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Old 01-21-2021, 03:42 PM   #1
Teach
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 4,031
“1,000 Miles from Beantown.”

I’m riding south. Trailways bus. Day turns into night; night turns into day. It’s like being in a Vegas casino; time has become meaningless. I’m fleeing reality. I’m escaping. No, I’m not “on the lam.” There’s no APB (although a Delray Beach cop would call one in).

Although I was born in Syracuse, NY, I lived much of my early life in the city of Boston. I grew up there on its streets and playgrounds. My friends and I would play city-games like stick-ball, box ball and handball. We played touch football in the street (I once ran into a parked car). We played basketball in schoolyards. I went to high school there. I went to college there. My first teaching job was there. I met my wife there.

But, like many of us (not just “city kids”) I went through some trying times (I have no monopoly on this). Sometimes life throws us curves. When I was a teen-ager, my parents split. We never lived in “the lap of luxury,” even when they were together. Yet we were “comfortable.” Now, my mother, younger brother and I are “pinching pennies.”

Where I probably could have lived in a college dorm if my parents had stayed together, I was then a commuter- student. I’d buy all my books used. One summer, I was workin’ between 65 and 70 hours a week. A porter at Boston’s Gilchrist’s Dept. Store and after work and on weekends, I’m a clerk at a local drug store (No “hearts and flowers,” no “crocodile tears”. It is what it is).

As I’m about to enter my senior year in 1963, I’m runnin’ out of money. I’m, as they say, financially embarrassed. Part of it had to do with gambling. I was to blame for my own predicament. College tuition each year keeps going up, only I was continuing to “tread water.” Each increase made it that much more difficult. I thought I could gamble my way to the bursar’s office. Not!

In a nutshell, I was frantic. I decided to take a semester off. That’s when I started getting static, not only from my parents (my father had re-married and lived about a mile away), but from neighbors in the apartment building where we lived in. “Oh, you were doing so well. You have such a bright future. I’m sure your parents had high hopes for you.” All these comments are like slicing your finger open on the lid of a tin can. Ouch!

I had during that fall of ‘63 been working at a Brigham’s store (ice cream, light lunches, etc.). Yet the whole thing was wearing on me. I just couldn’t take it any longer.

One day, I call both Greyhound and Trailways. Trailways was cheaper. I bought a one-way ticket (as I recall it was about $45). I bought the one-way ticket because I needed gambling money (And to think I’d skip lunch to have gambling money, or go without haircuts. But this trip was taking my obsession to an extreme).

It’s early-December, 1963. When I left Boston’s Park Square bus terminal, there were snow flurries in the air. Minute after minute, hour after hour, we’re wending our way south: Hartford, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington. I was becoming numb. Anesthetized. Everything was becoming a blur. Ever try sleeping with your head pressed against the window? Impossible! The slightest jar or jolt would wake me up. We’re now in Virginia, then the Carolinas. Georgia. I’m beginning to see Stucky’s Pecan and Piggly-Wiggly signs.

Finally after 35 MF hours, I arrive in Miami. It’s 5 a.m. I’m totally exhausted. I’m a zombie. There’s a hotel nearby. I believe it was called the Ponce de Leon. As soon as I hit the bed, I’m sleeping. I wake up six hours later.

What do I do know? One of my first thoughts was Pompano Park. Maybe I can get a job there? It’s then that I learn that the track won’t open for two months (February, 1964). I don’t have that kind of time.

I start hitchhiking north. I get a ride to a motel not far from Hollywood Dog Track in Hallandale (It’s just up Route #1 from Gulfstream Park). I check in. $5 a night, plus tax. I soon cross Route #1 to a Breedings Drug Store. I remember buying a large bottle of Coke and a can of peanuts. That’s lunch. I also get a greyhound program.

As I swig down the Coke and munch on the peanuts, I’m studying the form as if I’m studying for a final exam. I nod off. I wake up in time to walk over to the dog track.

