Having read Jack Kerouac's On the road,& Neil Cassady's The First third..., Hitch-hiking from the village beautiful in the Berkshire hills to La Habra California was exciting.
Non-stop on the interstate , it was easy in the early 70's,almost impossible today, facial profiling would hinder me...
Called Aunt June days latter from a supermarket blocks from her house,what a house! fruit trees,& a big avocado tree in the back yard, she paid the local kids a nickel for each avocado they cleaned out of her yard,saying she's chop the tree down if it wasn't such a good shade tree,the avocados would splatter the house with green if hit with the lawn-mower,could twist your ankle if you stepped on them...
She was working in a aluminum recycling center & brought home cases of Coors light beer that weighed light ,were not totally filled, but went great with the tons of guacamole made from all the avocados ...
She shared her library of Alan Watts, Zen, poetry..., & her Jazz collection,along with the light beers & guacamole it was wonderful.
One of my first Sensei in living.
Week ends we went sailing in her boat Deliverance in Marina Del Ray, or went to practice the Zen art of archery...
How wonderful it would be to leave my trawler ,The Bohemian,on the Hudson river,& hitch-hike to her bedside in California , where she lies with lung cancer,the 40 year old memories will do nicely though , and my Loving thoughts are with her...
It was probably a decade later that I went on my own late twentieth century American walkabout.
ReplyDeleteI also stopped in La Habra to visit Aunt June. My visit was much shorter than yours but still memorable and important.
I am very glad that you have shared this as a blog post and I look forward to reading more.
Touching!!! Her memory stays with you forever!
ReplyDeleteHi Doug, I found this after looking at your brother's Tweet. I like reading your posts. Can you write more? Hana
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