Go West Young Man!
The song "Time for me to Fly" was on the radio in the fall of 1980...
In the fall of 1980, I was nineteen years old. The cycle I found myself in was not healthy. I knew that if I kept doing what I was doing I wasn’t going to be around long. I was using drugs heavily and drinking too much. I was hanging out with all the wrong people doing all the wrong things, mostly on the East side of Buffalo. A typical night at this time would go something like this. I would reach out to a friend of mine like Clark (who is dead) who used to live on A St. near Fillmore and Genesee. We would pull up a stool at a bar we used to hang out at called Fel’s not too far away from his house and drink. Alot. Sometimes whole bottles of liquor along with our beers. We also would make frequent trips outside to get stoned. Clark was what you would have referred to back then as a pot head. Afterwards we would drive around the East Side which was filled with trouble. This story was not gonna have a happy ending.
Intuitively knowing that I had to get out of this place I kept trying to escape. I had been doing that since I was fifteen years old, I kept trying but I always ending up back where I started, hanging out with all the wrong people and doing all the wrong things. I kept digging myself a hole and couldn’t figure a way out. So, when my friend Mike, whom we all called Savage, (because he looked like one! lol) asked me if I wanted to go to Denver to look for work, I said I would Mike, but I don’t have any money. He said don’t worry about it, I’m gonna sell my truck (it was an ugly orange color) and he had a plan. He was going to sell his stereo and the truck, buy a 1968 Olds 98 Convertible he had found and guessed he would have about $700 left over which is the equivalent of about $2,700 today. All I had to do was say yes. So, I did!
I feel the need to explain the economics of my life here because in earlier stories I have talked about how hard I have worked my whole life, and yet in these stories I never seem to have any money. There is not much work to be had for a high school dropout so I began working for moving companies where I would make three or four dollars an hour. Now THAT is hard work. If I made $4 an hour and I worked 40 hours in a week that would be a gross of $160. Most of that work was “off the books.” I would give my mom money to help with her bills. I would need money for my two pack a day Kool cigarettes, my drinking and drug money. Clothes. Shoes. Car expenses. Gas money. Lunches. Dinners. That money went really fast and there was nothing left by the next paycheck. So, I would work hard all week, be broke at the end of the week, and do it all over again. When I said to Mike, I don’t have any money I meant it. There was no savings account. There was the money I had in my pocket at the time which wasn’t much, and certainly not enough to head west.
So, there we were in the fall of 1980 on our way to Denver Colorado in a boat! A convertible! We were filled with hope and there were big smiles on our faces. As we left the city Savage turned up the radio because REO’s song “Time for Me to Fly” was playing and life was good. We made it to just outside of Cleveland when the car got a flat tire and we realized we didn’t have a good spare. We pulled over to the side of the I-90 and Mike said stay with the car I’ll go find some help. When he got back, I had left the emergency directionals on and the battery was dead now too! This wasn’t starting out well. But the tire was repaired, and the battery was jumped and undeterred we were on our way once again.
That Olds 98 gave us very little trouble along the way, but at one point in Iowa or Nebraska the old rotting convertible roof started flapping in the wind from a little hole that had opened up in the center to a quickly developing large hole maybe 12”x12” in size. Savage was a really good mechanic and we pulled in to a truck stop where he found some rubber glue and some wire, and using a piece of heavy clear plastic and a large needle sewed that plastic in to the roof, and then glued the edges with that glue and it never gave us any trouble after that. We had a sunroof! The biggest problem with that car was that we had not considered how vast the mid-west and west was. The only music we had was located on the push-button radio that was mounted in the dash that came with the car. We realized only after we were in the middle of this vast openness that there were no radio stations to be found! We could have installed a cassette player or 8-track player before we left Buffalo, but it never occurred to us that there were areas in this country that didn’t have radio stations! We were city boys; we had no idea. There were many long and quiet hours to come in front of us from there on out, especially in the desert.
I’m not sure why Mike chose Denver, but there were no good jobs back in Buffalo. All of the factories were closing down, and the future did not look bright. Denver held hope and promise for us. For some reason I thought I wasn’t coming back, so not having much I grabbed what little I did have which included a drum set that was given to me by two drummer friends of mine put together from pieces of their old kits. That drum set took up most of the back seat and I would soon come to regret that decision to bring it along for the ride. We would sleep in the car at night at truck stops, Mike in the front and yep, me and my drum set in the back! What was I thinking! Going across the country on the I-90 to I-80 is a trip I’ve always wanted to do again, this time with actual money and without having to sleep on top of a drum set!
The first thing that comes to mind is how remarkable Nebraska was. The cornfields are nothing like you see back east! They go on for what seems like forever, and the giant mobile watering sprinklers are incredible. Occasionally you would go past a cattle farm, and it seemed like there must have been 5,000 cows there! But after a while, because Nebraska is over 400 miles long from east to west, you get sick of looking at cornfields and cows! Enough already! And if you add in Iowa and their cornfields it’s over 700 miles of nothing but cows and cornfields! But it’s at this point that it becomes clear why the Midwest is referred to as the breadbasket of the world. When we got to the end of Nebraska, we found ourselves on a plateau looking back to the east. The view on a clear day from that elevation looking back across that extremely flat state is amazing. Of the 40 out of 50 States I’ve been to in my life over the years that is still a top 10 sight for me.
