I wrote this essay some time ago, as a request by a relative to add it to their blog, but i haven't seen it, so here it is. enjoy, and please comment......
Firstly, I must say what a compliment it is to be asked to write down my experiences with me old man. For many years I have spoken to many people about the things we used to get up to, but never actually got around to putting it down on paper.
Not many people can say this, but I have the pleasure of having one of the most interesting, friendliest, quirky, experienced men that I know of, in the shape of my father.
Dermot Leo Curran is his proper name, though many know him by many other names, though very few would have a bad name for him. In my lifetime, I have heard him called Des, Dessie, Diarmuid, Leo, Wilty, Joey, and Nobby among just a few.
From an early age we were always going out and about. He was a man that had to be out in the fresh air, and had to have a walk in the morning, as he would put it, just to get the air in his body, had to have a mid afternoon walk, to loosen up before dinner and a little walk before bed, or he would not sleep at night if he did not. Usually it was Clapham Common, in whatever weather or time of day. But other firm favourites were Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park, Kew Gardens and a walk along the river at Putney. I think it would excite him if the weather was to the extreme, like really windy, or snowy or foggy etc, it would make the walk more complete for him. I remember on one occasion during the late seventies, there was a bad hurricane blew through during the night. I lay in bed that night and listened to a tree falling outside the house, dustbins rolling down the road , breaking glass, and thinking to myself,” I am so glad to be indoors, ‘cos I know I’d get hurt out there!” The next morning I got up, and the old man came in while I was having my breakfast, talking very excitedly about the storm the previous evening. As the conversation went on, he said that in the height of it, at about 4am, he had gone out onto the common, but the wind was so strong that he had to hold onto a lamppost and the world and its wife was blowing past him. He was surprised that nothing hit him. I looked at him with disbelief, I knew that he was on a high from it, and he too was gratified by my impression of him.
The old man has always been the guy who would have the story to tell, because unlike others, he went there, and done that, not like the rest of us, who, with all big intentions, at the eleventh hour, would find some excuse not to do it. He would speak about things for a long time, but he always got around to it. He really did have many a story to tell, right from his childhood in Dublin during the Irish civil war, to London in the Blitz, even being incarcerated in the notorious Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow at one point. Trying to make a new start in Australia, and a 1001 other ventures, that went up and down and up again, sometimes to his detriment. But always with a story to tell, that would take the attention of anyone. Every person I know that has known him over the years always said he was an amazing man with a great tale to tell.
The story that will follow, and will take up the majority of this tale, is about a journey that I took with him across Canada and the United States in 1982. Though like Des, I will meander around like a lost river, but like the river reaching the sea, the story will be told.
From when I was little, he would always talk about going to Canada, and travelling around, and eventually, after many years of talking, one day without a hi nor bye, he was gone, next thing we get a postcard from Vancouver, telling us what he had done. A number of weeks later, he turned up at the doorstep, and had his stories to tell.
On that occasion he wanted to go and visit my eldest brother, Andrew, who was living in a town called Fort Providence Edmonton , Alberta
After spending time with Andrew he then went over to the Yukon, over the Rockies and down the west coast of North America, nearly all the way down to Mexico, then all the way back up to Edmonton again. This is no mean feat, even if you done it in a plane, but the old man, he hitchhiked it, and slept rough every night. The scenario was generally the same every time for him, he would go until he could go no more and basically find a place to rest yourself for the night, this could be anything from a nice little camping spot, tent pitched, maybe a nice bit of cover, to sleeping in the garden of someone’s house in your sleeping bag, with half an ear and eye open in case you had to make a dash. It just all depended where he ended up.
This was definitely no shot in the dark either, Des had come from a very strong outdoor upbringing. His Mum and Dad both being from rural county Carlow in southeast Ireland, living by then in Dublin, would not want their kids being the usual ‘street urchins’ but to actively help out around their land and walk or cycle everywhere, though there was public transport, horse and cart and motorized transport, they were always encouraged to take the physical option. This probably is a contributing factor to why his siblings and himself have all lived for so many years.
Later in his adult life, he moved to Britain England , he always said that usually if an airman was reposted to another base, he would have to make his own transport arrangements, sometimes this would mean a journey of many miles, Britain
After the war he settled into married life between Dublin and London and even ventured to Australia
Another thing the old man used to do was he would get the lads to cycle from Battersea to Brighton in one day (100 mile round trip) and to prove that they had been, they had to buy a dated bus ticket. It is funny but as I write this, I think it all sounds so hard, bizarre and dangerous, but I can guarantee if you asked anyone who had done this, they would say that as hard as it was, it surely gave them a character building experience.
