I’d warn her about Hamilton some other time, like after she got to Lutherville. I would put up with him for a few days for Marilyn’s sake, so my family could meet her. Besides, she’d never believe my stories about my family without meeting them first.
After dinner I had her pose a bit in the lobby and I took a few more pictures. When we got back to the dorm, I asked her again to change into a bikini, but she declined again. I grabbed my shots of her and tucked them in a pocket, and gave her the camera, and then I gave her a big kiss and left.
The next day I spent the morning on the phone long distance to the Hilton Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland. My parents preferred to visit Rehoboth Beach, which is in southern Delaware, about half an hour north of Ocean City. Rehoboth is a smaller and quieter town than Ocean City. Me, I preferred a little glitz and glamour on my vacations. The Hilton is near the Boardwalk, and I could afford it. Although the economy wasn’t too happy about it, I had ridden the oil shock up and down, and was now invested in some stocks that did well under these conditions. I was worth about a million and a half now, plus the $2.47 my atoms were supposed to be worth. I was able to reserve a large suite with two bedrooms (I did tell her she would have her own room, just not what type of room) for two weeks starting a week after I got back. I also specified that I would probably show up late in the first week, but I wasn’t sure when, and let them bill it to my American Express card, which they were quite happy to do.
After that, it was just necessary to wait a couple of days for Ricky and Marty to finish with the semester. Both guys were juniors and had to finish finals, but after that, they were free for the summer. Marty never went home anyway, but stayed at school and lived in the house. Ricky, on the other hand, was in ROTC, and would normally have gone to do his second summer at training, but he had deferred it until after graduation. He had the summer free, too. They were planning a road trip across the country. When I asked them what they were up to, they invited me along. I was planning on living at the house and goofing off. I jumped at the chance to join them!
The general plan was that we would travel across the country, spending the nights at various Kegs chapter houses around the country. Kappa Gamma Sigma was a national fraternity, with dozens of chapters all across the US. It was not at all unheard of for brothers to show up at another house, out of the blue. Every year we would get a few people passing through from other colleges, who would be invited in for anywhere from a night to a few days. We’d let them sleep in their sleeping bags in the formal room, mooch some meals with us, share some beer and weed, and otherwise goof off. Why anybody in their right mind would visit Troy was an entirely different question. The usual answer was they were on their way through to somewhere a whole lot more interesting.
Marty, Ricky, and I were going to return the favor. We all tossed sleeping bags and duffel bags into the trunk of Marty’s 1970 Buick LeSabre. That thing was just a beast of a car! I think it was bigger than my Galaxie, with a bigger engine, and generally roomier. Of course, while the Galaxie needed an oil well in the back yard to feed it, this thing needed two!
We never even considered Ricky’s car, an ancient VW Beetle. None of us was sure it would make it to the state line, let alone across the country.
Ricky had a map of the United States with chapter houses marked with red dots, and Marty had gotten from the national headquarters a list of addresses for the chapter houses. Our tentative route had us going through Cleveland and then on to Chicago. From Chicago we wanted to go to St. Louis, but after that we weren’t sure. The idea was to go on a northerly route on the way west, and then come back on a southerly swing. Most of the chapter houses were either on the east coast, California, or the south. North and west of St. Louis was a bit limited.
I had a Kodak Instamatic camera with a few spare rolls of film, and before we set out, I got Jack Jones to take a few shots of us in front of the Buick. I got razzed by the other guys, but screw it. They’d thank me someday.
The first stop was Cleveland, and the initial theory had been that we would drive on the US and state roads, not on the highways. We’d get a chance to see the real America, not just concrete. After about five hours on Route 5 going west through every Podunk little town in central New York, we said “Fuck this shit!” There’s a reason they built the Interstate system! At the pace we were going, we’d have hit the Pacific just in time to return to school — next year! We got onto the Thruway around Rochester and moved it up to the speed limit. We got to the chapter house at Case Western Reserve about eight in the evening.
I suppose Cleveland is a nice place. Certainly people live there. Still, you really have to wonder about a city where the river has a tendency to catch fire. I mean really, you use water to put out the fire, not to start one! The chapter house was not an auspicious start to the trip. There were two guys living there, and we met one as we pulled in the parking lot and he was leaving. “Hi, can I help you?”
Ricky flashed a smile at the guy. “Hey, how you doing? We’re from RPI in Troy, New York. Any chance we can spend the night?” He had on a Kegs shirt so the guy knew we were brothers.
“Yeah, sure. Welcome. Go on in. Wozinski’s in there. Let him know. I’m out of here for a few days. Nice to meet you.” Then he was in his car and leaving.
We glanced at each other and shrugged our shoulders, and then went inside. There was a single brother holding down the fort, Wozinski, and he was watching television and drinking a beer. That was it. He greeted us and grabbed a few beers and showed us where we could sleep, but that was it. He was the only guy around and not much of a talker. After a bit he left us to our own devices and went to bed. The three of us raided the fridge and had another beer, and decided to keep going the next day.
Northwestern, in Chicago, was a whole different story. If the trip had consisted of houses like the one in Cleveland, we could have turned around and had more fun in Troy. There were almost a dozen guys staying over the summer at the house at Northwestern, and they greeted us warmly! We spent the first night drinking and smoking, and then stayed on for another three days. We ended up swimming in Lake Michigan, which was a bit warmer than the polar bear club routine, but not by much, and hitting some bars and clubs downtown.
I remember comedian Bill Maher commenting when Barack Obama became President, that for the first time in ages we had a President from a place you would actually want to go to. Chicago was pretty cool. I had a headache and Ricky was totally hungover by the time a groaning Marty pulled onto the road towards St. Louis.
We stayed in St. Louis (Washington University) for a couple for nights, and then drove up to Des Moines (Drake University) for another couple of days. Lots of good barbecue and beer, dull as dishwater in some other ways. I mean, I know that’s where all our food comes from and that’s pretty important, but who the hell wants to live there? There’s just miles and miles of miles and miles! We consulted our map and list of colleges and decided to keep going west. It was about 700 miles to Denver. At normal highway speeds we could be there in nine or ten hours, easy. However, earlier that year the national speed limit was dropped to 55, because of the gas crisis. Trust the government to do something dramatic — and wrong! Now it was going to take us at least 13 or 14 hours. This was a massive waste of time and money, and dangerous to boot (you spent longer driving, so you had more chance of getting into an accident.) We left mid-afternoon and arrived in the early morning, after bypassing God only knows how many cow towns and hitting too many truck stops to pee and eat and gas up.