Mike and I and the Great Adventure

By Samuel David

This story is based on two runaway young boys who in 1968 manage to spend an equivalent in today’s money 210,000 dollars in a few short weeks. It is a true story and tells how they started out to do one thing, then fate intervened, and the adventure took on a completely different direction. All the names used in this book were changed for protection of those still living. However, the events as told did happen and there is proof in newspaper clippings from the period where they were caught. Some of the news stories made the front-page in some cities.
It also involves two girls that are also runaways. They with the two boys traverse the country and enjoy many of the popular vacation destinations and resorts of this period.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samuel David
• Release date: Aug 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311882035

Samuel David

Samuel David is retired from the computer industry and lives in South Texas. His interest in end times spans over a half a century. Frustration with end time books and a dream ten years ago has resulted in the release of this series of books. In collaboration with Paster Robert Lee, all six books were updated to reflect the times we live in. Sam started this project 12 years ago and is the principal writer of these books.

Book preview

This story is based on two young teenage boys who in the summer of 1968, manage to spend an equivalent in today’s money, 210,000 dollars in a few short weeks, after they ran away. This is a true story, which tells how they left Kansas City for Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco, and then fate intervened, as the adventure took on a completely different direction.

In the 50’s they are baby boomers and by the time they were teenagers in the 60’s, juvenile delinquents. However, not violent; just knew how to manipulate the system. Therefore, it made sense that they would join the thousands of others in 1968 and dropout. However, they dropped in…not out…into high dollar resorts and luxury hotels. Follow their activities as they travel around the country and Mexico, living the life.

It also involves two young female runaways. They with the two boys pull off one the most amazing trips ever taken. The Military, the FBI, several states, and then Mexican officials are looking for them. However, somehow they elude them all.

They were finally caught in Chicago Illinois at the end of August 1968, during the time of the controversial Democratic Convention that year. When they were caught, investigators found a plastic bag the girls had kept the hotel keys in as souvenirs. There were 32 different hotel keys and airline tickets for 31 different flights, most first class.

Enjoy, Samuel David. Author

Chapter 1, A True Story; Children in the 50’s - 60’s

This book is a true story. Everything described in this book happened. This story takes place between January 1965 and ends in August of 1968. This time period is called ‘Summer of Love Years’, the hippie days, the time of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, free love, bell-bottoms, colorful printed shirts, and of course long hair. When the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show in February 1964, the next day everyone it seemed now combed their hair straight down instead straight back. The Beatles were in and Elvis was out, however, not for me.

Very non-conformist we were as teenagers and young adults. The Beatles, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Mama and the Poppas, to name a few, fueled this time period and made it a turning point in American Pop Culture. The new drug culture, runaways, Vietnam deserters, draft evaders, protesting by college students over the war and of course Civil Rights. This time period was a turning point in the cultural history of America.

Figure 1 - Nuclear Attack Drill 1950s

We were reeling from the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the cold war, and nuclear annihilation. In grade school in the 50’s, we practiced Tornado and Nuclear Attack drills. If a bomb had been dropped, archaeologist would have found kids in the position of heads down and arms folded over their heads. Not much protection there for sure, but we participated. We thought of this drill as necessary, for the bomb was a serious threat to our existence.

As earlier stated, this is a real-life story with actual participants whom somehow ended up in this period as actual partakers in our country’s history, at least as observers. Whenever I tell my children I was in Haight-Ashbury in 1968 as a runaway, they just look at me as if I am insane. Then I tell them we were in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention and watched the protest and the famous Grant Park riots. At this point, they concluded we were crazy I suppose, but we were there, as many other young people of our time. What we were labeled or called during this time was ‘dropouts’. This means we dropped out of society and its rules…especially, its rules.

What I mean by ‘we’ is I had a co-conspirator with me who shared in this great adventure, along with two others later on. However, to protect the innocent, I am going to call him Mike instead of his real name.

Just so, you know I have considered having this written for several years but ‘Mike’ would not have been too happy if I did; he just wanted it forever hidden. However, just before he passed away, I told him I was going to get a ghostwriter and write our story. He stated to me I should make sure he was dead before I did. Therefore, I have waited. In addition, his children have always asked me what we did, for they never really knew the whole story. I told them after their dad passed I would have it written.

Figure 2 Chicago Riots

With this in mind as we write the story, I still will be using different names for the characters including my own. Therefore, I will just use Sam for my identity. However, I am not concerned one way or another, for those who know me will figure it out anyway.

The crux of this story is in a very short period, we spent over thirty thousand dollars in 1968. Today with inflation this equates out to, we spent about two hundred and ten thousand dollars. Alternatively, close to a quarter of a million. Just imagine, in today’s world spending a quarter of a million dollars in less than forty-five days. Then get away with it…well…almost.

For those who think this story is fictitious, I refer you to the Kansas City Star September 1968, New York Times, and The Chicago Sun Times along with other newspapers. It was a good story then and a better one now.

