On the Road to Find Out

By Robert C. Brewster

On the road to find out is a thought-provoking memory emoting read for a generation that lived it and for those younger and wise enough to want to discover what it was like to live in the moment.  It is rooted in the time period of 1967 to 1974 and unfolds mainly in the seaside resort town of Wildwood New Jersey.  It’s a story of heartbreak and discovery.  It’s a wild ride through America as seen through the eyes of this young Canadian, as he digs deep inside his self, in the hopes of recapturing the one thing he lost and means everything to him, true love.  The people and situations in it are real and unfolded as I and others remembered them.  Though it reads like fiction, the story is true in every sense.  It is a photographic memory of a special time and place that screamed to be documented. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert C. Brewster
• Release date: Jan 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781497476257

Robert C. Brewster

Robert C. Brewster is the author of six previous fiction novels. There is also a non-fiction account of his time spending summers along the New Jersey shore in the late sixties and early seventies, called: 'On the road to find out.'  He is a writer/film actor/voice character specialist and lives with his wife Kim and daughter Britany and son Kristy in St. Sauveur des Monts, Quebec, Canada.  

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ROBERT C. BREWSTER

(C) 2014 ROBERT C. BREWSTER

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ALSO BY ROBERT C. BREWSTER

FICTION

A MOMENT OF CLARITY

NO BORDERS NO BOUNDARIES

DECEIT DECEPTION AND DELIVERANCE

LIGHT UP THE WORLD

GENTLEMEN AND PIGS

I love hearing from my readers.  Please visit

www.robertcbrewster.com

and leave me a message.

Kindle Direct Publishing in 2014 by Robert C. Brewster

Copyright © Text Robert C. Brewster

First Edition

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All Rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author.

This is not a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are not the product of the author’s imagination.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.

This book is dedicated to the loving memories of:

Larry ‘The Groper’ Mosher

Pete Savard

Wayne Muller

Elliot Shatsky

Michael Caron

Doug Lukian

Rick Lawand

Andy K

Daniel Lussier

Linda Saab

Eddie Franchville- Shorty- Pollack Eddie

...

And of course to my wife Kim, my son Kristy and my daughter Britany

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I could not have written this without the assistance and memories of, Ron Hipson, Jennifer Jackson, Errol Rubin, Eric Bell, Andre Richard, Jade Hemeon, Rick Stiebel, Gail MacDonald, Dyanne Lawand, Tommy Edge, Kathy Singer Savard, Tina & Drew Christy, Scott Hand, Larry Mosher, Robert Vairo, June Angus.  And last but not least to ‘Little Red’ who my memories of you, helped inspire me to write this book.

Book cover courtesy of Daniel Cianfarra  www.dcianfarra.com

PART ONE

-A time of hope

1967-1969

WILDWOOD NEW JERSEY, JUNE 9TH, 1969

It was the east coasts, Summer of Love though none of us knew it yet.  It would also be the summer of a lot of other incredible firsts.  I was nineteen years old and had just finished high school, barely.  I’ll save you doing the math; I was on the six- year plan.  In eighth grade, I was done in by ‘Latin’ and ‘French’ and my thirteen -year -old hormones and testosterone running wild.  I was educated in the Catholic school system in Canada by an order of Jesuit Brothers from the United States.  So now you understand why ‘Latin’ was such an important subject and could be the difference between moving on to the ninth grade, or not.  I mean it was nineteen sixty-three, and I was thirteen years old.  I had already lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, where all us seventh graders had to practice hiding under our school desks, whenever we heard the sirens that were located on most government-owned buildings in the city.  It was the: END OF THE WORLD!  The Russians were going to blow us all to smithereens, and there was no way out of it.  A couple of months into my high school education years, November 22, 1963 to be exact. I got to witness over and over and over again, in the months to come the 35th President of the United States of America having the back of his head blown off. And a few days later watching Jack Ruby assassinate the only suspect in John F. Kennedy’s murder Lee Harvey Oswald live on television on Sunday.  So a rational individual might understand why a healthy horny thirteen -year -old boy might have other worldly things on his mind than Latin and French in freaking 1963.  The world had changed, but it seemed that the ‘adults’ didn’t get it.  After a near nuclear war so vivid in our memories, why in God’s name would teaching high school kids a dead language be of any importance in our not known at the time, but New World Order which had just been born.  Now the President and his accused killer were being murdered over and over again on the nightly newscasts, and I was supposed to give a shit about Latin and French.  Bite me damn it, but I digress, much more about the high school years later.  Where do I begin?  The visions are so vivid yet at times they fade so fast.  I can look at an old photograph that has been tucked away in a box in the attic for thirty years, and all of a sudden the times and the memories come to life as if they were happening now.  How unimportant when you live in the moment, are the times that are unfolding in front of your eyes.  It is only in retrospect that you can stand back from the moment and realize how relevant they were in shaping the world we all live in today, not to mention our very own lives. 

