Each Morning I Wake Up
by Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.
First Episode:
5/24/24
Such a Long, Long Time to Be Gone
and a Short Time to Be Here
In 1969, there were no cell phones. If you were away from home, not in a hotel or motel, you contacted your loved ones using a pay phone. Some people used telegrams. That was it. Oh, you could write a letter . . .
So if an 18-year-old girl took off from her family home on a vacation, not only did she not need anyone's permission, she couldn't really get ahold of them easily to keep her folks updated on her adventures. And maybe she didn’t want to get ahold of them.
Maybe what she wanted to do was be unencumbered by the family responsibilities that were ingrained into her synapses. Maybe she wanted to live independent from her family and just do whatever SHE wanted to do, whenever SHE wanted to do it. Maybe she wanted to be on her own. Or perhaps it was something else.
But what Maude did was . . .
Hitchhike
She learned to hitchhike from her friend Renée. Maude and the pretty little blond girl would hitchhike over to the Chapman Avenue onramp of the Newport Freeway and from there down to Laguna Beach.
Renée was a flamboyant dresser and they got rides easily, spent the day at the beach, maybe did some shopping at the bead stores that proliferated in those wonderful times, and then hitchhiked back up to Orange. The scariest thing that ever happened was when the car they rode in attempted to receive a bag of potato chips from the people in another car, while they all went 65 on the freeway. That turned out okay and they all ate chips.
She and her friend Vicky bought tickets to a three-day music festival at Devonshire Downs in Northridge. They were to get a ride from Vicky’s older brother, but when Maude showed up at Vicky’s house to leave for the concert, Vicky had bad news. She couldn’t go. There was no ride. No concert.
Maude didn’t have a map and she had only the vaguest idea of where she was going, but she walked back to Chapman Avenue and put out her thumb.
With logistical and other material help from countless drivers, she got to the concert site. She had no supplies, no change of clothes, no plan, and not a lot of money. She was happy as a lark and free as that bird might be.
At the concert she met many lovely people, who helped her with a safe place to sleep, food, and good advice. She saw Jimi Hendrix. A couple of college boys who had driven up from San Diego offered to give her a ride home before they started on their big adventure – they planned to visit a friend in San Francisco, check out Stinson Beach, visit friends near Mount Tamalpais, camp in Yosemite National Park and Big Sur, and then finish up with a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. They invited her to join them, and she said, “Yes!”
She had her new friends park a block away from the house. She popped in through her bedroom window (that’s a whole other story) and grabbed a few things and stuffed them in a floppy bag. Telling her parents about her travel plans did not go well. They resisted fiercely, took her bag of clothes, and banished her to her room. Twenty seconds later she was back in the van of her new friends, Lorenzo and Jeremy, and off they went.
So if an 18-year-old girl took off from her family home on a vacation, not only did she not need anyone's permission, she couldn't really get ahold of them easily to keep her folks updated on her adventures. And maybe she didn’t want to get ahold of them.
Maybe what she wanted to do was be unencumbered by the family responsibilities that were ingrained into her synapses. Maybe she wanted to live independent from her family and just do whatever SHE wanted to do, whenever SHE wanted to do it. Maybe she wanted to be on her own. Or perhaps it was something else.
But what Maude did was . . .
Hitchhike
She learned to hitchhike from her friend Renée. Maude and the pretty little blond girl would hitchhike over to the Chapman Avenue onramp of the Newport Freeway and from there down to Laguna Beach.
Renée was a flamboyant dresser and they got rides easily, spent the day at the beach, maybe did some shopping at the bead stores that proliferated in those wonderful times, and then hitchhiked back up to Orange. The scariest thing that ever happened was when the car they rode in attempted to receive a bag of potato chips from the people in another car, while they all went 65 on the freeway. That turned out okay and they all ate chips.
She and her friend Vicky bought tickets to a three-day music festival at Devonshire Downs in Northridge. They were to get a ride from Vicky’s older brother, but when Maude showed up at Vicky’s house to leave for the concert, Vicky had bad news. She couldn’t go. There was no ride. No concert.
Maude didn’t have a map and she had only the vaguest idea of where she was going, but she walked back to Chapman Avenue and put out her thumb.