How the system allowed us to do this, I never will really know. However, somehow, someway, we did it. I can remember several times when we thought we would be caught, but we never were caught at least during the adventure. We found out later the FBI and several states were looking for us and were tracking our movements across the Border and State Lines. Each of our parents had issued missing persons reports on us and of course, the Navy was looking for Mike. The girls were also probation violators, as I was.

If this same situation would have occurred in today’s world, the charges would have mounted up according to legal sources we told the story too. The minimum charges would have been;

Bad check writing

Defrauding an Innkeeper

Grand theft by deceit of a vehicle

Interstate flight

Underage drinking

Use of a fake ID

Use of a fake Military ID for financial gain

In addition, Mike and Elizabeth could have been charged with;

Transporting minors across state lines

Providing alcohol to a minor

Both Mike and Liz were 18 and considered adults whereas Elizabeth and me were 16 and there was sex involved. However, this was 1968 not 2015 and the authorities looked the other way and once again, I can say we were very lucky.

However, in spite of these possible charges, if three of us had just quit and went home then stayed home when one of our group dropped out, it would have been over. Three of us would have walked away unscathed other than a few hand slaps. However, it did not end that way. Later in the story, you will see how this whole trip ended.

Now, if you have ever as a teenager dreamed of being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, well we did too. Obviously, we were not born into privilege, or as many call it ‘The Lucky Sperm Club’, as most are not. However, for a short period of our young lives, two boys aged sixteen and eighteen lived the life as if they were related to the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, and so on. The best food, the best hotels, great women, and flying in some cases, first class all over the country.

The setup for this was simple; at this time in our country’s, history, the rules for children and young adolescences were somewhat different than today. We were labeled as Baby Boomers, which cover most children born between 1946 through 1964. Both Mike and I were born at mid-century or at the beginning of the Baby Boom post war America.

Baby Boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of better education, and increasing affluence.

As a group, we were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to this time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to become a better place. We were also the generation whom received higher levels of income; abundant levels of food, clothing and medical treatment. Historians claim we tended to think of ourselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as we became teenagers and young adults, we rebelled, and then changed the world, as we know it.

This was also the time of the Great American expansion or the rise of the middle class. This also was the time of the Cold War, the utilization of Television in lieu of radio for home entertainment. Mike and I are as the other children who grew up in the 50s, then, high school in the 60’s. Therefore, we as them were a product of our environment. We rebelled, but then we had a reason to do so. This is also called the Vietnam generation. Unlike World War II, our grandparents participated in; ‘The Vietnam War’ was quite unpopular. No one seemed to understand why we were in the war and what the result would be. Some 50 years later, Americans still ask these same questions. Many of us feared the draft for many of us in the 1960’s had friends never return. It was live while you can attitude then, and we did.

Does this mean our environment was an excuse for our behavior? Absolutely not, but it did contribute to our rebellious nature.

After World War II for our young parents, jobs were sufficient for the most part, and the economy was growing. In 1955, Americans purchased 7.9 million cars in the US with seven out of ten families now owning a motor car. The average income was $3,851 per year, and the minimum wage was raised to $1.00 per hour. The first cans of Coca-Cola are sold, for up until then it had only been sold in bottles. Rock and Roll music continued to grow in popularity with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, The Platters and many more. Young men's fashion matches the times with pink shirts and charcoal grey suits. Disneyland in Anaheim California opened. Cities started a new shopping experience called the mall, where later as teenagers we hung out.

Our parents ‘had the life’ compared to their parents. Our parents of the 50’s had grown up during the depression and their life was very different from their parents or our grandparents. As my parents told me, when they were younger there was never money for anything and sometimes food was scarce. There was not much of a middle class then and life was hard. However, after World War II, there was a change in the system and with mothers, working at war factories now providing two incomes the economy was booming. By the time our parents were in their late teens, America was changing for the better.

In the 1950’s, alcohol flowed freely. Charges for a DWI or a DUI were only enforced in extreme cases, and it was rarely a problem. More often than not, the Police would follow you home or drive you home. The attorneys were not making any big bucks then off these cases. My grandfather kept a bottle of vodka under the seat of the car and drank it daily. At work, on the way home and whenever he felt like he needed a boost. Moreover, it seemed everyone drank a lot, even in the movies. Actors were always having cocktails, champagne, or some alcoholic drink. In today’s world, many of our parents and grandparents would be considered ‘legally intoxicated’ or too drunk to drive and this was just about every Saturday night, for almost everyone went out.

When they did not go out, popular drinking parties were weekend barbeques, and the basement recreation room. This was a new space for recreation the previous generation did not have. Pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, wet bars, and of course the stereo system. The BBQ grills on the covered aluminum patios and recreation rooms in the basements were new additions to the families of the 50’s and 60’s.

The bars were full; live bands, dancing Thursday through Saturday night, and new cocktails were being invented for consumers to lure them into the bars. There was no fear of a DUI, DWI and so many went out. Parents whom could not afford a baby sitter took their kids with them. When I was ten, I was at the Crossroads bar in Kansas City sitting by the piano player, Fats Domino as he played. I was not alone, for there was always a kid or two at the bars. My grandparents went to the bar every weekend at the Eagles Club where she played the piano. I went almost every weekend with them when they were my baby sitter.