So where should I start?

There were twelve of us that first summer that had arrived in early June from Montreal and stuck it out, until Labor Day weekend.  We were all from the same section of Montreal known as Ville St. Laurent, a small city that took on an identity all its own.  A place where kids ran free and embraced the rapidly changing culture while their parents still lived in the nineteen fifties where they wanted to be and felt comfortable in the things they had embraced.  I guess the same can be said for every generation as they get caught up in their world and what’s important to them.  But hell, this was 1969 and none of that mattered; it was all about the now.  I’d gotten off the bus and headed for a place called Stokes Laundry where I had been told some of the boys were working.  Stokes was a local dry cleaner that was very large and employed a lot of folks who liked to sweat a lot in the hot midday sun.  Within minutes of nosing around I knew this was not something that I wanted to spend my summer doing.  There was a sandwich shop across the street with a multi- colored wooden deck called ‘Madame George’ and the Beatles "Get Back’ blaring from speakers I couldn’t see.  I was hungry and still had fifty bucks in my pocket. I figured one of the Lawand brothers would show up soon enough, and I wouldn’t have to wait too long.  How right I was.  The place said closed, but the windows were open thus the reason for me being drawn by the music.  Inside were two people sitting at a table smoking from what the aroma told me was some fine herb.  Lucky for me, the person I was looking for was one of the people sitting at the table.  I tapped on the window.  I was greeted by a big smile, and a ‘thumbs up’.  Next thing I knew the door to the sandwich shop was open and I was quickly escorted inside by Rick the person I was looking for, who locked the door behind me.  In the next hour, I was officially initiated and educated in all the things ‘Wildwood’ and got thoroughly stoned in the process. From the radio, the sounds of The Who’s ‘Tommy can you hear me’ blared from the speakers that were strategically located inside the shop for maximum effect.  I sat there with a wide grin on my face ready for whatever the world was going to throw at me or was I?  Here I was, on my own for the very first time barely out of high school and barely been laid.  What lay before me?  Man, the marijuana was working overtime on my brain and thoughts were spinning wildly when ‘Monterey’ by The Animals came on the radio and totally blew me away.  I glanced out the window and saw three beautiful young ladies walking on to the deck and toward the front door.  Within moments they were sitting at the table with Rick, George and I.  Another few joints were quickly rolled and smoked and before I realized it we were all out on the street walking.

Where are we going?  I think I said.  Rick and George both laughed and then the three girls also did .  I knew I was smiling, but my perception of reality was thin at best.  Whatever we had smoked was unlike anything I had dabbled with in Montreal.  I took a lot of deep breaths and smelled the salty air that was riding in on an ocean breeze as we walked to wherever we were going.  I had always loved the beach ever since I could remember.  As a little kid, my parents would take my older brother and me to my mother’s parent’s house in Bathurst, New Brunswick.  We would stay a few weeks, and I distinctly remember that I spent every single day of them on the beach, even the shitty rainy ones.

The few blocks we walked to get to where I would finally end up for today and the next two months seemed to take hours though in real time was a few short minutes.  We eventually arrived at the two-storey home on Lake Road that looked out upon Ephraim Island. I was definitely feeling very ‘loosey goosey’, unlike my experience at American customs a few short hours ago, another thing I’ll get into later.  Right now I was watching the backsides of three fine looking young ladies as they ambled up the steps in front of me to a large open- air, second storey veranda.  My imagination was churning with sexual fantasies that would soon be squashed before they even had a chance to run wild.  So is the fate of the young and horny and thoroughly stoned.  My first job that summer was at the Wildwood Fish Market; a family owned and operated business.  In the summer, they would take on a few extra people.  Norman, one of the Lawand brothers, had secured a job as a deliveryman and easily got me a job gutting fish.  It was a fun three weeks but ended badly when Freddy, the obnoxious sixteen- year -old son of the owner pissed me off just one too many times.  I smacked him across the side of the head with a nice sized flounder, and he went off crying for mummy.  Billy, a black youth around my age and a full-time employee almost doubled over laughing and then told me that he had wanted to do that since the first day he started working here.  Surprisingly, Freddy’s mom, the boss did not fire me.  I quit at the end of my shift that day.

