American Trust

 

In the spring of 1971 I was living on a hippie commune out in Iowa. The farm house we lived in was supported by a rock/blues/jazz group that the original founders had created. After moving out there I became the equipment guy because I kind of knew how to plug in the cables, and I owned a 1968 Volkswagen van. On a nice March day one of the folks who lived there suggested that we, she and I, take a trip to New York City. Her name was Kiva. Not her real name, but it was how we all knew her. So, along with another guy who we were going to drop off in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Kiva and I started off for New York. First stop on the way from Iowa was my mom and dad's house outside Chicago. Mom and Dad were not home. All I remember from that stop is a bunch of my younger sisters sitting in the kitchen, wondering why their older brother had brought these strange hippies into their home.

We continued on through Indiana, and through Ohio. As we passed through Pennsylvania and through the Appalachian Mountains, everything started to look gray. Gray skies, gray mountains, and gray rocks. We dropped our friend off in Allentown and all I could think was how depressing it seemed to be. More gray on gray. We traveled on to New York, which is another story. On the trip back to Iowa, on Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania, the engine in my beloved Volkswagen blew up. It was on a rather steep incline that the little engine just couldn't handle. We were towed into the city of State College, where I left the van at the local VW repair shop. It turned out that this broke hippie could not afford the repairs. So I sold the van to the owner of the shop for two hundred dollars. He gave me one hundred and promised to send me another hundred in a week or so. I was so naive. I hitch hiked back to Iowa and waited, and waited. No money was ever sent.

I've been watching a series on Showtime called 'American Rust'. It is set somewhere in western Pennsylvania. It is depressing. The show reminds me of my trip back and forth through the state fifty years ago. It seemed to be a depressing place back then, and from the show it seems to be just as depressing now. Maybe it isn't all that bad. Maybe it is actually a very nice state to live in. All I know is that there is some asshole in State College who owes me one hundred dollars.