We went on many camping trips in the seventies, exclusively around the south coast of England, we never went further east than Sandwich, and never any further west than Littlehampton. But I can confidently say that I have many happy memories of that coastline of about 120 miles . Littlehampton was always a favourite, the sandy beach and the fair. Then there was Bognor, Newhaven, Seaford, Beachy Head, The Seven Sisters, Dungeness, Brighton, Eastbourne, Bexhill, Pevensey, Hastings, Langney, Shoreham, Dover, Walmer and Sandwich. I think the old man was very spiritual and did like seeing his kids having real fun, rather than kicking around Battersea.
By the time he got to touring the south coast with me he had got himself an old Ford Thames van that we would all pile into, then we’d camp around. In Dover it was up in the cliffs, overlooking the harbour, loads of old ruins from WW2 and of course, Dover Castle. Dungeness it was on this big open stony plain, next to a nuclear power station! Newhaven was the best camping for me, we would camp next to a beach, where you could see the ships going in and out of the harbour, behind the beach was a 300ft cliff that was easily climbable, with old gun emplacements sitting in it, that during the war would have pointed over to France, an absolute treasure trove adventure for a young scamp like meself!
As a teenager, I started to get into plane spotting, I suppose it’s a natural thing when you have Dad, ex RAF, and big bruvva Mart, who was a sailor obsessed with planes, indeed a very influential part of my upbringing. So the old man decided that it was time to retune the adventures to an avian variety. So we started going to air shows, though usually jumping over the back fence, or slipping past security without paying in, though we were caught more times than we got in. BUT IT WAS ADVENTUROUS! It would have been boring if we didn’t go against the grain. As an angry adolescent, I quite enjoyed this rebel attitude within my father and my brothers, it actually gave you a high if you got away with it.
Anyway, I digress, we started camping alot up in Suffolk and Norfolk , where the US air force had some of their bases in Britain South London .
The most amazing thing we done up there was one day we were outside USAF Lakenheath, a very important bomber base, where the bombings of Tripoli in the late 80’s, and the initial Gulf war raids in 1991 were operated out of here. We would sit at the end of the runway, the old man would sunbathe, I would planespot. One day the old man turns to me and says “shall we go in and take a look around” I thought he was bluffing, so I bluntly said no, he said that he could leave me outside, and he’d go in himself “to have a butchers” as he put it. I decided to go in with him, it was a really sunny day, we had a mini van, which for camping purposes was in a military style olive colour, as we were on a camping session, were both in hard wearing military type gear, we drove up toward the gate, Des says wave at the guards. I must point out at this point, that there are three armed guards at the gate, and two pill boxes just 20 meters beyond them, my seat was very jumpy, the main air force guard was waving through most military vehicles, but was checking civilians. We were getting close, and I was as cool as a cucumber on the exterior but flapping like the stars and stripes on a windy day underneath. The airman took one look at the mini, looked in at us, we smiled and waved, dad leans out of the window and shouts “howdy!” Would you believe it, the silly man beckoned us on and we were in!!! We had a good drive around the base. I could not believe our luck, it was like a small American town there, the serviceman’s wives were outside the American PX supermarket, all nattering away in their big Yankee accents, even an American police car patrolling around. Then we drove back out, with nobody the wiser.
Later on I joined the Territorial Army, and I have to say that my experiences with him certainly paid off there.
I was sixteen, and it was just before my O’levels, the old man comes to me and says he has bought two tickets to Toronto, and he wants to take me for the experience as he put it, I thought this sounded great. I was saying to him, that I wanted to go here and there, but he just made no promises “we will go where the road takes us” he said, suddenly I wasn’t looking forward to it, the thought of being with the old man for up to three weeks in rough conditions was not attractive. But adventure waved its temptuous finger, I had to go!
On a very cold April day in 1982, just as the Falkland’s war was kicking off, we went down to Gatwick and caught the plane to Toronto Edmonton , about 1700 miles west of Toronto
We arrived in Toronto on a cold afternoon, it was about 2C , but sunny, Pearson international is a big airport, in what seems to be surrounded by urban sprawl. Hitching wise there is no chance in that environment, you need something a little more rural. We caught a bus into the city centre, had a look around the city, nothing much, the CN tower was impressive, and Toronto island airport gave a little local aviation to spot. So we decided to get out on the highway and head on down to Niagara falls, we walked for about four hours until it was barely dark, we went onto the ramp of a highway, but within minutes we had a mountie in his patrol car shouting at us out of the speakers on the roof of the car, that he would arrest us if we didn’t move our ass, as he put it. We eventually kipped down in a place called Mississauga
We gave up the ghost of the chance of picking up lift in urban Toronto , so we went into Mississauga , and caught a bus to Niagara Falls
We got into Niagara Falls after an hour or so, with a couple of bus stops in Hamilton and Durham, Ontario. Upon getting off the bus, and seeing those falls, and all the racy goings on around that town was enough to switch any sixteen year olds mind into overtime. It was just flashing lights and tourists from all over the world. Then the old man brought it to an end, and said that we had to find somewhere to sleep, he was right, the weather had got rapidly cooler over the day, and there had been a little sleet and snow too. We found a place just down by a railway siding in a park that was about 75 metres from the Horseshoe Falls.
