Upon landing in the USA after sixteen months of circling the globe by land and by sea. — Columbia River, Washington State USA March 1974
“Roll on, Columbia, roll on,
Roll on, Columbia, roll on /
Your power is turning our darkness to dawn /
Roll on, Columbia, roll on.” — Woodie Guthrie
The freighter slowly made berth under a heavy and leaden grey mid morning sky. I watched from the frozen deck, with anticipation I could feel in the pit of my gut; it was the idea of finally getting off this shipand back on Earth , and the mystery of the uncertain adventure that lay ahead.
Through the early morning fog, I could make out The tops of pine trees in the surrounding mountains sizzling out of the mists, and slowly vanishing back into the grey morning sheen of silver tones. This was my first view of land; the icy snowcovered late March Pacific Northwest.
My luck hadn’t been very good in Australia. It all felt like the deep south to me, rednecks, truckers, farmers, and fishermen were the only locals that I met. Most barely even trying to conceal their prejudice and fear of strangers. A darkskinned skinny Italian American kid with shoulder length hair was an unwelcome guest in most parts.
In a waterfront bar I was lucky enough to meet some Spaniards from the deck crew of the Norwegian Freighter, the Naess Meteor. My high school Spanish paid off and I learned that they were hauling mountains of aluminium to Columbia Washington to dock along the Columbia River on the Washington Oregon border. I asked them for a lift. They convinced the ensign that they could use another hand on the deck crew to help out with the maintenance on the upcoming 31-day crossing. I was glad to work unpaid just for the lift back to the USA.
That rolling freighter became my home for 31 days at sea from that day I boarded in the sweltering heat of Freemantle Australia in January.
And so began the longest ride I was ever to hitch, bringing me halfway across the globe. From the southwestern Australian town of Freemantle; a sleepy port town at the time, all the way to the Mighty Columbia River on the Washington Oregon, border in the U.S. of A. and finally home!.
The ship herself, over 631 feet in length The length of 2 football fields, and 90 ft, across the deck. The four holds fully loaded she carried over one and a half million square feet of cargo.
I was given some work clothes, some essentials; a case of beer and carton of Marlboros, a denim jacket and a pair of work boots that wore a hole in my heel, and assigned a small cabin. The chef, a Goan, was homesick and was delighted we could reminisce about his hometown. He started leaving the keys to the galley and food hidden for me so that I could prepare a forth meal for myself around midnight. When everyone else was asleep. I would hit the kitchen and cook up the leftovers.
My job was to single handedly, chip off every little corrosion on the metal rails and holds, once done, a dab of enamel paint over the rusty places, and then apply a final coat of bright orange. In that month I managed to paint the entire deck of over 6000 square feet. Over the next 30 days! I found plenty of time to goof off; spent a lot of time feeding the giant ospreys who followed us closely for what seemed like thousands of miles. I even named the biggest; he looked like a small plane I christened him Kittyhawk. Effortlessly he glided along behind us, rarely flapping his giant wings, filthy grey from basking in the warmth of our exhaust, and feasted on the constant flow of the kitchen scraps that were dumped overboard a few times a day.
Warm afternoons were spent gazing overboard while I was supposed to be working, we passed smoking volcanic islands off the coast of Indonesia. Squadrons of dolphins battled with flocks of seagulls for the lush bounty of blue and silver sardines that were tossed into the air while they flowed past in a stream of thousands. Flying fish popped out of the ocean and landed on my freshly painted deck, and painted orange flipped back into the ocean, At night dolphins cruised by underwater, the plankton built up glowed like headlights on a group of torpedos. On clear moonless nights the starlight was so strong you could see your shadow.
With all of that manual labor and 4 square meals a day, in no time I was gaining weight and building up again. I’d get up early do 30 push ups, and a few chin-ups from the steel pipe that hung low over my shower stall. I tried doing yoga but the rocking of the ship made it impossible, as it would be to do any drawings. Sometimes it was so bad it made writing impossible.
When I boarded, nearly broke and emaciated, barely 140 lbs, after a year of the the catch as catch can eating style budget traveling forced us into, and the inevitable bouts of various stomach problems every traveler experienced. These were the days before the advent of bottled water.
In Mexico they call it “Montezuma’s Revenge’ In Asia it’s “Delhi Belly”, in the Mid East “Ali’s Belly”, “Bali Belly’.. Wherever you went there was a “belly “The road through Asia was not a culinary adventure one looked forward to. In Afghanistan I had to buy a 30 ft turban, so I could cut off small strips with a pocket knife to use as toilet paper when needed. In a few weeks it was barely long enough to be used as a headband.