Meeting black people and walking through the ‘black only’ section of Wildwood down by the river and not feeling threatened but rather feeling stared at as I was with Billy.  We smoked joints together at lunchtime and quickly became fast friends.  It was a hot July afternoon and the doors and windows were open in the small wartime houses built after the Second World War.  They were made of wood and clapboard and the smell of the bracken water permeated the air as I walked and talked with Billy.  The thing I vividly remember about that walk through the Wildwood ghetto was the pictures I could see proudly displayed in the doorways and foyer walls.  They were of J.F.K and Pope John the 23rd a painting by Walter Malino, called the Peace Sowers which shows the two of them walking in a field and throwing seeds on the ground.  And, of course, the famous head shot of Martin Luther King, who was assassinated last year.  I was a stranger in a strange land with a different point of view of what I was used to, and yet I felt at home.  The look of despair on the faces of the older black men and women was palpable to me as I sensed I was staring through a foreign window that I did not fully understand.  To Billy, and his friends we ran into, I sensed a feeling of hope for a brighter future; as well as confusion in their minds; about how different this Canadian was to their American ‘white’ counterpart.  I was a nineteen –year- old kid from Canada with no preconceived ideas or beliefs on racism.  To me, people were people.  There was no black or white, yellow or brown or red.  People were just people.  Call me foolish or wise; it was just the way I was in 1969.  It wouldn’t be until September of 1970 that I would experience firsthand in Atlanta Georgia just how stupid racist people could be.

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THE BORDER 1969

Here take an extra ticket, my dad said as I was packing my bags before heading to the airport to catch a flight to New York and then a bus from Port Authority to Wildwood.

It’s cool, I don’t need an extra ticket; one is all I need.

Well, you never know you might lose it.  Take an extra one just in case.  My dad said with an all- knowing smile.  Little did I know how relevant his words would be just a short time later?

It was customary since the United States and Canada shared the largest undefended border in the world that relations between our two countries were ‘lax’ to say the least.  But, this was 1969 and the war was still raging in Vietnam, and I ran into a customs agent at then Dorval International Airport, with a serious anti- Canadian attitude.  The encounter was very upsetting and somewhat frightening to me, but I would have the last laugh.

Where are you going and how long are you staying?  The customs agent said matter of factly.

To Wildwood New Jersey: and for two weeks sir.

What’s the purpose of your visit?

To visit friends, I said not sure where this was going.

You're going down there to work, aren’t you?  How much money do you have on you?  He said with a scowl.

A hundred dollars and I'm not going there to work; I’m visiting friends.

What are their names and where do they live?  He said catching me totally unaware.  I’m not sure what I said next, but it was enough to piss him off a little more.

Admit it; you’re going to Wildwood to work while our boys are off fighting and spilling their blood and guts in Vietnam.  You Canadian anti- war bums are stealing American jobs.  He said in a tone of voice that vehemently said to me that this guy was a major asshole.  Here give me your ticket, he said snatching my plane ticket out of my hand.  He reached under his little counter and pulled up a rubber stamp.  In big bold red letters on the front page of my airplane ticket he stamped: VALID FOR 14 DAYS. 

Here you go punk, see you in two weeks, the customs agent said with a smirk on his face that said it all.  Here he was, an American; forced to work at a Canadian airport.  I don’t know what unforgivable crime he committed to be stationed here, but I knew for sure he wasn’t a happy man.

Thank you very much, sir, I said taking my plane ticket from his hand.  What I wanted to say was: Hey dickhead with a reindeer horn stuck up your ass.  Save your pompous attitude for someone else because I have a brand new unmarked airplane ticket in my bag.  But I didn’t.  As usual, my father knew something I didn’t.  I don’t know; maybe he had a feeling or premonition that I might run into some trouble.  I was nineteen and leaving home for the first time.  My blessed mother was worried sick about me though dad knew I was ready for adventure.  It’s funny, but to this day I still remember that moment as though it happened yesterday.  The hatred and frustration the customs agent projected, and the elation I felt at knowing that I had got the best of him, on this occasion; are images I can call up at random, anytime even today over forty years later. 

THE MAN-1969

It was late April or early May of 1969, and I hadn’t yet decided if I was going to go to Wildwood with the rest of the boys.  I loved music; in fact it was my life.  I lived and breathed music twenty- four hours a day, every day.  So it was no wonder that I wanted to get into radio.  I’ve always had since I can remember, a band playing inside my head.  I took guitar lessons as a kid but nothing ever sunk in.  I couldn’t play a note yet the band grew bigger and louder in my head.  Lyrics were always my forte.  Give me a melody and I can give you a song. 