With logistical and other material help from countless drivers, she got to the concert site. She had no supplies, no change of clothes, no plan, and not a lot of money. She was happy as a lark and free as that bird might be.
At the concert she met many lovely people, who helped her with a safe place to sleep, food, and good advice. She saw Jimi Hendrix. A couple of college boys who had driven up from San Diego offered to give her a ride home before they started on their big adventure – they planned to visit a friend in San Francisco, check out Stinson Beach, visit friends near Mount Tamalpais, camp in Yosemite National Park and Big Sur, and then finish up with a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. They invited her to join them, and she said, “Yes!”
She had her new friends park a block away from the house. She popped in through her bedroom window (that’s a whole other story) and grabbed a few things and stuffed them in a floppy bag. Telling her parents about her travel plans did not go well. They resisted fiercely, took her bag of clothes, and banished her to her room. Twenty seconds later she was back in the van of her new friends, Lorenzo and Jeremy, and off they went.
Second Episode:
5/26/24
The City
They got up to San Francisco quicky, taking turns through the night driving and sleeping in the back of the van. Up and down the hilly streets of the city, astounding views of the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz Island were revealed. They went down a narrow alley and pulled into a parking place in a small dirt lot behind a giant house. Maude was surprised that they were visiting people who lived in an old rundown mansion.
They walked right through the back door without knocking, entering a hall with a series of doors on the left and the entry to a kitchen on the right. Laughing voices drew them into the large room.
One side of the room was all counters and large sunny windows. Along the other walls were an odd collection of appliances. An ancient, but clean, white electric Westinghouse stove sat next to a dirty olive-green gas range. There were several refrigerators. There were enormous cabinets.
In the center of the room, three young men in hippy garb sat in chairs at one end of a large wooden table. One of them jumped up and came to Lorenzo, arms open to deliver a welcoming hug. Greetings were had all around, coffee was made, and a doobie was torched.
After a few hours, the travelers were shown to rooms just across the hall – the many doors were the servants’ rooms from bygone days, each containing a bed, a nightstand, a freestanding dresser, and blessedly, a window.
Left alone in the little room, Maude inspected the bed. The sheets appeared to be clean, and she was dog-tired. She took off her clothes and slept in her underwear.
When she woke up a few hours later, she was refreshed but feeling grungy, so she sought out her host, Toby, and asked about a shower, a way to wash her clothes, and the possibility of borrowing some clothes.
Toby was a sweet young thing with long ragged blond hair, a beaded headband, bell-bottom pants and a tie-die shirt. His teeth were white and straight – he had a charismatic smile. “Let me give you a quick tour of the house and we’ll raid Tina’s closet.”
As he took her out to the front of the house, Maude could hear the high-pitched sound of a monotonous voice coming from one of the little bedrooms on her left, the last one. Maude glanced in as they passed the open door; there was a little man, clean shaven, sitting cross-legged on the bed, his hands resting on his knees, his eyes closed. He was repeating some phrase, rapidly. She couldn’t make out what it was and she looked at Toby, puzzled.
“He’s chanting ‘nam-myoho-renge-kyo’ to improve his luck,” Toby explained, with a grimace.
“He seems hysterical and yet numb. Droning, like a vegetable with a mouth.” she responded.
“No doubt,” he replied. “But he pays his rent on time.”
Then they opened the door at the end of the hall. They popped out from under some stairs into the entry of the home. It was not a large room, but it did have a rather grand front door and an elegant staircase. Large doorways opened into parlors on either side. All was dark and a bit musty smelling – unused. Large drapes hung in the windows, partially open with translucent white curtains blocking the view into the house from prying eyes.
Out the windows, Maude could vaguely see a small yard area separated from the sidewalk and street by a black wrought iron fence with spikey poles topping each metal palisade. She could hear faint traffic noises, muffled by hedges and trees in the narrow band of greenery.
They went up the stairs. Maude admired the elaborately decorated banister. At the top, Toby took out a large ring holding many keys and found one to unlock a padlock secured with a sturdy hasp crudely fixed to the door. “I have a lot of company coming and going – and I sometimes rent out those bedrooms downstairs . . . “ His voice trailed off.
