Day 79, August 23
We had a nice breakfast the next morning in the convenient kitchen in the hotel room, and packed up and moved out. It was another nice day, and we took it for granted. The morning was somewhat cool, but by 9:00 AM things were warming up. Things can get hot in southern California in August, but right along the beach it tends to stay cool. The prevailing wind off the beach and the moist air keep things pleasant on all but the hottest days. Travel 5 miles inland, however, and the temperature might be 10 or 20 degrees hotter.
We rode along the Pacific Coast Highway, with a few detours along the cliffs to see the views, as pointed out by our Caltrans map, and other detours to avoid areas of heavy traffic. We stopped at the overlook at Dana Point to look out at the San Juan Rocks offshore, and to gaze south toward Doheny Beach (made famous in an old Beach Boys song). We then cycled past the turn to the famous Mission San Juan Capistrano, where the swallows always come back, but we kept heading south. We were heading toward San Clemente, home of Richard Nixon.
Nixon had been a highly negative symbol to me, and I had been gratified when he had resigned to avoid impeachment three years earlier. I was wondering if we would see his compound, since we were hugging the beach. As we approached the town, I asked a gas station attendant where Nixon’s house was. He explained that it was up ahead, on the right, we couldn’t miss it. He said we would be above it on the road, and that it was right next to Yogananda’s house.
This was the supreme irony. The great Indian teacher and mystic sharing space with the great amoral, Machiavellian ex-President. And sure enough, there they were, sharing a wall above a gorgeous beach. I didn’t know what to think of it: did it show that Yogananda had no scruples? That Nixon was, after all, a man of deep introspection? In any event, it had a kind of sweet-and-sour effect on us: shocking, and worth remembering.
We rode on to San Onofre, where there is another overlook with ocean views of more than 180 degrees, and a nuclear power plant right nearby. It reminded us of Nixon and Yogananda, sour and sweet, yin and yang. We got back onto a little road squeezed between the interstate and the ocean, and the ride was spectacular. Then we crossed under the interstate and rode for a while between the highway and the coastal hills, and crossed into Camp Pendleton.
This was the famous Marine base of the West Coast. We saw it on the map, and expected to be identified at the gate and issued a pass. But the gate was unoccupied and we drove right through. The landscape was rugged and untouched, except for several dirt roads that wound through the hills to our left. It was clear that they practiced amphibious landings here, and I could imagine trucks and tanks charging up those roads in the hills. I could imagine jets screaming in overhead, simulating close-in ground support.
I told Inanna of my amphibious landing at the other Camp Pendleton, a National Guard base in Virginia Beach, in 1966. As a Midshipman on summer cruise, I was put on a flat-bottomed boat in the Chesapeake Bay where we floated all night, and I was seasick all night. After that horrible night, we rendezvoused with a large troop ship which carried us outside of the Bay, past Cape Henry where the original Jamestown settlers had first landed in 1607, and where the Battle of the Virginia Capes had made the Yorktown victory and the United States possible. When off the coast south of Virginia Beach, we were made to climb down those heavy rope nets into small landing craft, and ferried to the beach at Camp Pendleton. We each wore full battle regalia, and carried an M-1 with five blank cartridges. As we hit the beach, explosions rocked the sand and jets roared in overhead. We stumbled through the water and ran across the sand. There were bleachers with dozens of what looked like tourists watching us. I was exhausted because I had held no food down for 24 hours, and was only able to run a few hundred feet, loaded down with battle gear, negotiating deep sand. I plopped down behind a sand dune and fired off my blank rounds, hoping to make a good impression on the bleacher crowd. Was this what Dylan had in mind in that other verse from Highway 61?
The Roving Gambler he was very bored
At tryin’ to create the next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said, “I never engaged in this kind of thing before
“But yes, I think it can be very easily done
“We’ll just set up some bleachers in the sun
“And have it out of Highway 61”
And of course I had to tell Inanna of my mother’s tour of duty as a Marine during World War II. She had been a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in northern Minnesota at the age of 20. After one year of getting to the schoolhouse at 5 AM to light the wood stove so that the children would be warm when they arrived at 8 AM, she enlisted in the Marines. She went through boot camp at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, and became a typist for a general. Her only combat experience, which she denies now but I swear she told me about when I was young, was spraying for cockroaches in the mess hall for the other recruits, and skating on roach guts when sweeping them up after they came out into the open to die.
Then, of course, another miracle happened. She was transferred to San Diego, where my father was already stationed as a young sailor. It is hard to believe this, but they graduated from the same small high school in Staples, Minnesota, in 1940. Dad had gone to work in an aircraft factory in San Diego before the war started. After a couple years making screws on some tedious machine, he had enlisted in the Navy, where he became the “singing sailor”—for a few weeks, when a USO show would come to town, the crooner would ask for a volunteer among the hundreds of sailors, and Dad would volunteer! He sang with Horace Heidt among other famous entertainers. He then went to radio school in Boulder, Colorado and returned to California, waiting to go to sea.
So when Mom transferred to San Diego, this handsome young high school classmate was there waiting for her. In San Diego, always a wonderful place, but particularly romantic during the war, they started dating, and love bloomed. He was then assigned to a ship headed west out of San Francisco for the invasion of Japan.
