EmmJays Travel Journal

August 1970

I left Toronto in August 1970 on a greyhound bus headed for London, Ontario. It was a hot summers day and I was glad that the bus had air conditioning. We took on passengers in London and Windsor before approaching the border with Canada and the USA.

Detroit to Houston

After clearing immigration the bus was on its way to Detroit, also known as Motor City. The freeway cut through the city, and the cars looking more like aircraft carriers than cars, thundered by us. The cars had enormous fins and heaps of chrome work. We drove on to Chicago, also known as the Windy City. I was seated next to a boy from Chicago and for the next 4 hours we discussed everything from drugs to Beethoven. He was a really nice kid.

We stopped in Chicago for a rest break and I had a coffee and a ham sandwich. The terminal was filthy and there was litter everywhere. Whilst in the terminal a law officer asked me how old I was and he wanted to see ID. I think he was looking for run-aways. I showed him my IBM work ID and he disappeared as fast as he appeared.

The bus to St. Louis, Missouri was ready to leave, so I climbed on board. I slept until 6am and awoke to see thin white houses out of the window of the bus. The countryside, which was flat whizzed by as we made our way to Tulsa, Oklahoma. About 100 miles outside St Louis we saw the Springfield Army Recruiting Centre where the draftees had to report for military service. Most of these kids who did there training here were sent to Vietnam.

Houston, Texas

We motored on through Oklahoma to Texas. There was nothing to see as it was dark. I arrived in Houston at 11am and was met at the bus station by my friends Ginger and Margaret. We drove to La Porte where Ginger lived with her husband Gerry and their dog, Sugarfoot. Their house was very old and from the two front windows that faced a narrow dirt road there were two giant air conditioners. I was very glad to see these giant black boxes mounted in the front windows as the temperature outside was over 80F and the humidity was 90 plus. There were huge vacant lots covered in low shrub surrounding the house and nothing else for miles around. The people next door were raising a mountain lion cub for the local zoo. They also had an owl and a bobcat.

The next day we drove into Pasadena in an air conditioned aircraft carrier on rubber wheels. The shops opened at 10am and closed at 9pm. I saw watermelons for sale everywhere we went. Gerry told me that watermelons are known to grow up to 170lbs in Texas (everything is BIG in Texas!). We stopped at the San Jacinto Monument. It was a tall, slender white monolith that was built to commemorate the defeat of the Mexicans in 1835, which preempted the Alamo.

Claimed by some to be the eighth wonder of the world is the Houston Astrodome in downtown Houston. The dome is completely self supporting and it boasted a new wonder material on its playing field ... 'AstroTurf'... fake grass. On Saturday, August 22^nd, the Houston Oilers Football Team would be hosting the Minnesota Vikings. I was invited to the game by a Mexican chap who was a friend of Gerrys. How could I refuse such a generous offer. I loved it even though I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

We went downtown for pizza in a very large restaurant/bar where country music played non-stop. Everyone wore jeans, cowboy hats and boots. There was a sign by the front door that read 'Please leave your guns with the attendant before entering'. As I only had one weeks holiday that year I could only spend 4 days with my friends. At the house before I left, Gerry cooked up a huge batch of shrimp and we had a BBQ on my last day. Ginger and I spent time getting caught up on her family back in San Jose, California. I told her all about my adventures in Europe.

I said goodbye to everybody at the bus station and was on my way back to Canada. I sat next to Danny, a draft dodger who was on his way to Canada. When we reached Toronto he told me that he would be staying with a fellow draft dodger, Carlton from Ohio. I met up with them later and Carlton told me that he had spent 2 years in the stockade and was planning on returning to the US with Danny who was going to turn himself in. They both liked Canada but they had no money and could not get a job. I never heard from them again.