Sunday Morning Coming Down Part 1

 Sunday Morning comin' Down

Europe travel changed me. Back in 78 my girl dumped me and sent my world into a talespin. This was all ridiculous of course.  I had so much frickin ego it shattered me to be dumped. Now I am glad she did. But.it f-d me up at the time. Went back to school but pretty much didn't give a damn and lost my scholarship at the Cute Republican college in Indianapolis, BUTLER U.  Fact is I got involved with a beautiful ballerina two years older than me and that was all I gave a damn about.  She dumped me that summer (as well she should have...moving on to professional dance career in the big city)  and then came the letter from college..."We are sorry to inform you...etc." I lost my scholarship and so I dropped out. 

Parent's friends showed how great they were...they all said that was it...I wouldn't go back to school. Jerks.  But for the meantime I just buckled down and went to work. Hard work. I had not been too fond of my school nor of the topics I was studying.  (ECON,  Accounting, Business etc.) the only thing had given me joy was English Lit classes.  Eccentric professors who had been involved in code deciphering in WW2 and an Irish leprechaun who taunted us for being 'gifted and talented"  (he was great).  

So I worked my ass off that summer of 1979.  I was in the laborer's union.  I went out and did basic ditch digging type work. Worked at Marble Hill in Jefferson County for a couple months and made good money.  When the job ended,  I  saw the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and that got my blood up for adventure.  I whined and cajoled my friend,  "Stats" into going to NYC for a week that August ..just to do it.  I was 20.  

We hit town literally as two small town rubes.  We were wearing flannel shirts, blue jeans and construction worker boots. We headed for theYMCA on the upper west side near the Park. It was the cheapest accommodation. Fuck.  We spent a week that opened up our eyes.  One Sunday we walked from our place all the way down to Greenwich village via back alleys and it was pretty amazing for a couple boys from Sellersburg. When we first arrived on the bus,  the first thing happened to us was we were accosted by some hookers outside the bus station. A scene I am always reminded of when I hear the S and G song "The Boxer".   But maybe the biggest shock to me was Chinatown.  In that year, it was like going to a foreign country.  It got me thinking. 

When we got back to Indiana we both got jobs on an oil pipeline being laid across Indiana. It was the replacement for the"Victory" line that had been built in the midst of WW2 to keep gas flowing to the East Coast and thus to our troops over seas. That's a whole other story. But for now...what it did was keep my ass busy 7 days a week ...at least 10 hours a day non stop making 7 bucks and hour and time and a half after 40 hours. So...lots of money .. for the time...and NO time to spend it.  I once again talked my buddy Stats into going to Europe when the job was over. 

OMG.  The RT ticket from Detroit to Copenhagen was about $600. Plus I equipped myself. I got a money belt in which I neatly folded up about $2500 in American Express checks. (they don't have these anymore and I kinda miss 'em).  I got a duffel bag made of nylon. Too cheap to buy a proper back pack (and I learned to regret it.)   My mom made me buy a ridiculous down packed jacket. I stuffed some underwear, a couple shirts a couple pair pants into the duffle along with a good sleeping bag. That was it. Took a bus to Detroit w/ Stats and off we went. 

Copenhagen was a good introduction. We stayed in "University Hostel" a joint for vagabond youth like us run by a Pakistani named "Dupak" who was a fricking lecher who frequented the communal spa when the young women our age went in there. Creep. Met a guy named "Monty" from Minnesota who had bagged it all in his last year of college and told us he wanted to travel "before I buy a piece of the system".  He was loser and if he hadn't been American we probably would have ignored him. But from him we learned the first lesson about being 20 and traveling backpack in Europe. That was in this, like every other fricking culture there's a hierarchy.  If you aren't traveling for at least six months you aren't really cool.  Two weeks ?  forget it.  As it happened...we had open ended tickets and money to last us 4 months. Still not cool enough. Makes me laugh now. 

So, Monevi.   We met Monevi.  She was from Sweden and staying in hostel and we both were side knocked about her. But she favored Stats and crushed me.  She was as sweet and gentle and pretty as a kitten. On her way to Israel ...to live on a Kibuttz. Another thing we learned about being 20 and in Europe. You could go to Israel and live/work on a Kibbutz and be cool.  We didn't do that.

After exploring Copenhagen and spending the night with a couple of Danish girls...(Stat's was named "Pusser"  and I can't remember mine). ...we had to figure out 'what's next'.  We had Eurorail passes and we looked at the map and realized that the farthest north you could go was to Narvik Norway. It's 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle.  

That's where we headed. 

Hours and hours tumbling by train through the Swedish tundra...as boring as HELL and we arrived in Narvik Norway on the coast.  The whole town looked new. Turns out it had the hell bombed out of it in WW2 because it was the northern most unfrozen port and strategic and all so...every building in the town was at most only 30 years old ...that was the old ones .   We stayed in a youth hostel.  And met a Japanese guy and his Australian female touring companion and went out that night. (daylight was only about 3 hours total).   Coming back...we got in a snowball fight and we pelted somebody's car. The owner of the hostel kicked us out the next morning. Asshole! 

END PART ONE