Fear and Loathing in

Grand Island

By Dr. G

It was summer 1973. My brother and I headed off on one of those free wheeling no schedule excursions that were so popular in the early seventies with people who had just missed the sixties. I had just recently made an investment that paid a significant profit, enough to last me at least a year; if I didn't blow it. We had also recently read Hunter Thompson’s "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and we thought that sort of a road trip sounded wonderful. Now Ric and I had no use for the lights and glitter of Las Vegas so we decided to check out the Rocky Mountians instead.

So we stocked up and packed our bags. It took a week to get the supplies we felt were required. We decided against a full-bore drug collection and opted instead for a selection of cannabis flavors. We had a half pound of chocolate flavored Columbian, three fat ounces of sweet Jamaican, half an ounce each of three kinds of hash and some hash oil. The oil was the only thing that worried me; one toke and you are wasted, two tokes and you forget your name, three tokes you forget how to hold the pipe. We had been sampling everything else and I knew we would be sampling it heavily before too long.

We started out from the coast of New England which is just about as far east as it is possible to get, so we knew it would be a bit of a drive just to get there. And there were the distractions. We would take every hitchhiker we picked up to their destination; no matter how far out of the way it was. And stone them heavily in the process. When they saw what had picked them up and caught a whiff of the aroma in the cab the hitchhikers would break into a huge grin, then inhale deeply and smile. It made a pleasant diversion to visit so many little towns and crash on the living room floor and hang until the sun went down. Usually it was too hot to drive in the afternoon so we would run from midnight to noon or so then sleep and go at it again. It was wonderful. One hitchhiker took us into Indianapolis during race week. "you gots to stay fer the day, I cin get you down inta centa field and you see more titties than Woodstock!" It was an offer we had to accept. We had a fist full of cash and ten weeks until my brother had to be back in school. We saw lots of county fairs along the way.

Eventually we made our way out of the east and into the heart of the country. Once we got out of Indiana we headed north with our sights set for Cody Wyoming, and Yellowstone National Park. Then down into Jackson’s Hole and the Grand Tetons. Along the way we stoned people from Terre Haute to Topeka. We stopped in Pawnee and in Omaha. We were looking for wild country, places without people. Lots of folks had suggestions to share with us after we had shared a bowl or two with them With our back packs and gear we were headed into the wildest country we could find in the lower 48. In my 1970 Landcruiser (2 door) I knew there was no dirt road that could stop me. Sometimes I had to get out the winch and pull my self through but I had not been stopped yet. I had found every road I could get to in New England and I wanted some new challenges. I had spent the past two years fording streams, climbing out of mud bogs and generally getting dirty every chance I got. I had put new tires on the truck before leaving and done every bit of maintenance I could think of.

So it came as a bit of a shock when just outside of Grand Island Nebraska the tachometer went to zero and the engine lost all power. I was coasting down the interstate at fifty-five miles an hour. The exit ramp for Grand Island almost slipped by as I pulled over and coasted up the ramp. At the end of the ramp was the stop sign. And just across that same road that intersected the ramp was the driveway for the Holliday Inn.

That particular model of Landcruiser has a curb weight of well in excess of four thousand pounds. We were packed with gear, fuel ,food, supplies, making a total closer to six thousand. There was no way on earth I was going to get out and push that sucker through that intersection.

I looked left, no traffic. I looked right, no traffic, this is Nebraska remember; and rolled straight through. I rolled into the first parking space in front of the hotel office just in time and wandered in.

I don't think I want to know what the clerk thought when she saw us. I'm sure she had seen "that kind" on television, marching in those silly demonstrations. But I am sure in her wildest dreams she never expected to see two genuine longhaired hippies come into her hotel. My brother was the more conservative of us. His hair only came to just over his shoulders. Mine ran to my belt. I always kept it in a ponytail but my hair is so wild you could tell even from the front. Matters were not helped by the full beard or the mirrored sunglasses. In dirty clothes, blue jeans and T-shirts, we needed showers and a change. We were also only partially coherent, we had been sampling the oil, again.

