back to the same old same old
“You don’t have a spare tire.”
“Do we have a flat?”
“No but how do you drive all the way from Florida without a spare tire.”
“Do we have a flat tire?”
“No, but …”
“Then what are you doing in the trunk of my car?”
“You want to know what I’m doing in the trunk of your car. I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m looking for some way to patch up this piece of junk long enough for us to find a parts store so we can replace the top radiator hose then get out of red neck land before we wind up buried in a corn field.”
“So why all this BS about a spare tire?”
“Forget about the tire! Do you have anything we can use to tape up the hose? Some duct tape or something?”
“No.”
“Great, you drive all across the country in a car with 150,000 miles on it with no repair kit and not even a spare tire! Are you totally out of your mind?”
“There you go about a spare tire again.”
“All right”, I said in exasperation, “forget about the spare tire, forget I ever mentioned it. Here is our situation: your upper radiator hose has a split in it and your engine overheated. Now we are stuck on the side of the interstate. You didn’t have the sense to check the hoses and belts before you hit the road in a six year old rattle trap, nor did you think to bring along any means to make basic repairs. We have nothing to do but wait for someone to come along and give us a ride to a garage that won’t be opened until tomorrow morning. Best case scenario, we get picked up by someone who doesn’t hate hippies, wait all night outside a garage and hope they have the hose for a 66 Chevy, and that they will give us a ride back to the car where we will attempt to put it on with our teeth because you don’t have any tools. Worst case is we get our brains blown out right here where we stand by a couple of good old boys who are out for an evening of freak hunting!”
Hunt spoke with calm superiority and more than a hint of disdain, “Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Have you ever read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?”
I had not so much as heard of it.
“No.”
“How about On The Road by Jack Kerouac?”
“No.”
“Then shut up, and don’t try to lecture me again until you have some basic idea of what the hell is going on.”
I was suddenly hit with an overwhelming since of dejavous. I had been here before, having this conversation in these very same circumstances. I stood dumfounded for a moment. A river of memories flooded across my consciousness. Dozens of separate seemingly unconnected events in my past where my life path was changed at the suggestion of another who somehow possessed special knowledge or hidden wisdom or maybe just a greater passion. Sometimes it was my older sister, “You should grow your hair out like the Beatles, you would look really cool”, or one of her friends, “Isn’t he too old to be playing with army men,” or one of my brothers friends like Doug Montgomery, “In another four years you’ll be out of high school then you’ll be sent to die in Viet Nam” but more often then not it had been Jim Hunt. He was always so sure of himself. Everything he said had the ring of ultimate truth. It was so because he said it was so. Sometimes he could quote the expert and sometimes he was the expert.
Now here I was again, this time stranded alongside Highway 55 in Southern Illinois, receiving my new marching orders from my long time mentor in the affairs of life. I was henceforth to pattern my life after two books that I had never even heard of and quite possibly that my teacher himself had never read. I never hesitated a moment to consider the insanity of my submission. The law of the jungle was too strong in me, the weaker must follow the stronger or risk excommunication and extinction.
“Do we have a flat?”
“No but how do you drive all the way from Florida without a spare tire.”
“Do we have a flat tire?”
“No, but …”
“Then what are you doing in the trunk of my car?”
“You want to know what I’m doing in the trunk of your car. I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m looking for some way to patch up this piece of junk long enough for us to find a parts store so we can replace the top radiator hose then get out of red neck land before we wind up buried in a corn field.”
“So why all this BS about a spare tire?”
“Forget about the tire! Do you have anything we can use to tape up the hose? Some duct tape or something?”
“No.”
“Great, you drive all across the country in a car with 150,000 miles on it with no repair kit and not even a spare tire! Are you totally out of your mind?”
“There you go about a spare tire again.”
“All right”, I said in exasperation, “forget about the spare tire, forget I ever mentioned it. Here is our situation: your upper radiator hose has a split in it and your engine overheated. Now we are stuck on the side of the interstate. You didn’t have the sense to check the hoses and belts before you hit the road in a six year old rattle trap, nor did you think to bring along any means to make basic repairs. We have nothing to do but wait for someone to come along and give us a ride to a garage that won’t be opened until tomorrow morning. Best case scenario, we get picked up by someone who doesn’t hate hippies, wait all night outside a garage and hope they have the hose for a 66 Chevy, and that they will give us a ride back to the car where we will attempt to put it on with our teeth because you don’t have any tools. Worst case is we get our brains blown out right here where we stand by a couple of good old boys who are out for an evening of freak hunting!”
Hunt spoke with calm superiority and more than a hint of disdain, “Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Have you ever read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?”
I had not so much as heard of it.
“No.”
“How about On The Road by Jack Kerouac?”
“No.”
“Then shut up, and don’t try to lecture me again until you have some basic idea of what the hell is going on.”
I was suddenly hit with an overwhelming since of dejavous. I had been here before, having this conversation in these very same circumstances. I stood dumfounded for a moment. A river of memories flooded across my consciousness. Dozens of separate seemingly unconnected events in my past where my life path was changed at the suggestion of another who somehow possessed special knowledge or hidden wisdom or maybe just a greater passion. Sometimes it was my older sister, “You should grow your hair out like the Beatles, you would look really cool”, or one of her friends, “Isn’t he too old to be playing with army men,” or one of my brothers friends like Doug Montgomery, “In another four years you’ll be out of high school then you’ll be sent to die in Viet Nam” but more often then not it had been Jim Hunt. He was always so sure of himself. Everything he said had the ring of ultimate truth. It was so because he said it was so. Sometimes he could quote the expert and sometimes he was the expert.
Now here I was again, this time stranded alongside Highway 55 in Southern Illinois, receiving my new marching orders from my long time mentor in the affairs of life. I was henceforth to pattern my life after two books that I had never even heard of and quite possibly that my teacher himself had never read. I never hesitated a moment to consider the insanity of my submission. The law of the jungle was too strong in me, the weaker must follow the stronger or risk excommunication and extinction.