It was pretty sheltered where we were, lots of trees though the spot that we chose was slight exposed, but out of the wind. I must say that as we were putting up the tent, it was so cold, and I pleaded with the old man to just catch a bus to Edmonton now. Of course he said no, he was pretty determined to give me the experience. God bless him, it was an experience, and I have him to thank for it! There was a viewing tower within sight of where we had camped, it had one of those luminous read out displays on it that shows the date, time and temperature. Just as the tent had gone up, and it had just turned dark, that display read -12oC! It was by now, snowing, so we dived into the tent, and snuggled up together, this was the old man’s suggestion, as he knew it was something soldiers do when they get cold. He was right, and we were not cold for the night. The following morning we were snowbound, with about 6’’ of snow around the tent, though the cold had gone, and the wind had died. One of those big north American freight trains went past, it must have taken 10 minutes to pass us, the driver saw us, and had radioed down to the guy in the end locomotive, to watch out for us, because as he was going past he shouted out to us, that he heard we were there and wanted to see us! What a spectacle we must have been, two sorry figures in a snowed up tent. I suppose as well, they thought that we were going to try and jump on the train and see where we’d end up, this was quite a common thing for people to do in those days.
We packed up, and were just about able to fold the tent, which was so cold and wet. During the night, it was so cold, that the spray that came up from the Horseshoe fall was freezing, mid air, and we were downwind of it. So a little extra sufferance. The old man was happy.
We moved on to finish up our bus journey, which was to Buffalo, New York, The old man thought that it would be a good idea not to cross the border on foot. There was a bridge across the Niagara River into American Niagara Falls. When we got to the other side of the bridge an American immigration officer got on and asked if there was any non Canadian or US citizens on board. Of course we put our hands up, and were then taken into the office, we were then grilled as to our purposes, and how much money we had. There was no prizes ever given to the guy we had to deal with, for politeness, diplomacy nor hospitality. Without using any bad words (which is not going to happen in this story) he wasn’t my favourite person. Anyway, the scoundrel begrudgingly let us in for 21 days. The bus had to wait for us for about half an hour, and we got some pretty mean looks off the people on the bus, who seemed to be mainly black American manual workers coming home from a shift somewhere, we apologised profusely. One rather stout lady, who seemed to take up a whole bus seat, looked at me over her glasses and said “Welcome to the USA baby!”
The bus drove into Buffalo, which I was very sorry to see was one of the roughest towns I had seen in my life. Lots of poverty, lot’s of litter and a real genuine air of despair in the air. Surely the town that gave the name to Buffalo wings must have some hope. We rolled into the bus depot, and headed straight out of town, on foot. Our intention was to go west along the south coast of Lake Erie, and work our way to Edmonton. We walked all day, came across Buffalo airport, done an hour’s spotting, even done some hitching when we got to the main road out. But no luck, we found a railway yard which was secluded enough, and camped down there, once again, the snow came down, and the wind blew, so we snuggled up again. Tonight was different, because the tent was wet from that morning so were damp, but we eventually drifted off. Dad had one of those little transistor radios, which you could fit in the palm of your hand, he would listen to the news every night before he’d go to sleep. This night we heard news that the British had lost a ship to an Argentinean Exocet missile and a number of British sailors had died. It was a great surprise to me, though the old man was of the attitude, if they’re going to stick their nose in all the time, it’s going to get bitten.
Next morning, wet and cold again, got out onto the road and got our first lift of many that day, we worked out in the shape of about twelve lifts, most people on our journeys were quite fascinated by our foreign accents, though there were loads of foreign immigrants around. Some silly questions we were asked: Y’all from London is that in Europe? Or, Oh! England, my Grandad was from Liverpool, do you know the Browns there? It is really surprising how sheltered some of these people were, and really knew very little of the wider world outside the US. I found this quite hard, as my colleagues and myself back in London seemed to know a lot more about the US, its music, TV shows, films, fast food restaurants and so on. That I come to this place to find that many people knew little of where we were from. A bit of a let down at that end. Though there were plenty of well informed ones too!
