The Sixties really begins for me one
summer afternoon around the middle of the decade.
I’m
just leaving Jacksonville , driving alone down to
Daytona Beach
in the family Impala on Phillips
Highway , the old U.S. 1.
When
the light turns green at the corner of University Boulevard , I spin the big boat
to the south, and all I see in the windshield are the knees and thumb of a
hitchhiker. He must be really tall. I hit the brakes and crunch onto the
shoulder. Hitchhiking is normal. Dad
used to tell stories about hitchhiking after the war, and we know the story,
word-for-word, of how Mom and Dad hitchhiked to their wedding.
So
now that I’m driving, and making the big decisions, this is a new part of
things to capture for myself.
The
door opens, and all I can see is legs. Legs already folding into the car. Red
hair falls to his shoulders and the bandana he’s wearing, it’s cherry red,
school bus yellow and Dodger blue. He seems adept at collapsing himself. His
knees poke above the dashboard. The door closes and we’re rolling.
“Thanks,
man. Glad to be riding. Nobody around here wanted to pick me up.”
I
can see why. He doesn’t look like anyone from around here. As tall as a truck,
and the long red hair. Everyone in Jacksonville
probably sped up when they saw him.
“Where you going?” I ask.
He
says there is a scene in Key West .
Nobody
talks like that in Jacksonville .
A scene is either on a postcard or in a play.
He’s
glad to be rolling down the road. He thanks me again.
Then
he doesn’t say anything. He seems content to simply leave Jacksonville .
But
I’m curious. “What kind of scene?”
He
looks at me, deciding whether or not to answer. Then he says, “A different kind
of scene is happening in certain places now.”
This
is way before Life Magazine's shocking cover story about a newly coined word,
“Hippies,” and how these people are living in a different way.
It’s
like some future Daniel Boone is sitting with me in Dad’s Chevy. He knows stuff
that nobody in Jacksonville
can even ask a question about. I want to know what he knows. I want to be like
him.
He
says, well, if you’re that interested, a lot of what we were taught about the
way things are, well, they’re not that way at all.
Yes,
I am that interested. Very interested. Extremely interested.
“A lot of
stuff, about our government, about the purpose of life, about the nature of
love,” he says.
Again: nobody in Jacksonville talks like that. The patter in Jacksonville concludes
foregone conclusions.
“Like
the war in Asia .” Nobody in Jacksonville is talking about the war. “Why
is the government making guys fly half way around the world to blow up villages
in the jungle? Guys like me. But I got lucky. I’m six-foot-nine. They won’t
draft me because I don’t fit in the Jeeps. So I don’t have to go. But you have
to wonder what’s driving all that madness.”
“I’m not
going,” I tell him.
“But
that’s just a small part of it,” he says, like I’m not getting it. “It’s more
about ‘What forces do we represent?’ And, ‘Why are we alive?’”
Finally.
Somebody is talking about a more profound life.
He says, “Your neighborhood. Everyone’s in a
box, right? Sure, the houses look like boxes. But so do their heads, man. Once
you see it, all the people are boxes living in boxes.”
I
picture this one guy in our neighborhood. He lives alone. Everyone else is the
same. A mom, a dad, and some kids. I never thought about the guy until right
now in the car. We never play in front of his house. He’s just different. His
yard is always tidy, but he’s never in it. All of a sudden, I like him a lot
and want to see him out in the yard.
“After
high school, you should learn how to walk on stilts and make yourself six foot
nine, go down to the draft board, and get out of the war.”
He
cracks a smile and says, “You can be better than this war. Go find your own
war. Fight a different war, man. Fight your
war.” He smiles bigger. “That’s how you make peace with the world.”
When
we get to Daytona Beach ,
I take care to place him at the best hitchhiking intersection in town, at the
corner of US1 and Main Street .
He thanks me for the ride.
But
even though I can’t get the words out, I’m the one who’s really thankful. Like
I just met not only some future Daniel Boone, but also the prophet Elijah. I’m
chewing on something new and raw and fresh and dangerous. I want to fight my war.
by Jonathan Marcus