Although I had no part of the free sex of the 60s, and only slightly more of the more-than-free-but-still cheap drugs of the era, I look back on some of the things I did back then and wonder how I survived.
I hitchhiked with my then best friend from Philly to Trenton, so that she could see her boyfriend. It took us seven rides to get there, a distance of 25 miles. This must set some kind of record for the most inefficient hitchhiking ever, with the possible exception of the young women in the 1977 film “Hitch Hike to Hell” who never quite got to where they were going, mostly due to being almost murdered by the guy who picked them up. One of our rides included a car that was filled with parakeets (luckily, most of them were in cages) and another with two grown men who looked like Mafiosos. We thought there might be something suspicious when one immediately got into the back seat. Our ride with them lasted less than one block. We demanded that they stop the car immediately. They did so and we exited. During the seventh ride, the driver read us the riot act about the dangers of hitching rides. We listened respectfully, but we really thought it was all a hoot.
My friends and I had ingenious ways to get free housing whenever we went to New York for the weekend. One of those escapades resulted in our going with a group of boys who said they had free accommodations. They did. We all slept in an abandoned warehouse on the Bowery. With no heat. In the winter. Another resulted in our going home with someone who turned out to be a member of a sort of famous band back then. We slept at his place and had breakfast in the morning.
I went to the Newport Folk festival with a friend, met members of the sound company for the event and accepted an invitation to stay with them in their trailer. Not only was the lodging free, but we then spent all of our time at the festival in the backstage area reserved for performers and support crew.
I would have gone ballistic if I found out that my daughter had done some/any of that. The world is a different place now than it was back then. Back then, what we did was stupid. Now, it’s full tilt boogie crazy. But incredibly enough, no one ever tried to take advantage of me or my friends. We were fairly innocent, believe it or not, and we stayed that way.
I wonder if I would do any of those things now, assuming I could turn 18 again. Hitchhiking? No way. Bumming a free place to stay in New York? I think not. Sleeping in a big trailer with the sound crew at a music festival? That’s still a real possibility. There’s a part of me that still likes the idea of an “adventure,” of doing something that’s a little bit risky. I don’t think that will ever stop. Only my current adventures don’t involve hitchhiking or sleeping in strange places.
Although there was that truy unique motel in Clearwater Beach, Florida that I swear was being run by the Russian Mafia. But that’s another story.
writerwoman61
November 15, 2010
Wow, Renée…you were so much braver than I was! Then again, I was a country girl. I took the train (with a friend) 100 miles to Toronto when I was 18 to see Genesis at Exhibition Park with 40,000 other people. My best friend lived there at the time, so she and her boyfriend met up with us and made sure we got to the concert all right (via public transit)…we stayed at their place overnight. Fun, but scary!
Wendy
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Your adventure was exactly what I was writing about, that mix of fun and a little scary. It was all about testing the limits, without going beyond them. Funny, I didn’t feel overly brave at the time. I looked at all the kids running to communes and to Haight Asbury and smoking weed, and I felt pretty tame in comparison.
Amiable Amiable
November 15, 2010
Oh, God! The memories have come flooding back. I must either 1) spend the morning in confession (not Catholic, not really an option – phew – but I went to a Catholic college for girls where I learned what they say about those gals is true and their influence also resulted in cleverly bumming accommodations for weekends in NYC), or 2) count surviving my college years among my blessings on Thanksgiving. I am also reminded to overcome my denial about my college-age boys’ behavior and to have a talk with them when they get home for the holiday! LOL (but for real, about that talk!)
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
I’m glad my post brought back the memories for you. And I can just hear your boys asking, “Hey Mom, where did all this come from?” Don’t give them the source. BTW, I went to an all-girls high school. Not Catholic, but close to it, moral-wise. The most oft-repeated phrase from the teachers was “You’re a Girls High Girl!” That was supposed to keep us in line. And for the most part, it did.
Emily Jane
November 15, 2010
What incredible memories… I love hearing about the bravery of youth; it makes for great adventure stories!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Yes, but sometimes “bravery” has another interpretation!
duke1959
November 15, 2010
The joys of youth. You are right those were different day!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Ah, yes.
yael
November 15, 2010
Oh no, I never did anything like that. Nothing at all. Zip. Nilch. Nada. Never got in a stranger’s car during a boys vs. girls prank war in Junior High. Kate and I did not meet a stranger in Chicago when we were driving cross country and then sleep over at his apartment so we didn’t have to find a campground outside of the city. I never did anything during my teenage and college years that could have gone horribly, horribly awry.