It had been more than a few days since Rick or I had carried on anything like a normal conversation. We had also developed a seeming tolerance to the effects of the oil and were able to take five or six hits before dropping the pipe. There were bound to be some problems. As I walked in the door it seemed a mile to the clerks desk and the surface of the carpet felt like some kind of mud flat. I remember thinking perhaps I should be wearing spiked shoes to get a better grip on this surface. By the time I got to the counter I felt like my feet had ten pounds of mud stuck to each shoe. The air conditioning was a tremendous shock to the system after the days of heat and sweat. I turned to my brother and he was staring glazed off at an empty space on the lobby wall. It was up to me to make the arrangements.

The young clerk did her best to communicate with me but there seemed to be some underlying uncertainty in her responses. This poor farm girl was befuddled in our conversations. There seems to be some terrible gap in comprehension between us. At times I wasn't sure we were speaking the same language. I was quite polite, and she was patient. Finally she managed to understand we wanted a room, two beds, air conditioning, and laundry service. I'm sure she had noticed that, perhaps she was even grateful that hippies would want to take a bath: it had after all been several days in the heat for us.

Some of her questions made no sense to me ( do you require our bowling service sir?)and there were more problems with concepts like "how long will you be staying with us sir?"

How could I tell, I hadn't opened the hood yet, for all I knew we could be gone tomorrow, or next week, how about I pay for three days and we talk about it later.

That was fine with her, which major credit card did I want to use. Another hurdle.

No major credit card, will my friend Ben do the job for me, how about this ?

I pulled a roll from my pocket and peeled off three hundred dollar bills and put them on the counter. She nodded as she stared at the wad of cash. I never did see how she marked the card we were registered under but I never had trouble at the bar, or housekeeping or laundry. The room number was mentioned and a quick signature will be fine sir.

We settled in to the room, got a smoke and Rick headed for the pool while I went back to the blinding heat and the truck to figure out what had happened. It took me ten minutes to find the problem with the truck. The distributor had failed, ground itself up and spit little pieces out. The drive end at the engine was fine, but the working mechanism had ground into the housing damaging it beyond repair.

The Landcruiser FJ40 as the two door models were officially named, were never a popular vehicle in America. That’s why they stopped importing them in the late eighties. Parts were never easy to find. Even dealerships had trouble getting parts. Nothing was manufactured in the USA and the boats are very slow. Parts were a problem, plain and simple. In the best of times, on home turf; and I was stuck in Cornville until I could produce the required component. There wasn't a Toyota dealer anywhere near here until I got to Colorado. Fortunately I had recently made the acquaintance of someone who worked in the Utah warehouse for Toyota. As the parts moved from the west they passed through this warehouse before distribution further east.

No my friend said there were none in stock. But yes, there was a shipment due in a few days. They were off loading the ship as we spoke; according to his computer.

And usually his computer was right. So I placed the order, gave him the hotel address and room number and assured him COD would be fine, please make it next day air as well.

That taken care of I settled down beside the pool to drink, heavily. My brother had already settled in and was not exactly coherent when I arrived. I looked at the empty Kamikaze glasses beside him and realized it would be a serious effort to catch up. I had the added burden of having hoovered a large joint before leaving the hotel room.

We put up the NO HOUSEKEEPING/DO NOT DISTURB sign from the first. We jammed towels under the door and smoked continuously from the moment we arrived. We had brought a decent supply of the best stuff we could find before we had left home and along the way when something unusually nice came along we made an effort to get samples, preferably ounce sized samples. And while we were here we got out the briefcase that carried the stash and sampled it at will. There were several ashtrays in the room overflowing with half smoked joints. We usually started before breakfast, say six in the morning or so, and that set the tone for the daze. We would start drinking around noon.

