All Things in Moderation

After Summer Session ’66 ended, another law student, Randy Berry from Amarillo, and I, put a Judson supercharger on Randy’s VW and headed off for Monterrey to find John Steinbeck.

Crossing the  Bonneville Salt Flats, we started pushing oil through the rings of the overstressed air cooled engine.  We got to SF and took a $2 room at they YMCA.  We met a chauffer who lived in the Y at the cafeteria and from him we got a reference to a Serbian VW mechanic in Santa Cruz.  We spent a second night in SF camping on Mt. Tam and froze, but we were down to about $30 between us and had to conserve.

We drove to Santa Cruz, slowly.  On the boardwalk, Randy, a crack shot, pulled a deal with the shooting gallery operator on the boardwalk to bring in the rubes by hitting all the targets.  He paid Randy $130. for four hours of shooting.  I stood out front, talking loudly about how easy it was to win at the gallery and would shepherd folks over to watch Randy.

Having no place to sleep, we went to a coffee house near the fledgling UCSC campus.  We played chess with Navy guys who were stationed nearby – frogmen trainees in their early to mid twenties.  Good guys.  We napped on the sofas.

In the morning we found the Serb.  He fixed the VW by nightfall.  One more night in the coffee house and we drove to our destination, Monterrey.  Pacific Biol was still standing on stilts (“Cannery Row” readers will recall it as Western Marine Biol, where Doc hung out).  One cannery was still open.  It was a dying town.  We went to the Dew Drop Inn and asked for Steinbeck.  Turned out he lived in NYC!   But his sister came in, and we bought her drinks for two hours and pumped her for details about our favorite novelist, and about Monterrey in the forties.

Next day we drove down to Morro Bay and then turned left across the desert to Las Vegas.  Got to the Sands at about 6 PM, got a room, showered, shaved, and changed into clean khakis and shirts.  When we boarded the elevator to head down to the restaurant for steaks [they were so cheap then in LV!] we joined Joey Bishop and two pretty young women in cowgirl outfits trying to pitch him on watching their routine which involved singing and lariat tricks.

He looked over to me and said “Glad you finally got here”.  Looked at the girls and said “This is an agent of mine, and he and his associate will buy you dinner while you pitch your deal.”  He smiled at me and got off the elevator.

Randy and I took the women to dinner and bought them steaks.  After the meal,  and decidedly before they had an opportunity to invite us to their room to show us their routine, I told them the entire truth.  Wounded for a minute, both of them, who were sisters from Montana, laughed, and shared dessert with us.

Drove out across Hoover Dam in the morning and then through AZ, NM, and home.  Had another adventure in Santa Fe, but Mt. Tam, the shooting gallery in Santa Cruz, Steinbeck’s sister, and Joey Bishop in the elevator stood out.
 
Years later, late in the S&L crisis, I was close to bankrupt and needed $25K fast.  Randy and his brother wired me the cash from Amarillo where their cattle operation was flush, that year.  It took me almost 5 years to pay it all back [it was not my only debt from that time].  Then Randy got caught up at 55 with no health insurance and a heart condition after having spent his liquidity on a slowly dying wife uninsured with diabetes.  I wired him $5K for med bills, but he died soon after.  We were friends for life and we always laughed about Joey Bishop in the elevator.

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