Food and water weren’t the only dangers. Every traveler had to carry a separate document listing the inoculations that were required upon entering a country. The list was scary. There was smallpox, typhus, typhoid, malaria, hepatitis, and dengue just to name a few. We only drank boiled water, and the tea that was local and available everywhere hoping it had been boiled enough. A cold coke or a beer, was a luxury.
My Spanish friends gathered in my cabin that morning to say “Adios”. We all exchanged addresses, even tho these guys are out at sea 9 months a year and never home, we promised like liars we would keep in touch. One of them gave me a long woolen winter coat, It was a little too big but the arms swinging down would double as gloves. I could see by the weather outside, it was gonna come in handy.
We had a ceremonial shot of whisky, shook hands, and parted. I shouldered my small pack, slung the coat over my arm and bounced down the gangplank, walked to the end of the dock.
My traveling bag; a worn out Tibetan leather saddle bag swapped for a in the Himalayas, the contents down to a stack of letters, the worn copy of Anna’s I Ching some socks and underwear, a few tea shirts, a clean pair of jeans a Benares loungi and a yaks wool Tibetan blanket.
My legs were wobbly and unfamiliar with the sensation of being on solid ground. I needed to steady myself. There was a dry bench under an awning near the customs office and the first thing I did was lie flat on it trying for the first time in a month to feel the stillness of being back on solid ground and not rocking on a rolling sea.
Once cleared the docks, I took one last look back at the freighter, stuck out my thumb, and it started to rain. It was a frozen rain not fluffy snowflakes, more than sleet, like little shards of ice. The slippery ground didn’t help. Finally an open backed trailer carrying massive tree trunks rolled by slowly and slid to a halt in the gravel shoulder 20 feet ahead of me. I ran up and climbed in, willing to take a ride to anywhere!
Trucker chain smoked Camels, cab stunk of diesel and tobacco, never dared to open a vent for the cold outside. “Haulin logs from Columbia River to Grants Pass.” The driver said the moment I got in.
He rambled on and on; I never got a word in edgewise. I drifted into silent reverie as he just kept talking, barely stopping to take a breath. He asked where I was from, I said New York, and that was enough for him. I was relieved that I didn’t have to explain where I was coming from and how I came to be standing at the junction at the end of the dock with the Pacific Ocean at my back and my thumb in the air.
He reached back in the bunk behind him and pulled out a six pack offered me a beer. There was no way, I was freezing, and could have used a coffee, but the beer didn’t look very inviting. The driver only asked once.
Grinning widely he leaned back threw his weight behind it as he pumped in the clutch pedal and drew back on the highest gearshift handle of the bunch.
His stories went on and on, they ranged from his hometown exploits, where he somehow managed to throw that big touchdown pass, or kick the ass of the town bully, or make love to the most beautiful girl in town. They never ended, as he plowed though that breakfast six-pack, and plowed blindly headlong into the fog.
He was the first American I had spoken to in months. At least I didn’t have to speak broken English for a change, but understanding him wasn’t all that easy. I had gotten used to speaking slowly to people that I wasn’t sure understood me.
The weather turned from bad to miserable. The rain turned to snow, the snow around the road became slushy and muddy, at the speed we were moving on that icy road it would have been impossible to stop if we had to.
It occurred to me that he and I had much more in common than I had thought. Here we both were, traveling on a wing and a prayer, through whatever the elements had in store for us. Blindly pushing ahead, further into the void with only hope in the unknown and faith guiding us through the possibilities.
Eventually the sky ripped open and exposed a sharp ribbon of spotless blue and a piece of the Sun trying to peek through. We stopped in Portland for gas and a small bite. The trucker suspiciously not hungry, and talking and chain-smoking non stop.
For the rest of the afternoon we drove on through the rain and snow. We passed other hitchhikers, but had no room in the cab. I was lucky to get this ride all the way to Grants Pass a full 250 miles, but he stopped at every roadside diner and downed a couple of beers, disappeared into the bathroom, and in spite of his insane driving, we were making pretty bad time. And then there was the matter of the weather conditions. It took us another six hours with all the stops we made to get to Grants Pass just before sunrise the next morning.