I bet the first race, $2 win. Why didn’t I send it in? The pup pays $7.20. Instead of sirloin steak, French fries, a “veggie” and a cold beer, with key lime pie or pie a la mode and a piping hot cup of coffee for dessert, I have to settle for a burger, fries and a soda. Yet from there, it all goes down-hill. I ended up dropping about $20 bucks. I’ve got about $35 dollars left in my pocket. I’m panicking. I’m over 1,000 miles from Beantown, and I can’t even afford a bus ticket home.

The next morning, I’m up and checking on a bus that takes me to Miami, only I’m not going all the way to Miami. I’m getting off north of Miami at Route #934. It’s two or three miles west to Hialeah Park. I start walking. To add to my woes, I had recently bought some new shoes (in a day and age before everyone wore sneakers). What a jerk I am! My feet are bleeding. The blood is coming through my socks. I make it to Hialeah. I make a few bets. Nada! Nothing! Nihil! All I remember was the “Dance of the Flamingoes” in the infield. Oh, I recall betting a horse named Cooperstown. As Simon and Garfunkle would sing, “I’m slip-sliding away.” I’m down to about $25 bucks. I catch a bus in front of the track that takes me to Hollywood Dog Track.

At Hollywood, it’s another hopeless exercise in futility. It’s my rendition of a dog race, “Ruff, ruff…I lost!” I’m now down to about “a saw buck.” I walk back to the motel. I’m restless. I can’t sleep. I get up. I get dressed. I pack up my small suitcase. I begin “thumbing” north. It’s about 1 or 2 a.m. I get two short rides. I’m now in Delray Beach. A cop stops me. “Get in the cruiser. Where you heading?” “Boston,” I say. He calls in an APB. No one’s looking for me, not even my parents. I recall the cop telling me he’s originally from Providence, RI. In any event, he leaves me off at the Boynton Beach line. About five minutes later I get another ride.

This guy in a Cadillac stops. “Where ya goin?” he asks. “Boston,” I say. “Can’t take you that far,” he says. He adds, “But I can get you as far as Jacksonville.” I hop in. The 300-mile ride to Jacksonville took about six hours.

Along the way, this guy - I’d put him in his mid-30’s - is talking about boxing. We carry on an enjoyable conversation. I tell him that I used to listen to the fights on the radio with my father. We’d later watch the Gillette Friday Night fights (Cavalcade of Sports).

During the course of our conversation, I tell the guy that my favorite fighter was Canastota, NY’s (just east of Syracuse) Carmen Basilio. We talked about Basilio’s fights with “Sugar Ray” Robinson. I remember that we talked about Joe Louis, Willie Pep, Rocky Marciano, etc. The time flew by. Before I knew it, we had reached Jacksonville. It was about 10 a.m. I remember looking up at the temperature on the nearby bank façade; it read 32 degrees.

Once inside, I had a decision to make. I could continue “thumbing” north. I could “wire” for money. Or I could talk to my father about getting in touch with his new wife’s sister who lived just outside Jacksonville. I chose the latter. My father gave me his sister-in-law’s number. I called her. I explained who I was. She would pick me up at the bus terminal. I stayed overnight with her, her husband and their children. The next morning she took me to the JAX bus terminal. She gave me $40 for the trip back to Boston.

The trip back was as tedious and boring as the trip down, save for the fact that I saw slot machines for the first time in Maryland. When I finally arrived home, I vowed that I’d never take a bus ride that would take more than a half- hour. I may have broken that pledge when I rode on a bus back and forth on the Las Vegas “Strip” between Fremont St. downtown and Caesars Palace.

As for going over “1,000 miles from Beantown” to gamble. Yes, I have done that. Several times to Las Vegas. Once to Reno. Twice to Aruba. Once to Bonita Springs (My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were renting on Sanibel Island). And close to one-thousand miles when I gambled at Par-A-Dice in E. Peoria, IL and the Grand Victoria in Elgin, IL.

Finally, one thing is for sure, definitely. I’ll never again buy a one-way ticket.
__________________
Walt (Teach)

"Walt, make a 'mental bet' and lose your mind." R.N.S.

"The important thing is what I think of myself."
"David and Lisa" (1962)












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