, almost cool, but I could not tell if the pile of bags next to him was his luggage or the worldly possessions of a street person. I could not stand the silence in the car, so I offered to get my parents coffee. They declined, so I went inside the train station to see what I could find.
The second I opened the door I could smell marijuana, so I shut the door quickly and crossed the street. The man in blue overalls held a pipe to his lips and blew smoke out his nostrils as I approached. The massive man was as solemn as a lone Buffalo atop a treeless plateau. Except for the smoke billowing out his nostrils he remained motionless until we made eye contact. I lifted my chin and he did the same. For an instant I saw myself in his eyes, as if I was him seeing me walk past. I was just a kid. I could not help but imagine myself in his position, whatever that may be.
Back in the car I was sipping burned coffee when my father looked in the mirror and said, “That looks like your bus behind us.”
“Oh, my goodness!” my mother reacted in the side view mirror. “What an interesting bus!”
I turned and looked out the rear window at the face of the ancient Tortoise bus. In the destination window the words “COAST to COAST” were written with magic marker on white cardboard. I had secretly hoped that the marquee would read “Further,” like the Merry Prankster’s bus, but “COAST to COAST” in a rainbow of colors was even better. The rain had stopped, so I rolled down my window.