A lot of the driving was done at breakneck speeds, and once night fell, and the fog engulfed everything our visibility was down to just a few feet. This was his way of making up for all the lost time so many unnecessary stops wasted. The snow started piling up, the eyes of a buck momentarily caught in our headlights flashed with panic, the silence of the forest broken by the roar of our diesel engine, and the black trail of exhaust that followed us..
His voice droned on and I fell into a half sleep, we plunged through the fog at kickass speed over icy roads against an invisible landscape. Suddenly I was roused by a jerk of the breaks and a 50 foot long slide along the ice. I was sure the truck was going to jackknife, I clung to my seat wide eyed and could make out nothing but the fog getting brighter thru my icy window.
Unaware I had been sleeping through his tall tales he left off his bennie ramble with “…knocked his eye out with a fork but I still get drunk with his brother…”. The air brakes hissed and squealed and we skidded and slid finally came to a stop, ”This is it kid”� He scribbled a telephone number on a crumbled receipt he pulled out of the glove compartment and stuffed it into my hand. “If you ever come to Grants Pass, look me up.” He said, stuck out his hand, I shook it happy to get out alive, but dumped at a snowy fork in the road at daybreak wasn’t the best thing that could have happened, by a long shot.
I looked back along the skid marks behind me. The tracks of the rig told me we slid along the roadside barely missing the guardrail by a matter of inches. We took the icy shoulder at over 80, past the flimsy guard rail the landscape was engulfed in daybreak’s florescent blue mist, a drop into that snowy void would have been certain death.
It occurred to me this guy was America, broad grinning, bullshit spinning, big mouthed big hearted, heartland homeboy cowboy, hometown hero America. All heart and dumb luck, lucky to be alive, pushing the limits speeding blindly through the storm.
I watched the truck disappear into the haze and listened as the muffled sound of the diesel faded, the black cloud from the stacks evaporated into the frozen air. Once alone, I put down my sack and half happy to be alive and half happy to be home, like all good sailors do, knelt down and kissed the snow covered ground in a silent prayer of thanks to whatever spirits there should be. Only 2000 miles left to go!
Across the road I could just make out the burning red neon of DINER 24 through the mist, and could smell the smell of frying bacon and coffee. At DINER 24, I could already taste those buckwheat flapjacks and thick cuts of crispy bacon, ready to wash it down with all those free cups, and “yes mam, a slice a that apple pie would due nicely for desert.”
As I gathered myself together, stood up I felt a lump in the overcoats inside pocket, An envelope. I bit off the edge and tore the rest open and 300 dollars in crisp twenty dollar bills was folded neatly inside with a note. Two words in Spanish were crudely written on a slip of paper bearing the ships letterhead, “Buenas Suerte” !
A present from the Spanish deck crew most likely a collection they had taken up without my knowledge.
No time to worry about how my Siberian four flapper cap and Tibetan blanket scarf was gonna go over with the crowd of truckers and lumberjacks. The wind was kicking up the snow that blew like dust on the Australian Great Victoria Desert where I was in a similar situation just a few weeks ago. I’ll tell you I didn't care how the Mongolian hat would go over with the diner crowd, that hat went over with both my frozen ears real well!
This was the home stretch; Oregon felt like a suburb of New York City to me, after traveling from the Lower East Side to Lower East Asia and everywhere in between, from the scorching heat of the January docks of Freemantle Australia to the snowy mists of Colombia Washington. From Manali to Bali to Death Valley, from Batuferinghi to Albuquerque, from Kathmandu to Kalamazoo, from the River Ganges to the East River, and further and beyond.
“No sir, They don’t make flapjacks like that in that Pudding shop of Istanbul” I said out loud to myself.
From my seat at the counter and thru the frosted windows I could see the daybreak snow turning fluorescent blue and the first cars hiss through the slush with no headlights. My pockets no longer just carrying useless rupees and a few Aussie dollars and my last unbroken emergency ten dollar bill. It was the last from the f stack I started this trip with 16 months ago. I decided on a big breakfast to celebrate my fortune. It dawned on me that this ten dollar note had come from New York City with me all the way around the world, giving it a sudden sanctified value. I decided to hold on to it, and would pay with a twenty from the envelope. Newly flush now, I silently planned to dip down to Mexico before going back and starting school coming September.
Waitress doesn’t bother to take the Marlboro from her mouth looks at my Tibetan hat and wearing this large overcoat, wrapped in a yak woven blanket like a shawl around my shoulders, says “Namaste, what can I get ya?” —