Looking to the west from that plateau you can begin to see the Rockies. The Rockies are awe inspiring and from that point Denver was only a couple of hours away. Coming into Denver and as you got closer to the Rocky Mountains, they just seemed to loom over you like you have never seen before. Of course, just like anything after a while and living in Denver for a few months you barely noticed them anymore. They do remind you they are looming every so often when you hear the weather reports of feet of snow falling in the mountains overnight. Even for this Buffalo boy who knew a few things about snow it seemed that this snow was different.
Potatoes. Potatoes. Potatoes. Did I happen to mention potatoes? Because that’s all we ate was potatoes! Potatoes are cheap and you can be creative with potatoes. We moved in to an apartment in a town called Aurora. It was a very poor section of town, but I was just happy to be out of the back seat of that car! We set off to find work but once again were not having any luck, it seemed they didn’t have any jobs here either. I’m sure it didn’t help that we both looked like hippies, Savage looking like, well, a savage, and me with my big afro and beard and angry face looking like, well, let’s just say not someone you were likely to hire lol. Try as we might, we spent about 4 months in Denver and had no luck finding work, but we did learn how to cook potatoes in a lot of different ways! Just now I researched the price of potatoes, and the national average for a five-pound bag in 1980 was .95 cents! Now that is a bargain, and those potatoes sustained us for quite some time. Eventually Savage called his brother Bob who was living in Vegas with his girlfriend and asked him if we could come stay with him for a while to try to find work and he said yes. So off we went to Las Vegas.
With yet another adventure in front of me those Rockies that got old looking at became very real when traversing those roads. Going up the Rockies, and more importantly DOWN the Rockies, in a snow storm, was one of the more let’s say interesting journeys I’ve had, in my what most certainly is probably closing in on two million miles in my lifetime on the road. Going up the Rockies was challenging enough in that car which had a carburetor that relied on air to work, where the air was getting thinner as we climbed, and the tires just this side of not bald. Keeping a boat like that on the road was difficult enough without putting that terrain into the equation. As we climbed and climbed, we just crossed our fingers that that old boat kept going. Cresting the top was a relief because there were moments where we were not sure it would make it, but we had no idea what was in store for us on the way down. I never enjoyed roller coasters and this ride was no different! On the way down, and every so often in that twisting and turning journey, there were runaway truck lanes where trucks were supposed to go if they lost control of their vehicle. Are you kidding me!?
After safely navigating our way to the bottom, and with a sigh of relief, we found ourselves in the beautiful green foothills on the other side. Ahead of us the roads became very flat, eventually turning into desert. The red rocks along Route 15 were another top 10 sight to see. At one point we decided to stop at a truck stop and sleep overnight because the sign said that the next rest stop with fuel and services was 106 miles. We didn’t want to take any chances at night.
When writing and telling these stories of my life it occurs to you that it may not be exactly the way you have remembered things. Life is long. For my entire life when telling my trip out west story I have included the detail of a road sign warning of no services for 106 miles. This kind of detail tends to be memorable. With the advent of the internet, it is really cool to be able to confirm details of your memories. This is the sign that I remember from all those years ago (since replaced I’m sure) and apparently it is an infamous stretch of road. I had no idea until researching this detail just now that this was the longest stretch on any Interstate in the US without any towns or services.
That night while parked among the big rigs and sleeping in our car, I decided I had had enough of sleeping with these drums and was going to lose them at some point the next day. I was not going to sleep with them again! The next morning, with some trepidation I’m sure, off we went and at a desolate point along this desolate road amongst what began to be annoying red rocks, I told Savage to pull over. He didn’t ask why he just did. He probably thought I needed to go to the bathroom, but instead I took those drums out of the car and set them up right there in the desert about fifty feet off the road. I ran back to the car, and we were laughing our asses off as we pulled away. That was gonna be one hell of a mirage for people in the days and months ahead until nature and or man put an end to that view.
The trip from Denver to Vegas is traversed by Interstate 70 and then Route 15. Most of that trip on Route 15 is in the desert on roads that seemed to stretch out forever in front of you. The red rocks of Utah are gorgeous and are a view to experience at some point in life. Just make sure you have a reliable car and a full tank of gas! That final leg of Rt. 15 coming into Vegas was another sight to behold! As you crested a hill all of a sudden out of nowhere and from what seemed to be the middle of the desert was Las Vegas! Lit up as bright as the sun! It is another top 10 sight to see in my book. In researching that experience just now I learned that this is a famous view which is described as passing through the Virgin River Gorge on a winding hill in the dark that out of nowhere descends into Las Vegas and in to a spectacular view. You can read more about that experience here.