We then got a lift with these two lads, whom I can only describe as hillbillies, they had this old battered ford mustang, that the windscreen wipers didn’t work and it started to rain! So one guy leans out the window and tries to wipe the screen for the driver so he can see where he is driving. Pretty scary. They kept going on about how city slickers like us(?) were always laughing and poking fun at good ol’ country lovin’ boys like themselves, but they didn’t hold it against us. Though one day they will catch a city slicker down in Kentucky where they lived, and would give him the works, as they put it. Then they would go on to say that when they got us down to Louisville, that we would get a true southern welcome from their friends and themselves. This sounded pretty scary, so we jumped out at the next petrol stop, in a place called Strongsville.
In Strongsville, we got a lift to a place called Elyria, and pitched down, the weather was getting a lot more warmer, so we were now getting drier, we decided to hitch on the westbound ramp here as we had done too much walking lately, and thumbed all day, but no luck. Camped in the same place that night, a dry dark wood, no one any the wiser of our presence. Done a couple more hours the following morning, and picked up a lift to the outskirts of Toledo, Ohio. All I remember it was called Ohio Turnpike 5. We must have had about five people offer us lifts into Toledo, but we were hopeful, but got nothing in two days. One of the cars that stopped was a Dodge people carrier, which had an Irish Tricolour on the bonnet, the gentleman inside informed me that he was going to Pittsburgh, but that was the wrong way, when I told him this, he questioned me as to my nationality. I replied that I was from London, He said that he was Irish (with a very brash American accent) and that ‘our’ two countries were at war, he said this with quite a degree of aggressiveness. I said to him that he sounded like an American, was he born there? No, he said, his gran’daddy was from there! Oh! You’ve got to meet my dad here, he’s from Dublin. Then the following went that no Irishman would go and live in England and have children with English accents, my dad came into the equation. The ‘Irishman’ said dad was not Irish, so my dad started speaking Irish to him, which he asked what was he talking about. My father informed that this was Gaelic, the Irish language. Suddenly he warmed to us and apologised for his bad manners. It turned out that he was on his way up to Pennsylvania for an IRA fundraiser, asked us if we wanted to join him, we said no, and then he asked for a contribution to the cause. Once again, no.
As he was driving away on the other side of his car the words ’Brits out’ were written with black masking tape!
As soon as this guy left, the old man squarely blamed me for goating the man, I probably did unknowingly. So the two of us ended up in a big row, we said a lot of very bad things to one another, it was a culmination of a lot of frustrations over the last few days, all the way from Toronto. Dad went to his side of the road and I stayed in mine. Dad came back over to me after an hour of the two of us sulking and said that he had seen a cafe nearby, why don’t we go and get some hot food. We were friends again! It was a big truck stop place. So out of desperation, we started asking truckers if they could help us with a lift to the west. But it wasn’t happening.
We went into the cafe, and sat down at a table, a trucker sat down with us shortly after, he introduced himself as Quinn. He had a hard face, with a big scar down the side of it, I was really scared of him, but soon warmed to him once we got chatting. We told him we were from London, though he quickly spotted dads Irish accent.
“Nice to meet someone from the motherland”
He informed us that his folks were from County Mayo, but he had never been, he said that he was in Berlin with the US Army, and had got into a lot of trouble one night, when a pal and himself had got very drunk, and jumped over the Berlin wall for a laugh, were then arrested by Russian soldiers at gunpoint. They were handed back, after a couple of days. I asked him if they tried to get any secret information out of him, he said
“Take a look at me, do I look like I know what they want”
He didn’t, he was just a young lad on the lash, who was enjoying his life. A fascinating man, to warm up a very hot fry up that me and the old man were having in that truck stop. We left on good terms. We decided then that we would not try for a lift with truckers, as on previous occasions they wanted him to help them unload at the end destination. We headed back up to the Turnpike, and very quickly got a lift, into Toledo.
It had now come to a head, and Dad wanted to make up with me, and I like so. He said that we would catch a bus to Chicago, and hopefully we would get a more rural Midwest that would offer more camping and hitching opportunities for us. We were dropped in the heart of the city, it is right in the southwest corner of Lake Erie, and I was amazed to see very large ships docked up there. Though remembering back to my old schooldays geography lessons, that the St Lawrence Sea Way was an enhanced river that could take large ship traffic into the great lakes. I always remember Ms Norris, my geography teacher telling us that it was possible to catch a ship from Southampton docks to Chicago, even though it was in the centre of the US.