Each generation thinks the world is more dangerous than before. And it’s probably true. But I guess each generation is better-equipped then to live on the edge consistent with the times!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
This is a comment I could have happily lived the rest of my life without reading.
duke1959
November 15, 2010
My girlfriend and I went into a cemetery to be alone and got my dads car stuck in the snow. What a long walk home that was. What nobody knew was that it happened again about 2 weeks later. That time I was able to get it unstuck.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Ah, another post: “Things I Didn’t Learn the First Time.”
Teri
November 15, 2010
“full tilt boogie crazy” – this made me smile. 🙂 I think we all have this in our youth, whether we’re boomers (like you) or Gen Y’ers (like me). Oh to be young and invincible again…
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Totally. Well, maybe for just a day.
sunshineinlondon
November 15, 2010
Isn’t it funny, Renee? The joys of youth … carefree, worry-free, and giving our parents grey hair (if they knew about any of it)!
I remember hitchhiking with a friend of mine when we were students – her boyfriend tore a strip off us for doing that, and we just thought it was fun!
Sunshine xx
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
My daughter (Yael) was one of the people who commented on the post. What joy it is to find out what one’s children did years ago that would have been better left unsaid.
Joyce
November 15, 2010
I love the photo of you hitchhiking! LOL!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
I wish.
Carl D'Agostino
November 15, 2010
If we lived in the 60’s we are now in our 60’s (me 61). We did all those things. And none of it was safe. Risk taking is not synonymous with adventure. If you live in the inner cities among minority populations the danger of a drive-by, dope driven burglaries, gang violence, domestic violence, all a dangerous place for children especially, young people would look at things differently. At least I hope so.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Good point. Today’s urban areas are, indeed, far more dangerous than the adventures we went on back then. I grew up in Philly, right in the city. At 9:30PM, I left my part time job. I took the subway home and at 10PM, I walked about six blocks to my house. Now, that would be bordering on lunacy. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for these kids today.
subWOW
November 15, 2010
Sounds like a movie!!!!!!!!
So did you ever share this with your daughter? 😉 AND did you ever tell your parents? LOL.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
If you scroll up to “Yael,” you can see her response. My parents? Yikes. NO WAY.
Walker
November 15, 2010
Ditto, ditto. I remember meeting some strange guy in the lounge of my dorm at college, in Baltimore and blithely inviting him to sleep in my dorm room. I was, most likely, high at that point! I’m lucky I never got raped, beaten or murdered. It was less dangerous then, and we had gentler kinder people populating the world then.
Today it’s a very unsafe world-very. And, I would urge young women to make choices based on their own safety and the understanding that others might not be as respectful of them.
(lecture over) Boy, it was fun and wild and dumb… I could have gotten kicked out of board schooling for sneaking off and hitch hiking to the city an hour away! My my…..
lifeintheboomerlane
November 15, 2010
Yes, yes, yes to all of it. I also didn’t say in the post that, in high school, I slept with several guys. As in SLEPT. Nothing else. Oh, and then there was the time the ship filled with Mexican Naval Academy students docked….
icedteawithlemon
November 16, 2010
Your post brought back memories of my growing up in the ‘7o’s. I, too, hitchhiked with girlfriends–once. Our dads found out and were furious at our naivete. It was definitely a simpler, safer world (at least in my little corner of it). Good post!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 16, 2010
Thanks for reading. Yes, I do believe things were different and safer. But I’m still blown away to find out years later what my kids did when they were younger. I’d rather not know!
sophieredhead
November 16, 2010
When I was 13 and my friend 12, we took her parents’ car and went to see “Rocky Horror” at midnight. We drove about 10 miles on busy Atlanta streets at that time of night. My father really doesn’t like it when I mention it now. I haven’t ever told him many of the college years escapades. I, like Amiable, and simply grateful to have made it out alive and (mostly) unscathed.
lifeintheboomerlane
November 16, 2010
Thanks for reading. Wow, you guys were really ahead of the curve on the taking chances thing. At that age, the worst I ever did was absolutely nothing! I agree, you are lucky to have made it out alive!
lifeintheboomerlane
November 16, 2010
Thanks for reading. Wow, you guys were really ahead of the curve on the taking chances thing. At that age, the worst I ever did was absolutely nothing! I agree, you are lucky to have made it out alive!
Hippie Cahier
November 18, 2010
Now every time I think of you, I’ll picture Goldie Hawn in The Banger Sisters!
“. . . a sort of famous band. . .” Do tell. 😉
lifeintheboomerlane
November 18, 2010
That’s funny, since whenever someone jokes about having our book made into a movie, I always say I want Goldie Hawn to play me. The band was The Fugs, popular back in the 60s. Vinny Leary (guitar/vocals) took pity on us having no place to stay (I was in charge of being pitiful) and invited us back to his place. He was hot and a perfect gentleman.