Marysville Ain't Nothing but a Wide Spot in the Road Pt. 2

Ah, yes, near death experiences. If it's true what they say that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," I must be more invincible than the entire cast incarnate of The Expendables rolled into one. Like, just the other day, I'm reading in the news about a 3 year old toddler in Thailand who, while playing with a set of his father's car keys, attempts to unlock the electric socket with them on the baseboard of the wall where he's playing. Yup, that's me. Same, 3 years old, I'm toddling around our swimming pool on a warm Christmas evening in Tucson, Arizona. Trust me, you can do that in Tucson, Arizona. So, here I am toddling around our swimming pool on a warm Christmas evening in Tucson, Arizona, admiring all the bright twinkly Christmas lights strung up on a pyracantha bush around the swimming pool. I find an empty socket in the Christmas light strand that my finger could fit into perfectly. Fortunately, my father was sitting nearby and was able to pull the plug before I became charred toast...

A bit further down the road we pass the turn off to Grass Valley, Truckee and Lake Tahoe just between the border of California and Nevada. Lake Tahoe - Texaco Drew and I decide to take a weekend ski safari to Heavenly Valley on Lake Tahoe's southern shore. It's a Friday night (early Saturday morning to be precise) and we had already been out on the piss and pot and general hell raising as 16 and 17 year olds do. We're drunk and stoned and primed and pruned to begin our outing. We load our skis onto the ski rack on the back of Drew's VW Bug. You know, the kind that holds the skis nearly perpendicularly upright in the air, rather than flat along the roof - Right - As we back out of Drew's garage, with our skis standing nearly perpendicularly upright off the back of his VW Bug, they catch the top of the garage door and it comes crashing down on top of us. In our alcohol and ganja induced stupor, we had neglected calculating the precise clearance necessary for our skis to pass safely under it.

No damage to the skis, fortunately, but the ski rack was badly bent and the garage door was totaled beyond repair - Never mind, nothing a bit of duct tape can't handle for the time being.

Garage door duct taped back in place - we light up another joint and we're off to Lake Tahoe for a weekend of skiing and general hell raising as 16 and 17 year olds do. We spend a glorious day on the Heavenly Valley Slopes, après ski drinks in the lodge below and we're off to the casinos.

We pull our collars up over our ears, ski caps down low over our eyes, concealing as much of our underage identity as possible, and slink stealthily through the garish neon entrance of Harrah's Club Casino like two ninjas in the night. Avoiding detection by the casino security, we pull some nickels out of our pockets, look over our shoulders and begin depositing them into the slots of the most remote machines on the floor we could find. Whoa, a cherry, nickel back! Whoa, 2 cherries, a dozen nickels back!! Whoa, three fucking cherries!!! Lights start flashing, bells start ringing and nickels start tumbling out into the tray faster than we can scoop them into our pockets. The commotion raises a general panic and what seemed to be the entire casino suddenly awakes from their addicted stupors to see who the lucky beneficiaries are. We're frantically shoveling nickels into our pockets, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, when the security guy comes over, takes one look at us and asks sarcastically, "Got an ID?"

"Ah, must have left it in the car," we say as we back timidly out toward the casino's exit, fortunate to escape with the nickels we had managed to shovel into our pockets prior to his arrival.

Having been evicted from the casino, we set about finding what other hell we could raise that evening. We cruise out around the shores of Lake Tahoe in Drew's VW Bug with the bent ski rack on the back, light up a joint, and in a remote wooded area near the water's edge are overwhelmed by a deluge of light and sound and the thick smell of marijuana and patchouli oil drifting out from a clearing in the trees. We park the car and get out to investigate. The crisp midnight air is permeated with a psychedelic mélange of iridescent light and color reflecting off the trees, oozing and pulsating to the ass-kicking blues and acid rock wailing from a makeshift stage in front of a couple hundred or more long haired freaks in tie dyed shirts, hands waving in the air, gyrating to the electrified blues accompanying some unknown gravelly, bourbon laced female voice belting out some of the most soulful and dynamic music I had ever heard in my life. Layers of multi-colored mineral oil mixed in alcohol and heated under a blaze of lamps forming amoeba-like amorphous shapes are dancing and oozing across the midnight sky - projected onto screens around the stage illuminating the pines surrounding the makeshift amphitheater in a wild psychedelic extravaganza of light and sound and the quintessential scent of the 60's while the music danced in our heads.

We had no idea who the hell we were listening to but it was like nothing we had ever heard before. It wasn't until several years later when I came to the realization that the unknown gravelly voiced singer was none other than Janis Joplin backed by Big Brother and the Holding Company.

So we’re off on our way to Marysville. My favorite signpost along the way was at the entry of a dairy farm reading, ‘Our cows are outstanding in their field’. Wonder if it’s still there...

Ah, Marysville, you may (maybe not) recognize it from a 1977 song by Tom Waits,

‘And her knees upon the glove compartment,Took out her barrettes.

And her hair spilled out like root beer,And she popped her gum and arched her back.

Hell, Marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road.Some nights my heart pounds just like thunder,I don't know why it don't explode.Cause everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave,And I'd rather take my chances out in Burma shave’

Yup, that’s Marysville. What more can I say.

By the time we reach Marysville, my head is being riveted in half. The sharpest needle known to man is stabbing me in the left cortex of my brain, drilling directly into the nerve tissue itself behind my eyeball, through to the backside of my ear and down my neck. I leave my ride head in hands, kneading my left temple, thanking the driver, dragging my pack to the side of the road and pondering my fate.

My next ride is with a young couple from Sacramento. I repeat my story about my destination Europe and before I reach the Matterhorn, my head is splitting to the verge of unconsciousness. The couple, so concerned with my condition, very graciously, not only drive me to Sacramento, but feed me and put me up for the night in their home. Wonderful, gracious people. My everlasting gratitude.

The next morning finds me riding shotgun down I80 alongside a cargo delivery guy, in a cargo delivery truck, delivering cargo to Vallejo, head semi-clear and ready for my next adventure.

"Europe, huh? Leaving a girlfriend behind?" He asks as we pass the exit to Davis.

"Yeah, sort of, I guess. She's at school in Santa Barbara." I say.

"Bet you got plenty of girlfriends, huh?"

"Ah, er, yeah, I guess I've had a few."

"Yeah, whadaya think of Raquel Welch? Is she a babe or what?"

"Ah, yeah, I guess, yeah, she's pretty hot."

"Who do you think is hotter - Raquel Welch or Jacqueline Bisset?"

The conversation goes on like this about girls this and girls that and about his girlfriends and about my girlfriends and about how much of a stud he is and how much of a stud I must be until the next thing I know, we have exited the freeway (says he's got to take a piss), driven up a back dirt road somewhere between Fairfield and Vallejo and as he's putting the truck into park, slides his hand over to my knee and says he wants to suck my cock.

With a "Whoa dude!" and a convulsive jerk of the knee, my right hand lunges for the door handle, left hand snatching my pack and out of the cab I fly. Having got the message, angry as he was, jams the truck into drive and leaves me bewildered in a cloud of dust up a back dirt road off I80 somewhere between Fairfield and Vallejo.

Figuring how lucky I was, not getting raped or worse, I sling my pack back on my back and plod my way back to the on ramp of I80 heading southwest toward Vallejo. Christ, if I don't get past San Francisco today and this is to be my daily mileage, it'll take me a month and a half to get to New York. Fuck!

Luck be mine, I'm on my way to the Golden Gate...