We decided to take a look around as it was a beautiful city, much cleaner than Buffalo and Toronto. We ended up in a Woolworths, ‘cos everyone knows that is where to get cheap chocolate!! Unlike the ones in London, this one had a cafe in it, there was an ad up stating that you could have ‘London style fish and chips and a cold drink for $1.50!’ So I offered to buy me and the old man some lunch. There was this lovely little Hispanic lady serving us, and the old man turned on his charm. We had an absolute laugh with this girl, and left very happy, looking back this was a very pivotal day of the trip, because I think I would have left the old man, I think we both saw the error of our ways, and actually got on really well for the rest of the trip.
By mid afternoon, we had got to the Greyhound bus depot, buses were very regular to Chicago, and we soon picked up one, we were originally going to go into Chicago in the night, and stay up ‘til morning, then head out northwest towards Edmonton. But we decided against it, basically we were both quite scared of these bigger American cities. We decided to get out at a place called South Bend international airport, in Indiana. It was very dark and stormy, but not raining yet. There was plenty of spotting here, with lots of local light aircraft, a few small airliners, and even a couple of USAF Hercules’. While looking at all this, a convoy of US Army vehicles pulled up, and started to embark on the military aircraft. Dad copped the guy who looked like he was in charge and asked him where they were headed, they were going to do a night parachute drop somewhere down south, and then to our surprise the officer asked us if we wanted to come along for the ride. For the very silly reason, that we had spent the money on a bus ticket to Chicago, and didn’t want to waste it, we said no. It also had a little bit to do with the mistrust of such a good offer, that maybe it was a ulterior motive for them. Years after in hindsight, we spoke about it, and realised how stupid we were, that we had temporarily lost our adventurous spirit.
We disappeared off into a wood that was opposite the airport, there was a housing estate on the far side of the wood, it was just getting dark and the rain started to fall, though it was warm enough. We found a really dark place in the wood, and then the lightning came, and we sat eating our cold dinner, to probably one of the most beautiful thunder storms I have ever seen. We just lay on the ground in our sleeping bags, looking up through the trees. I will never forget that one.
Next morning we got the bus to, Chicago. The driver was a poet, and wanted regale us all with his poems, which were completely lost on me, a Chelsea supporting adolescent more interested in many other things. He even had one about Chicago, as we drove in to this massive city. The first glimpse you get of Chicago, you can see the Sears Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world at that time. Also Lake Superior. We got off the bus, I wanted to take a look around, but dad was very keen to go. I said OK as long as we payed a visit to the world famous O’Hare airport. This would be a spotters paradise, being, at the time, the world’s busiest airport, with aircraft landing every 30 seconds. So it was the Chicago subway, and then a bus to the airport. WE HAD GOT THERE!!!! The old man could do what he wanted after this, and he knew it, by giving this to me was like the best present ever! Immediately we went up onto the car park and started spotting, the sun came out, dad aired all the camping gear and got down to a bit of sunbathing in his undercrackers. Surprisingly enough, Chicago airport is very spacious, and there were plenty of places to kip, tonight we opted for a building site, it was a Saturday night, so we guessed that the site would be closed on Sunday. We got some timber planks, laid them out and built the tent on them, it was like sleeping on the floor of a house, this had to be done, because the site was very muddy.
The following day was spent in the airport again, O’Hare had three landing and two take off runways at that time, so it was a thrill to be rushed to look one way for a plane and then the other. We left early evening, to pick up a lift from exiting traffic, literally straight away, we got picked up by this retired man in a white Cadillac, a very friendly man, who offered us a meal, gladly we accepted. He had just dropped off his daughter who worked for British Airways, so when he heard we were from London, he wanted to have a chat. We were on a toll road, and when we reached the toll, he had no money to pay for the toll and asked us to pay it. No problem, but the thought did strike me, how was he going to pay for the meal? He brought us to this really swanky looking restaurant, all bright lights outside, and soft furnishings, lighting and music inside. Dad and I must have looked a state, swaggering into this place. We sat down and had a really nice steak and chips dinner. Luckily enough, at the heal of the hunt, the guy had a credit card, hence no cash. Neither the old man nor I had thought of that, as credit cards were not really popular in the UK at that time, so it was all very foreign to us. The gentleman dropped us off in his hometown of Rockford, Illinois. Though we’d never heard of it, it was a small city, and we had an awful problem getting out of it.
It was late, about 10pm, first we went to the greyhound station, but it was well ropey, so we took a very long walk around the town, there was nothing, and we found a railway line but it was too exposed, we would have been spotted. Eventually we found an empty house, and kipped down just in our sleeping bags in the back garden, this was at about 1.30am. We were both very dubious, and the old man got up the next morning just as it was getting light. He told me to get up but I was tired and wanted to just go back to sleep. So he packed up the gear, and said he’d meet me at the bus station when I was ready. I got up and packed before he was 100 yards down the road, and I caught up with him.