It would have been a bloody scene, but luckily for Dad (and for me, as it turns out) the bomb would make an invasion unnecessary. He was given an early discharge and they were married on September 6, 1945, at the Marine Corps chapel in San Diego. I was born on June 6, 1946, nine months and one day later.
We connected to Stuart Mesa Road and continued through Pendleton. This road was not as picturesque as the nice trails behind us through the Camp, but the traffic was sparse because it paralleled Interstate 5, which carried most of the motor vehicles. The road continued approximately flat, and winds continued to be light and from the west—a cooling crosswind from the ocean. It had now been quite a while since we had had to fight headwinds. Once we turned south at Santa Cruz, we had no longer been fighting the prevailing westerlies.
We exited Camp Pendleton and passed through the small beach town of Oceanside. From Camp Pendleton to San Diego is a series of these small beach towns, and my brother lived in one of them, Solana Beach. We pedaled through Carlsbad, Leucadia, Encinitas, and Cardiff. Each had beautiful, opulent houses on the beach, or on cliffs or hills overlooking the beach. But many of the houses were older and small, with wonderful locations to make up for what was probably high rent or mortgage payments. There were rolling hills between these towns, but none of them was long enough to bother us much. Except for a short section nears Carlsbad, we hugged the beach the whole way. The ocean was our constant companion to the right. But there was more traffic than there had been in Camp Pendleton. It didn’t bother us, however—we were enjoying taking in the beach scene, people- and car-watching. Everyone seemed so relaxed, whether we were watching older people in Mercedes, young professionals in their BMWs, or even younger people in their old cars, clearly going to the beach with surfboards, or confidently going about their business of making a living as part of a beach community.
Finally we were in Solana Beach. Jack was right on South Coast Highway, the road we were taking, and I knew he was on the right side of the road, on a cliff, from the descriptions he had sent of his house. His house was one of those older ones on a thin lot, but it backed up via a long back yard to that cliff above the beach. Jack was happy to see us, in his understated way. He seemed surprised to see us, even though he knew we were coming—the surprise was from the enormity of the trip we were finishing, I believe. He gave me a warm hug and was very gracious as I introduced him to Inanna. He showed us the bedroom we would be using that night, and we unpacked.
His house was cluttered, reminding me of our parents’ home when we grew up. But he was unconcerned about it. He let us move over a pile of unfolded clean laundry and we sat on his second-hand couch, drinking a beer together. We talked but the conversation petered out. Jack was a wonderful person, but an introvert’s introvert. It always amazed me that he pursued his profession as a rock and roll musician. He was two years behind me in school, and never stood out in a crowd. Now, every night he would be standing in front of a rowdy and half-drunk crowd, playing great riffs on his guitar. Jack owned his band, along with his partner Paul Shaffer. Paul was the lead singer and Jack the lead guitar player. They had a hired drummer and base player, plus a lightman and a soundman. Jack was now beginning to sing harmonies with Paul, the hardest thing for him to do with his retiring personality. He had also taught himself to play piano and his keyboard skills would later rival his guitar contributions. He told us he had a gig that night, and would love for us to come hear his band.
We walked out onto the cliff behind his house. Jack showed us the path he took to get to the beach to surf. He had taken up surfing several years after I had left home, and was doing it for his health. He was prone to sinus infections and found that the salt water and vigorous exercise kept him fit and healthy. He also showed us his gravity boots, a gizmo that allowed him to hang upside down for long periods. He said it was good for his back and for his circulation. We were definitely in California.
It was getting chilly as the sun was almost down, so we went inside and had a simple dinner together. I told Jack we would love to see his band, but needed to get back early so we could get our normal early start, one of the many secrets to our success. Jack said he would drive us back after the first set so we could still get to bed by 10, and we readily agreed. The bar where he was playing was close by.
He said it was a very informal place, with people wandering in from the beach, and our cutoffs and worn T-shirts would not be out of place. We drove over with him to the bar and helped Jack and his bandmates set up. Jack introduced us to each of his musician friends, and they were not only members of the band. He seemed to have a following among local musicians, and he was proud in his introductions to say to each that we had just cycled in from Virginia. His friends were uniformly impressed and warm toward us.
The bar filled up and Jack began playing an electrifying guitar introduction. Soon they were all playing and singing loudly, and the patrons were up on the floor, dancing. Everyone was smiling, moving with the rhythms, joking and jostling, even chatting. In the loud music I didn’t see how they could communicate, even though they did it with their faces close and clearly shouting above the noise—this could not be heard, at least by me, but could be discerned by the bulging veins on their necks as they strained to be understood. Inanna and I just sat and soaked up the scene. We were happy not to talk, but we laughed with the crowd and enjoyed our concert immensely. After about 8 songs Jack hurried us out to the car and drove us back to his house. He didn’t want to be late in rejoining his mates, but was also going to make sure we got to bed on time. On the way to his house, Inanna and I related how much we had enjoyed the music, and the whole scene, and he clearly appreciated that. He was hoping to hit it big in rock music, and at the age of 29 it wasn’t yet too late.
We explained that we would be getting up with the sun and leaving early, and knew he would be up late, so there was no need to see us out. He hurried back to his gig after giving me another hug.
We had covered 52 more miles and attended a rock concert. The next day would be the last of our trip.