The Road To San Diego

The Road to San Diego

My mom woke me up before school. “Sam,” she said in a somber tone, “Mr. Kalan died last night.”

Mr. Kalan, commonly known as Big Steve, lived directly across the alley from us. His firstborn son, Steve Jr., and I had the same birthday, October 29, 1948, and we were good friends. I was stunned and somewhat speechless.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“He was bowling and collapsed. He had a massive heart attack. The funeral is Wednesday.”

Big Steve had been a sales representative for a bacon company. I later wondered if bacon was not only a source of his livelihood but also of his demise.

A seemingly endless parade of friends and neighbors flocked to the Kalans’ house to bring plates of food, as if the bereaved family hadn’t suffered enough already. There were casseroles and all manner of desserts, so my visits to see Steve Jr. during this time always involved eating. It seemed odd to me that death would lead to such a feeding frenzy.

I was bewildered at the ease with which Steve adjusted to his father’s death. Big Steve had been a strict disciplinarian. The Kalans had a willow tree in their backyard, and, when one of the boys acted up, Big Steve sent them out back to select a branch for whipping. Steve’s uncle arranged for Steve, his mom, older sister, and younger brother to move to San Diego. When Steve told me that his uncle had stepped up and financed the family’s move to the west coast, I wondered if he had a willow tree in his backyard.

Steve and I had been good friends, so, naturally, I missed hanging out with him. We exchanged letters, and Steve encouraged me to visit him in San Diego. He told me he lived two blocks from the beach and would let me use his surfboard. I knew that my mom and dad wouldn’t understand and couldn’t fund a trip to San Diego, so I woke up one Saturday morning to an empty house and made the hasty decision to hitchhike to California. I grabbed my duffle bag out of the closet and filled it with clothes and took off down Quaker Avenue with my thumb in the air. Before long I was standing beside the Brownfield Highway headed west.

Texans were friendly and gave me rides one after another. I soon was on the road to Clovis, New Mexico, where I hooked up with the famed Route 66, a two-lane road at the time. I knew about the highway because of the television series Route 66, starring Martin Milner and George Maharis, about two young men with a thirst for adventure who drove from Chicago and Los Angeles in their Corvette and did odd jobs along the way. Clearly, they made an impression on me.

From Clovis I hitchhiked to the eastern edge of Albuquerque. It was dark and I was tired, so I found a closed gas station with an unlocked bathroom in the rear and slept on the floor until dawn. In the morning, I continued to walk west with my thumb in the air until I was past the Albuquerque city limits. I could see the city lights stretch for miles behind me as I continued west.

Eventually, a man picked me up in Tucumcari, New Mexico. He let me sleep on his couch for the night before I continued on my voyage. In the morning I continued to thumb my way through New Mexico and Arizona until a driver of an eighteen wheeler picked me up somewhere in Arizona and took me into California. As we descended into the Los Angeles basin at night, I was dazzled by the endless blanket of lights and the curious aroma in the air.

“What’s that smell?” I asked.

“Orange blossoms,” he replied.

I had never before smelled anything so sweet. He dropped me off on a freeway on-ramp, and I continued my way toward San Diego on Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

I made it all the way to Huntington Beach before a police car pulled up and asked me for identification. I was considered a runaway because of my age, so the officer took me to the police station and put me in a holding cell while he made a phone call to the Kalans. Steve and his older sister, Gerri, picked me up in their family’s 1957 Chevy station wagon and drove me to Mission Beach.

“How long did it take you to get here?” Gerri asked.

“Two days.”

“You’re kidding! That’s how long it took us to drive here.”

I was beginning to realize how amazingly lucky and mobile I was.

After we ate breakfast the next morning, the Kalan kids went to school, and I went to the beach to surf small waves and sunbathe until everybody came home from school in the afternoon. I wasn’t very popular with the local surfers, but they didn’t challenge me unless their girlfriends found me interesting. I would have loved to continue my stay with the Kalans, but feeding an extra teenager stretched the family budget. Mrs. Kalan eventually made a phone call to Lubbock, and my mom and dad wired bus fare and drew my first California adventure to a halt.

My achievement in hitchhiking to San Diego did nothing but excite and inspire me. I left my home in Lubbock with pocket change and traveled hundreds of miles on a shoestring, and, aside from the one police officer, nobody objected or stood in my way. I was helped by the kindness of strangers who admired my gutsy spirit. Emboldened by my adventure, I soon learned how to hop freight trains.