We found our way out of that town, and picked up a lift, from a guy who had lost both of his legs in an accident during the depression. He was ‘bumming’ around America, and as I mentioned earlier, he was travelling by jumping onto a freight train, go to a town and pick up any work that was available. Anyway the inevitable happened, and the wheels of the train cut of both his legs. He was a deeply religious man and he spoke a lot of his spirituality. We ended up in a town called Elgin.
Another fact about the people that gave us lifts, many of them were deeply, and some fanatically religious. Many felt that if they done a good deed for us that the lord would shine on them. I remember one priest picking us up further on, up in north Dakota, when we got into his car, dad put on his charm, and seeing that the man was a priest, asked him if the lord had manifested himself on him in a good way today. I thought the old man was pulling his leg, but the man just took a deep breath, and gave us his answer over about an hour of this car journey. I bet the old man was glad he asked him.
Elgin is a small very rural town about thirty miles north of Rockford, Illinois, we were stuck there for hours, nothing going our way, two other separate hitchers came on to the same ramp as us, one was a young lady, I went down to her just to bid her the time of day, she looked terrifyingly at me, walking backwards, she screamed for me to leave her or she will get me arrested! Charming, I in my innocence, tried to calm her down, but she screamed even louder. I backed off, and as I walked away, a car pulled up to her, and with a pretty smile and a big howdy she got in the car, psycho!!!
Still no lift came, so we headed again for the easy option, the greyhound bus! In the bus station was an old lady whom I got chatting to, she was very sweet. After she left, I got chatting to this young mother, she even got me to hold the baby at one point, after about half an hour, she asked me what I thought of America, I said that I was not that impressed with it, and that I did not like the fact that many people were quite ignorant to the fact of the world outside the USA. Then the whole bus station turn on me, the old man even mentioned this occasion to me the last time he saw me(2009), and said how I wasn’t shot, he didn’t know. Through my own teenage naivety, I had once again upset someone with my big mouth. It ended up with dad and me running out of the bus station, with the mother screaming obscenities at me, and some rather tough looking dudes ready to have a go. We disappeared for an hour, and came back to the bus station, everyone had gone, but the man behind the ticket desk, said that he didn’t want me in his station, and if we could wait outside for our bus. It was a nice day, so no problem.
Dad had bought a ticket to Minneapolis, but this was a long drive so we broke it down into three days, to time it that we dropped off in each stop just before it was dark, just enough time to find a place to sleep. First stop was Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a lovely town, with a really big wood by a river next to the bus station, just got ourselves into the undergrowth. People were walking around nearby, but hadn’t got a notion of us.
Next stop was Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin, on the journey between eau Claire and here, the bus stopped off at a fast food restaurant, I went in to use the loo, and then took a look at the menu, I had only a couple of dollars in my pocket, and looked at my money and at the menu. An old lady spotted me doing this, and came over to me with a burger, chips and a drink on a tray and asked me if I wanted to join her. I sat down with her, and we had a really pleasant time together, I told her my story, and she was well impressed. I also made a point of telling her, and every person I met on the trip after that, what a beautiful country America was, and how lovely the people were. A lesson was very much learnt back in Elgin.
Madison was a real hub town, loads going on, cars and people rushing around. We found ourselves a spot to camp in a rail yard (again) and I used a railway line as a pillow!
Then on up to St Paul and Minneapolis, another gigantic city, fortunately the bus station was on the road heading north out of the city, so a one mile walk brought us to a ramp, where we got picked up straight away by a man who appeared to be very rich. He was going to his holiday home in the lakes, which was not really the way we were going, but he would drop us to the airport, where he was going to pick up his floatplane to fly there!
Throughout the journey, dad had a map of the USA, which was about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike, or a chocolate teapot if you wish. It was on this lift, that this guy gave us a road atlas of the USA and Canada, which radicalized our trip planning.
Like the guy who picked us up in O’Hare, this guy was really nice and generous, but left us in a place we really did not want to be. We were now twenty miles off the main northwest road, still going northwest, but with only the opportunity of getting local lifts, unlike the main road that would give us longer lifts.
Local lifts was what we got, and lots of them. We had lifts with every sort of person you could imagine, from farmers to businessmen to families to young lads in there mustangs to oldies in their comfortable estates. The country side was really beautiful, and reminded me of Sussex or Kent in England. Only snag was it was from one farm to the next village and so on.