Tina turned out to be Toby’s sister – out of the country traveling in Northern Africa. She was taking a train from Marrakesh to somewhere. The bras were too small and the pants were too large, but Maude looted some underwear, a swingy skirt, and a couple of blouses. Toby showed her where the shower was and took away her dirty clothes, promising to deliver them back to her, clean, by dinnertime.
Toweled off and refreshed, she went downstairs and found her friends in the kitchen, drinking beer and talking politics. They all lamented Nixon’s presidency. Soon the conversation turned to music, concerts they had attended, bands they had seen. The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Quicksilver Messenger Service wafted from record player, beer gave way to the harder stuff, and pot smoke roiled up in curls. Cigarettes were smoked.
Finally, Jeremy leaned forward and rested his head on the table and muttered, “Don’t we have to leave town tomorrow morning? Shouldn’t we be asleep by now?” and then passed out. All his friends, the old and the new, laughed and gathered the poor boy and carry/walked him to his bed.
Maude then realized that she didn’t have a toothbrush. Well, she thought, tomorrow is another day, Scarlet. That was from her mother, and she had a momentary pang, knowing that her mother objected to this trip. Oh well. I gotta live my own life. No, I GET to live my own life.
And so, to bed.
They walked right through the back door without knocking, entering a hall with a series of doors on the left and the entry to a kitchen on the right. Laughing voices drew them into the large room.
One side of the room was all counters and large sunny windows. Along the other walls were an odd collection of appliances. An ancient, but clean, white electric Westinghouse stove sat next to a dirty olive-green gas range. There were several refrigerators. There were enormous cabinets.
In the center of the room, three young men in hippy garb sat in chairs at one end of a large wooden table. One of them jumped up and came to Lorenzo, arms open to deliver a welcoming hug. Greetings were had all around, coffee was made, and a doobie was torched.
After a few hours, the travelers were shown to rooms just across the hall – the many doors were the servants’ rooms from bygone days, each containing a bed, a nightstand, a freestanding dresser, and blessedly, a window.
Left alone in the little room, Maude inspected the bed. The sheets appeared to be clean, and she was dog-tired. She took off her clothes and slept in her underwear.
When she woke up a few hours later, she was refreshed but feeling grungy, so she sought out her host, Toby, and asked about a shower, a way to wash her clothes, and the possibility of borrowing some clothes.
Toby was a sweet young thing with long ragged blond hair, a beaded headband, bell-bottom pants and a tie-die shirt. His teeth were white and straight – he had a charismatic smile. “Let me give you a quick tour of the house and we’ll raid Tina’s closet.”
As he took her out to the front of the house, Maude could hear the high-pitched sound of a monotonous voice coming from one of the little bedrooms on her left, the last one. Maude glanced in as they passed the open door; there was a little man, clean shaven, sitting cross-legged on the bed, his hands resting on his knees, his eyes closed. He was repeating some phrase, rapidly. She couldn’t make out what it was and she looked at Toby, puzzled.
“He’s chanting ‘nam-myoho-renge-kyo’ to improve his luck,” Toby explained, with a grimace.
“He seems hysterical and yet numb. Droning, like a vegetable with a mouth.” she responded.
“No doubt,” he replied. “But he pays his rent on time.”
Then they opened the door at the end of the hall. They popped out from under some stairs into the entry of the home. It was not a large room, but it did have a rather grand front door and an elegant staircase. Large doorways opened into parlors on either side. All was dark and a bit musty smelling – unused. Large drapes hung in the windows, partially open with translucent white curtains blocking the view into the house from prying eyes.
Out the windows, Maude could vaguely see a small yard area separated from the sidewalk and street by a black wrought iron fence with spikey poles topping each metal palisade. She could hear faint traffic noises, muffled by hedges and trees in the narrow band of greenery.
They went up the stairs. Maude admired the elaborately decorated banister. At the top, Toby took out a large ring holding many keys and found one to unlock a padlock secured with a sturdy hasp crudely fixed to the door. “I have a lot of company coming and going – and I sometimes rent out those bedrooms downstairs . . . “ His voice trailed off.