Because of those facts, what happened next has always remained a mystery to me.  It was a Friday night, and the weather was unseasonably warm.  I had been bugging the program director of Montréal’s only rock station at the time for a meeting.  I felt like I was getting the run around when finally he, Bill Lowell told me to meet him at Golf Gardens our city’s first and at the time, only driving range conveniently located across the street from Laurentian Lanes, the preferred location for fanatic bowlers.  The radio station Bill worked for was called CFOX and was owned by the son of a Canadian broadcast legend who would later become one himself.  Anyway, they were sponsoring a show in the bar area of the driving range which sat at most maybe sixty to seventy people.  I spotted Bill right away; he was sitting at a table near the stage with a long haired, hippy- looking guy who was a few years older than me.  He was smoking a cigarette and sipping on a bottled beer.  What followed next went something like this.

Eh, Bill.  How’s it going, good to finally meet you.

You’re Bob right?

In the flesh, I really need to talk to you.

"Sure.  Bob I’d like to introduce you to Van...

I didn’t wait for Bill to continue.  I flashed a big smile and stuck out my hand.

Hi, Van nice to meet you, I said shaking his hand and immediately returning my focus to Bill.

You know Bill I’d be perfect for weekend overnights.  Come on; give me a chance to ease my way in?

You know what, Bill said.  Stop by Monday afternoon after my shift and we’ll talk.

Okay!  I said giving him a thumbs-up and feeling hopeful that I just might get a break.

I didn’t stay for the show.  It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.  A year earlier I had gone to a concert at the ‘Recreotec’ in Cartierville, the city just north of Ville St. Laurent.  The show featured all these ‘British Invasion bands’.  There was Beau Brummell, Them, The Zombies, Adam Faith and a few more that have slipped my mind.  I had thoroughly enjoyed the show, but I especially like the group: Them.  There was something about them that was very original and exciting.  Except for the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, few of us knew the names of the members of our favorite bands.  I should have.  I had been so intent on getting a job, that I didn’t realize that I had just ‘blown off’ an introduction to ‘the man’. The man who in six short months would become the contemporary singer/songwriter who till this very day has most influenced my life.  In my eagerness for employment, I missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down at a table in a bar and share a beer with Van Morrison.  That evening he performed most of Astral Weeks that is considered by most music critics with ‘half a brain’ as one of the greatest musical albums of all time.  It's music defined a generation.  Eh!  I blew it, but I didn’t blow it last year when I had my first encounter with greatness.

THE BACK ALLEY-EARLY SEPTEMBER-1968

The main reason I had decided to come to Wildwood in the summer of 1969 is because of what happened  when a bunch of us had come down for a couple of weeks camping right after Labor day last year.  All the rates at motels dropped to half price overnight, and the campgrounds were virtually empty.  We had spent the first week at a campsite but the second week we shared the top floor attic of a rooming house called Applegate’s.  It was operated by this large veteran of the Korean War who was also a heroin addict and music junkie.  That’s when I saw the poster.

Shit!  I had to buy a suit.  No one my age owned a suit in 1968, especially in Wildwood.  Ray Charles and his orchestra along with the ‘Raylettes’ were playing at The Stardust show bar for a few nights only.  Ray Charles, my musical idol.  The first album I ever bought in 1963 was ‘Modern Sounds in Country and Western music volume one’ by Ray Charles.  I had first heard the album at a friend’s house on his father’s hi-fi record player.  ‘I can’t stop loving you’ and ‘You don’t own me’ are still in my all time top fifty list.  I digress.  There was no way I was going to miss this show.  I borrowed a few bucks from everybody as we were leaving in a couple of days.  I went to the local ‘hippy-dippy’ store and bought myself a white suit.  It cost more than I thought, and I didn’t have any money left over for a new pair of shoes.  So, my sneakers it would be.  I remember getting razzed by the boys for how I was dressed.  They were going to spend the night getting drunk on the beach.  I, on the other hand was planning to spend a few glorious hours with a musical Genius.  I rolled a few healthy joints and left Applegate’s with a strut in my step and a ‘shit ass’ grin on my face.  I cut through a couple of backyards and before I knew it I was approaching the alley that separated the Stardust from the place next door.  I was a little worried about getting into the show since the legal drinking age in New Jersey was twenty- one.  It was still at least 30 minutes to show time, so I fired up one of the joints that I rolled and leaned against the alley wall.  I was only a few puffs in when the emergency door in the alley flew open, and my jaw dropped.  It wasn’t security coming out to chase this pot- smoking hippie away, but Ray Charles and his personal ‘seeing eye’ person.

Oh my, my, that sure smells good,  Ray said sniffing the air.  I was momentarily stunned as anyone would be when coming face to face with their musical idol.