We ended up at one point in this town called Morris, it was one of those real clean, conservative, white bread towns, we were dropped at the edge of it, and walked in like two desperados into the town, we walked down the main street, with the intention of picking up a grocery store, and then walking to the other side of the town and carrying on. We got our shop, and got our stuff, as we walked out of the shop, there was the town sheriff waiting for us. He said that he had received a report that we were acting suspicious. Passports were produced, intentions were told. Then dad started getting really angry with him, and said that we are doing nothing and we don’t want to stay in this hole of a town, and that my dad’s nephew was the chief of police up in Edmonton, dad would be complaining in no uncertain terms to him! The policeman made light of it, he said he was just doing his job, and gave us a lift out of town, where he watched us until we were gone.
It was all very frustrating, it was all very good camping too! Every night there was good undergrowth and it was all very rural. I hadn’t realised it, but this was the end of our bad camping once we reached Minneapolis, everywhere we slept thereon in was a doddle.
We eventually got off that road after four days, and ended up in Fargo, North Dakota. From here we got a whole load of lifts, to about three miles short of the Canadian border. The very first lift we picked up in Fargo was really bad, we had a good hitching spot with a camping spot next to it if we did not get a lift. This black guy, the only black guy to give us a lift, took us two miles up the road, and it was no good, so for the first and only time on our journey, we walked back to our spot in Fargo, and camped there.
Once we had got past Fargo, the roads became immediately empty of any traffic, it was a case sometimes that a car may not have passed us for 20 minutes while we were hiking, but the further north we went, the more people were willing to give us a lift. Whether it was just out of curiosity, or benevolence, we definitely hit more lifts on this neck of the journey. The other more major thing to happen around Fargo and onwards was that the terrain became as flat as a pancake. A cold icy wind blew across us all the way through North Dakota, and there was little shelter. It was like a cold desert. We were now in the famous American prairies, and didn’t we know it.
The weather now was turning cold again as we went north, once again the lifts were from village to village, but they were a bit more spread out, and the road was faster and the lifts more frequent, we made it up to the Canadian border that night, and we were planning on camping down for the evening after our last lift. This lift was from a bunch of very drunk off duty soldiers, we jumped into the back of their pick up, and they sped off, going at ridiculous speed, one of them leaned out to ask us if we wanted a beer, and were we ok, I thought he was going to fall out, but fortunately he didn’t, whilst in the back of the car we had a sign that said northwest on it, and were showing it to any car that we overtook, one obviously spotted it, and when we were dropped off by the drunks, a camper van pulled over immediately, and took us all the way to Edmonton.
Now, Edmonton was a good three day drive from there so this journey story is not finished yet! He was a man called Joe, he was from Chicago, but had moved to Arizona for five years. The way he put it was that he got up one day, looked out at the desert and the big blue sky, and said ‘Godammit, another beautiful day!!’ He drove back up to Chicago and picked up all his belongings and decided to make a new start in Alaska. He said that he would pass through Edmonton, but if we wanted, we could join him all the way up to Fairbanks. Dad was very much into this, but I had had enough of everything, and could not believe that we were lucky enough to get our final lift.
We drove up past the Canadian border, the border guards were just waving us through, but after the Niagara Falls incident we asked Joe to stop. The guard saw the passports, and just waved us in. ‘Welcome to Canada boys!’ Wow! We had got out of America. It was just beginning to get dark and Joe was quite keen to make a stop for the night, like us he would just pull over to the side of the road, and camp down, except he was in an RV (Recreation Vehicle). By the time we stopped it was really dark and Joe was tired. We got a spot just outside Brandon, Manitoba. We tented up, and tonight we had hot beans, bread and coffee! Out on a big open plain, stomach was warm, it was not freezing outside, and it was calm, but the wolves started howling, and they did not stop! Before they started the old man was asleep, snoring away, it sounded like there was one group of them about 1KM to one side of us and they were howling at their friends about 1KM on the other side of us. We were in the middle, and I was worried, I gave the old man a kick, but he couldn’t give a crap. Eventually too the song of nature succumbed me and I was gone too. Then at daylight we got up and had our breakfast, and back on the road again.
Joe drove us onward to Regina, Saskatoon and Lloydminster, it was long and the weather was getting warm the further west we went. At one point Joe fell asleep at the wheel, and I gave him a kick, so we all pulled over and he slept for two hours in the sun. It was like a camping holiday now, and I was actually feeling quite sad that this part was coming to an end. Another time we nearly hit a freight train on a level crossing, but just stopped in time. One thing I will always remember about this part of the journey was when we got to Lloydminster, the Saskatchewan River was running through it, it was just like a big giant river of ice flowing really slowly, and it was really noisy, with all the pieces of ice screeching and clumping against one another. Maybe we had just been in silence for too long. We camped down here, in a national park. It was probably the best camping spot we had, it was in all these tall pine trees and the pine needles on the ground were like a fresh smelling mattress for us to gather up and sleep on. Sounds great doesn’t it? it was!