Tina turned out to be Toby’s sister – out of the country traveling in Northern Africa. She was taking a train from Marrakesh to somewhere. The bras were too small and the pants were too large, but Maude looted some underwear, a swingy skirt, and a couple of blouses. Toby showed her where the shower was and took away her dirty clothes, promising to deliver them back to her, clean, by dinnertime.
Toweled off and refreshed, she went downstairs and found her friends in the kitchen, drinking beer and talking politics. They all lamented Nixon’s presidency. Soon the conversation turned to music, concerts they had attended, bands they had seen. The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Quicksilver Messenger Service wafted from record player, beer gave way to the harder stuff, and pot smoke roiled up in curls. Cigarettes were smoked.
Finally, Jeremy leaned forward and rested his head on the table and muttered, “Don’t we have to leave town tomorrow morning? Shouldn’t we be asleep by now?” and then passed out. All his friends, the old and the new, laughed and gathered the poor boy and carry/walked him to his bed.
Maude then realized that she didn’t have a toothbrush. Well, she thought, tomorrow is another day, Scarlet. That was from her mother, and she had a momentary pang, knowing that her mother objected to this trip. Oh well. I gotta live my own life. No, I GET to live my own life.
And so, to bed.
Third Episode:
5/28/24
Heading North
Maude woke to the sound of an explosion of laughter. She smelled bacon. Sunshine beamed into the room through the window, a narrow slice of rays slipping through a gap between two apartment buildings in the adjacent lot.
She put on her new skirt, swung it around like a gypsy dancer, and composed a needs and wants list in her mind. Needs: a toothbrush, a lip gloss, and a better hairbrush. Wants: a pair of pants, better socks, and one more shirt. Oh – and a bag to put the stuff in. Or at least a paper bag.
She joined the cheerful crowd in the kitchen, Lorenzo, dreamily beautiful, as always, with curly dark hair framing a cherubic brown face, Jeremy looking like something the cat dragged in, Toby, flashing that great smile when he saw her, and two of Toby’s friends, whose names she could not recall. Ah, those tequila shots . . . She was just in time for bacon, eggs, biscuits (someone could cook!) and a bunch of bananas.
Toby opened the largest of the refrigerators. It was nearly empty; he took out a container of orange juice. He opened one of the voluminous cupboards to reveal dishware and glasses. From a set of twelve, he took out six small crystal glasses and poured orange juice for all. Maude noticed that the utensils at the table were not your usual flatware, they were ornately decorated silver-plated pieces, somewhat tarnished. The plates were decorated with flowers in the center, with what seemed to be real gold around the rims. Left-overs from a grander era.
The traveling trio did not dawdle. With little to pack, they were gone shortly after they had consumed the lovely meal. Toby hugged them all at the back door, reserving his longest and strongest embrace for Lorenzo. And they were off to do some shopping in San Francisco before heading north.
At a giant thrift store that looked to be built in the thirties, Maude found some socks, bell-bottom jeans in good condition (and they fit just so), an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse (very fetching), and a slightly tattered tan canvas bag stenciled in brown with the words “Ghirardelli – making chocolate since 1852.”
Their second stop was a giant restaurant supply business. Lorenzo knew a lot about San Francisco and the antique building fascinated Maude, its giant street-facing windows assembled from scores of smaller panes.
She was dismayed to learn that Lorenzo assumed she could cook and would want to shop for food supplies. She sadly informed him that beyond making a green salad, she didn’t know much about food preparation. So they wandered the aisles of the section devoted to items with long shelf-lives – rice, dried noodles, canned foods – and picked out some alphabet pasta and some rather large tins of soup and stew.
“What about a can-opener?” Maude suggested.
“I’ve got a pretty good set of cooking things for camping, including a can opener,” Lorenzo replied. “But I too am not much of a cook. I can make sandwiches.”
“Hey! I can make sandwiches too!” Maude explained. They both chuckled.
They met up with Jeremy at the checkstand. He had found a combination fork, knife, spoon tool. He gleefully demonstrated how you loosened a screw with a dime to twirl out the chosen utensil, and then tightened it back up to keep the thing sturdy while you ate.