In 1980 Vegas was a much smaller town than it is now but it still had sparkle. It seemed grittier than the more corporate experience it seems to be now. I would travel there with Lisa just a short fifteen years later and it was transformed. The Tropicana, the MGM and Ceasars Palace and some others were in place in 1980, but for us with little resources the Downtown Vegas experience where the Golden Nugget and other smaller casinos existed was where we hung out. We were wide eyed as we made our way to Mike’s brother’s apartment slowly rolling down the main strip to the southwestern part of Vegas where he and his girlfriend lived in an apartment complex. Once again try as we might we could not find steady work. Occasionally we would find jobs to sustain us but nothing that stuck. Even with the .99c breakfast that was so ubiquitous at all the downtown casinos we had run out of money. Eventually we decided to make our way back home. But we had some good times in Vegas.
We decided to take the southern route back home and go across the country through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and then make our way up north. That was an interesting trip, and we took our time. Our first stop was at the Hoover Dam which is another iconic sight to see. When we got to the dam, we parked our car and walked to the dam and I jumped up on the wall which was a couple of feet wide, and began walking along there for several feet to which Savage chided me to get down. Looking at a picture of that wall here and thinking about what I did makes the hair on my arms stand up. What was I thinking! I’d like to believe the section I walked on was wider and closer to the end where some type of landing was more reasonably in sight!
After leaving the Hoover Dam we made our way south down Route 93 to Route 40 going east, eventually finding ourselves driving through the Petrified Forest national park. While driving through there, a very large vulture seemed to be following us, so I told Savage to slow down because I wanted to try to feed it! He thought I was crazy, and it was admittedly a stupid idea, but he slowed down, and I leaned out the window and threw some Oscar Meyer bologna, the kind you bought in that yellow plastic packaging, up high towards the vulture and watched as we drove away. He didn’t take the bait. Well, there goes lunch!
Another sight to behold that is top 10 in my travels is approaching Albuquerque New Mexico from the west out of the mountains at night which is just incredible! That experience is described here. Just like Las Vegas it’s like someone just picked a random spot in the desert and said, yea, we’ll put it here. Continuing our journey home east on route 40 we found ourselves in the pan handle of Texas and once again you are reminded of how vast and empty this country can be. This is the first time I ever saw a tumbleweed which had been so commonplace in all those westerns I watched as a kid. When we got to Oklahoma City we made our way onto route 44 and began our journey north, which was remarkably unremarkable.
Finding ourselves back in the town we had left just under a year or so ago was quite frankly depressing. There were still no good jobs to be had, and I began hanging around all the wrong people doing all the wrong things again and was right back into that same cycle that was gonna kill me sooner or later. The thought had occurred to me more than a few times that if I didn’t get out of here, I was gonna end up dead. One night, not long after we got back, me and Savage went out to a party, and on our way home that Olds 98 that had taken us nearly 8,000 miles died at a red light, at the intersection of Genesee St. and Pine Ridge Rd, a somewhat major intersection, at a desolate time of the early morning hours. No other cars were there. Savage just got out and said fuck it and started walking. I said Mike, you can’t just leave it here, and he said why not? I said they are gonna tow it, to which he said I don’t care, they can have it. And that’s the last time I saw that car!
In the coming weeks my friend Wally would be visiting from the Navy, and we were hanging out one night, and he mentioned a good friend of ours had moved to Newport News Virginia. I had probably told Wally I was looking for a new start. I called Mike (Zee) and had a great conversation with him. He said that I should come on down and that I could stay there with him and another friend of ours named Willie. They thought they may be able to get me a job where they were working at a place called Waco Insulation. I asked Wally if he could give me a ride down to Zee’s place when he went back to Virginia Beach, where he was stationed on the USS America, and he said sure no problem. I was back on the road. Again.
(Note: EVERYONE seemed to be named Mike back then, it was the #1 boy’s name for 50 years or so running, so all the Mike’s generally had nicknames. Mike that I went west with was Savage, because he looked like a savage lol, Mike in Newport News was just Zee, because his last name started with a Z, and I was Mason or “Mas” “pronounced “Mace” after my last name, which I got when my stepfather adopted me and my brothers when I was 6 years old)
I would spend the next two years in Newport News, driving a truck for Waco insulation for much of the time delivering insulation to the shipyards that were everywhere. The fresh start that I was hoping for and the escape I was counting on from the self-destructive things I was doing, would only get worse in Newport News. I would experience the lowest point of my life there, I had hit rock bottom, drinking bottles of Jack Daniels at a time. Alone. I was either gonna die or find a new resolve to live and get my act together. I chose the latter. Zee ended up dying at a very young age. He was a great guy with a great laugh and a zest for life. But he lived life too hard and too fast and that’s how it tends to work if you approach life that way. I think he never got over losing his mom in a car crash when he was a teenager. Savage is gone now too, and he had a great soul. Just a good man. We had an epic journey together. I miss both of them…
“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind” - Nathaniel Hawthrone
“You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your ‘friends’,” - Mark Twain
I’m so glad that you did turn your life around and are still with us ❤️
Something must explain why your life ended differently from your friends. Whatever it is, these are really compelling stories!