It was only about another four hour drive to Edmonton the following morning, and we had really got to know Joe. The old man was going on that he wanted to go on up to Alaska, but I didn’t want to go. I said if Joe would drop me near to Andrews place, I would give Andrew a ring and he could come and get me, and the old man could go on to Alaska with Joe. But the old man seemed to want to stay with me, he said that he felt it was his responsibility to get me to the end of the journey. Though he was as grumpy as hell after we were dropped off by Joe. I think that he was peeved that he didn’t go. Maybe in hindsight he should have gone with that plan, considering the events that took place in Edmonton in the following three days. But then that is completely another different story for other people to tell, definitely not me.
For me it was like arriving back in civilisation, Dad telephoned Andrew at work, and he came down and let us into his back yard. It was such a nice day, and myself and dad decided to dry all of our gear in the garden. Dad stripped down to his undercrackers. And as they say, the rest is history! That was the end of it for me. Though the old man left Edmonton after a couple of days, and done the Rockies, came back up to Edmonton, and then went back across Canada across the northern side of the great lakes, right up over to Quebec, and even over as far as Boston in the US again, before returning to Toronto.
Because my brother, Andrew was getting married to his lovely fiancée, Cherie, Martin, another brother was already in Edmonton, and another brother, Michael followed us just two days after. Michael had also touched down in Toronto, and had hitched himself across the northern route. He also had many stories to tell. One that springs to mind was the story of the time he had pitched somewhere in the dark, not really knowing where he was. He was in fact pitched about 1 metre from a railway line, and a freight train went past, he was woken out of his sleep just before the train arrived, and he actually thought that this was his moment of his departure! But luckily it was not. Michael also came across alot of very fanatical religious types, whom he ended up in some quite big discussions with, say no more, if you know Michael, you’ll understand!
I soon fell back into the nice ways of sleeping in a comfortable bed, and even took a lend of a jacket off Andrew, because I thought it a little chilly! Getting back into burger restaurants even had a dip in a Jacuzzi on my journey in Canada. So it turned out to be two completely different holidays for me!
I’ll always look back at it as a hard experience, but all the same, it was an experience. I survived some pretty harsh times with the old man, but then he would probably say the same of me. I would be no gentle bed of roses, when it comes to getting on with people. I went back to Toronto in 2006, and it hadn’t really changed, I could remember everywhere I had gone 24 years previously. I have not been back to the states, but I was in Niagara falls, though this time it was too hot, it must have been 38’C, and though the place looked the same, it definitely didn’t feel as cold and pitiful as 1982.
They say if you want to truly know a person, try walking in his shoes for a day. This trip for me was a walking in camping rough shoes, living rough in extreme weather condition shoes, having to get on with someone else while going through these hardships shoes. Finally learning about meeting a whole different race of people shoes. There was, and still really isn’t that many English or Irish people that I know, and I know many, who have not really ventured too much beyond Toronto in Canada, or New York, Boston or Orlando in the USA. Let alone actually get down to earth with the yokels so to speak. So I am privileged to have experienced that.
I learnt alot from the old man too, he is a very charming man, and it was great to see him in action in the back seats of many North American vehicles. I also learnt that you can make good of an uncomfortable situation, by just laughing in the face of, and then when it is all over you can talk about the harshness of it, and still laugh it off. Every time I see Dad, we talk about all the trips we done together, and it is always with a memory that is happy.
Alot of people that I know who are familiar with the old man do not understand why he does it, but as I have said all the way through these words, you will never know, unless you walk in the shoes. His colleagues and friends seem to have a great awe and respect for him, mainly through his charming ways and stories, I didn’t really tune into this until recent years, I suppose it is only when you get older that you can really appreciate experiences of others only through the hindsight of your own experience. I will finish by saying this; Thank you old timer for giving me a little more hindsight than the average Joe soap, which has given me the life experience to cope with whatever situation is thrown my way. With a few little stories to throw in along the way. Maybe the route I would have taken if I had hung around the streets of Battersea as much as my friends, whom many came to rather sticky ends, I would have probably ended up like them, if not worse, if it wasn’t for you I would be a different man now, but you took me out camping and the like, and it has paid off. God bless you, and may he hold you lovingly in his tender palm for many years to come.
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