Their final stop was a drug store, where Maude spent from her meagre supply of cash to get a cheap toothbrush and lip gloss. She decided a better hairbrush was not economically advisable; she would have to make do with the little plastic folding one that she kept in her small purse. Well, it was less a purse and more of a pouch, cinched shut with a long thin strip of leather. She carried her little satchel under one arm, with the cord around her neck. It was barely large enough for the hairbrush, some money, a lip gloss, and her ID.
By some magic, Lorenzo drove them through the Presidio along back streets. Maude was amazed that they were able to get into a military installation so easily, but Lorenzo knew some sideways through the city and this was one of them. They came out of the Presidio at the south foot of the Golden Gate Bridge and took a gravel road up to enter the queue of traffic, right at the beginning of the actual bridge. She looked back at the long line of traffic and smiled.
She put on her new skirt, swung it around like a gypsy dancer, and composed a needs and wants list in her mind. Needs: a toothbrush, a lip gloss, and a better hairbrush. Wants: a pair of pants, better socks, and one more shirt. Oh – and a bag to put the stuff in. Or at least a paper bag.
She joined the cheerful crowd in the kitchen, Lorenzo, dreamily beautiful, as always, with curly dark hair framing a cherubic brown face, Jeremy looking like something the cat dragged in, Toby, flashing that great smile when he saw her, and two of Toby’s friends, whose names she could not recall. Ah, those tequila shots . . . She was just in time for bacon, eggs, biscuits (someone could cook!) and a bunch of bananas.
Toby opened the largest of the refrigerators. It was nearly empty; he took out a container of orange juice. He opened one of the voluminous cupboards to reveal dishware and glasses. From a set of twelve, he took out six small crystal glasses and poured orange juice for all. Maude noticed that the utensils at the table were not your usual flatware, they were ornately decorated silver-plated pieces, somewhat tarnished. The plates were decorated with flowers in the center, with what seemed to be real gold around the rims. Left-overs from a grander era.
The traveling trio did not dawdle. With little to pack, they were gone shortly after they had consumed the lovely meal. Toby hugged them all at the back door, reserving his longest and strongest embrace for Lorenzo. And they were off to do some shopping in San Francisco before heading north.
At a giant thrift store that looked to be built in the thirties, Maude found some socks, bell-bottom jeans in good condition (and they fit just so), an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse (very fetching), and a slightly tattered tan canvas bag stenciled in brown with the words “Ghirardelli – making chocolate since 1852.”
Their second stop was a giant restaurant supply business. Lorenzo knew a lot about San Francisco and the antique building fascinated Maude, its giant street-facing windows assembled from scores of smaller panes.
She was dismayed to learn that Lorenzo assumed she could cook and would want to shop for food supplies. She sadly informed him that beyond making a green salad, she didn’t know much about food preparation. So they wandered the aisles of the section devoted to items with long shelf-lives – rice, dried noodles, canned foods – and picked out some alphabet pasta and some rather large tins of soup and stew.
“What about a can-opener?” Maude suggested.
“I’ve got a pretty good set of cooking things for camping, including a can opener,” Lorenzo replied. “But I too am not much of a cook. I can make sandwiches.”
“Hey! I can make sandwiches too!” Maude explained. They both chuckled.
They met up with Jeremy at the checkstand. He had found a combination fork, knife, spoon tool. He gleefully demonstrated how you loosened a screw with a dime to twirl out the chosen utensil, and then tightened it back up to keep the thing sturdy while you ate.
Their final stop was a drug store, where Maude spent from her meagre supply of cash to get a cheap toothbrush and lip gloss. She decided a better hairbrush was not economically advisable; she would have to make do with the little plastic folding one that she kept in her small purse. Well, it was less a purse and more of a pouch, cinched shut with a long thin strip of leather. She carried her little satchel under one arm, with the cord around her neck. It was barely large enough for the hairbrush, some money, a lip gloss, and her ID.
By some magic, Lorenzo drove them through the Presidio along back streets. Maude was amazed that they were able to get into a military installation so easily, but Lorenzo knew some sideways through the city and this was one of them. They came out of the Presidio at the south foot of the Golden Gate Bridge and took a gravel road up to enter the queue of traffic, right at the beginning of the actual bridge. She looked back at the long line of traffic and smiled.