I don't know if you have ever been to Grand Island, but if you aren't a farmer or a fertilizer salesman there is not much to do. I found a bookstore in town, but it was twenty miles away, a bit too far to walk, but when I convinced the owner I wanted to buy five or six titles each in several categories, she was happy to deliver. So my brother and I sat by the pool, drinking and taking smoke breaks in the room on a regular basis. I would call, once a day to Salt Lake City: has the truck arrived, did my parts ship?

No.

Four days we sat by the pool in the sun; and the afternoon showers, and waited and drank. We would stagger into the room at least every hour and smoke our selves silly. One morning we staggered off to breakfast and forgot to put out the Do Not Disturb sign. When we got back it wasn't until after we sat down and reached for an ashtray that we realized the room we had been "visited". Every thing was immaculate. The beds were made with clean sheets. Our clothes were hung up and put away. The towels were new, it had been dusted and.......the ashtrays had been cleaned! We had left paraphernalia all over the room. Bags of weed and rolling papers, pipes, vials of hash oil and cash and everything everywhere. We began searching the room and just as we started to panic we noticed one ashtray in the bathroom, where she had carefully piled the buts from all the other ashtrays. In my shaving kit was the cash and the open bags of weed were in the drawer with the bible, the briefcase was closed on the desk; we were stunned. Then we saw the card, cleaned by Mary. How was my work? Rate me, you know; one of those cards. Well I called down to house keeping and I told them I wanted to thank Mary for the fine job she did and

"where was she right now."

She was cleaning one of the units on the other side, in the three hundreds.

Thank you.

We found her on the backside of the building pushing her cart to another room. Mary, it turns out has seen the city, and wanted to go back. But until her boyfriend got a better job they were stuck here. When I asked if she knew who I was she smiled,

"Every one 'round here knows about you and your brother".

She smiled again, she knew what I was asking.

"I tried that stuff in Omaha last summer. It's real hard to find around here so I kept one" she fumbled in her pocket and held out her hand with the remains of a smaller joint.

Not a problem I assured her. here is a tip,

I pressed a fifty into the same hand. She smiled again,

"I'd rather have a few more of these if you don' t mind"

Not a problem, I will request you be our only housekeeper.

She agreed that most of the other girls would not have been so thoughtful and understanding.

It was another two days before the parts arrived and I was able to complete repairs and fire up the beast and ready our selves for the next leg of our journey. We ceased drinking when I was notified the parts had shipped and when they arrived my brother began to roll joints while I completed the repairs. Five minutes later I was finished and as I packed the room he continued to roll, until thirty joints were piled in front of him. I knew we would smoke no more than half that in the course of a day so wondered what he had planned.

"What do you say we leave her a little tip" he said pushing about half the pile on to one of her "cleaned by" cards.

Looks good to me. We found Mary pushing her little cart in our direction. "They said you might be checking out today so I thought I'd better give your room a little extra effort" And we do appreciate it, please clean carefully around the bible, that where we left the tip. I did hear a little squeak just after she entered the room.

Checking out was not quite as much trouble as checking in. I hadn't been hitting the oil quite so hard and the lobby appeared normal this time. As rumored we were well known or at least much talked about around the hotel. We were greeted respectfully and presented with a significant bill. It appeared our bar tab exceeded to cost of the rooms, about double. I asked for an itemized bill and they produced a large pile of receipts with illegible scrawl on them. No point in prolonging this I thought and peeled several bills off the wad and put them on the counter. The clerk seemed surprised. I looked around and noticed several people sauntering out of the lobby. The assistant clerk put down the phone and every one looked away. Obviously the locals expected some kind of trouble but well-heeled hipsters was one they weren't used to. When they asked if I wanted a receipt I explained it would do me no good, there was no expense account to bill, it was all on me. Mary waved from the room as we pulled out of the parking lot and back down that great American highway to follow our particular dream to whatever end we discovered.