Now, regarding beer, since 12, someone would give me one at either a BBQ, or some party that was being held. The dad of a friend of mine was a big beer drinker and when we were over at his house, my friend and I would usually split a six-pack he gave us. Well…so did others too, it was just a different world.

In addition, everyone and I mean everyone smoked. They smoked in the house, in the cars, in the restaurants, in the bars, on the bus, the office, the factory floor, and so on. At 25 cents a pack, it was a good deal at the time. The politicians had not yet taken hold of the sin taxes. They were sold in machines, so teenagers and even those younger could just put a quarter in and get a pack of Camels. In grade school, I knew at least two people who smoked on the way to school. We were only ten at the time.

Figure 3 1958 Ford Fairlane 500

Well…every one of us is a product of our environment. Well what is the old saying, ‘monkey see monkey do’? This is what many of us Baby Boomer kids did as teenagers, then as adults later on.

As Baby Boomers, our schools were bursting at the seams. I cannot remember being in a class with less than 30 kids in it. More often, it was closer to 33-35. By the time I reached High School, we held classes in the auditorium, in the hallways, in the school atrium and anywhere else; they could put 30 desks in a row.

We played kickball on the playground, four square, and baseball. Over 90 percent came to school via the transportation called walking. Moreover, yes in the snow, in the rain, in the cold and so on. We had bright yellow slickers for rain, galoshes for snow, and coats that would be acceptable in Alaska. Dress code was a collared shirt, tucked in, and hard-soled shoes. They did allow jeans but I was required to wear slacks most of the time by my parents. Hair had to be above the ears. Look at pictures from the mid-fifties and see how many kids had bowl haircuts. Saturdays were packed at the Barber College keeping the hair in check.

Figure 4 1950's Grade School Class

The schools were strict and I mean strict. In one situation, my mother was brought to the school from work to deal with my most recent transgression on the school rules. The infraction was tucking my shirt in. Well…I can tell you I tried but no matter how hard I tried, my shirt would come out and hang out at the back. She then pinned the back of the shirt to the inside of my pants. Guess what may have happened? However, I found out later in life when I became successful this problem persisted. I then had my shirts tailored and the problem went away. The problem then as now is simply my torso was too long. In today’s world, this transgression by the teachers would have hit Facebook, Twitter, then NBC, ABC, and so on. The teachers, the principal and probably a school board member or two would be looking for a job. However, not then, this was the way it was.

Figure 5 Barber College Cheap Haircuts

The girls wore dresses, and had to remove the slacks in the winter during the school day. Behind the blackboards, we had coatrooms where we stored our winter clothing and for many of us, our lunches. The heat was on and many had lunchmeat sandwiches. How we ate the warm greasy lunchmeat, I will never know. It was awful.

Some bought their lunch; but it was worse than the lukewarm baloney. I became very fond of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and boiled eggs. I refused any sack lunches after a time with baloney, processed ham, or olive loaf! However, no matter who you were, you had to drink your milk. More often than not, it was lukewarm. To this day, I will not drink milk. It was only 3 cents a carton and terrible.

Bad grades, shirts not tucked in, farting, talking, homework not completed, smelly, and breathing heavily were subject to discipline. Well yes, it is true, break the rules and get few whacks by the principal, then go home and get the crap beat out of you. At my grade school, the principal was a woman, so the gym teacher delved out the punishment. We did not have any ACLU in those days. If we did then over half of the parents, and teachers in this decade of the 50’s would be in jail for child abuse. They had ironclad control of the schools and the teachers kept most of us under tight controls. It was Orwell’s 1984 from Kindergarten until High School Graduation.

In those days, we had no soccer moms, for most had only one car per family. If both parents worked, they drove each other to work, and waited until the other with the car came and picked them up. In some cases one drove, the other took the bus. Therefore, organized sports, after school activities were for a select few of the rich kids who lived in the rich part of the city. Or what some refer to as, the ‘Lucky Sperm Club’!

Our entertainment in spring, summer, fall, and winter were our bikes, toy guns, and our imagination. We played outside Cowboys and Indians, Army, or maybe Tonka Trucks. We made homemade go-carts, using old wood, orange crates and old roller skates. If we were inside, we played board games, Tinker Toys and some TV. Cartoons started Saturday morning at 5:00 AM until about 11; all three channels carried our favorites, channels 4, 5, and 9. Cereal and candy commercials abounded. We wanted all of the sugary cereals and snacks. Parents were usually asleep then.

Our chief means of spending money was pop bottles and for the fortunate few, allowance. A friend of mine Glen, and I one summer cornered the market on pop bottles. We roamed the neighborhood looking on people’s porches, trash and in some case knocking on doors for pop bottles. Yes in some cases, we took them unauthorized, if they were left on the back porch.

At 2 cents each, a quarter for a case carrier, a nickel for a six-pack carrier, or a nickel for a quart bottle, we could on some days make up to two dollars. Every cent we earned was spent at the corner grocery store, at the penny candy counter. The summer of 1961 was a banner year for our profits. We had every girl in the neighborhood chasing us for candy. For a candy lipstick,