Surf, Sex, and Psychedelics

By Alan Brown

In early 1966 Alex finds himself out of school and a prime candidate to be drafted. Like many people his age he is in the process of finding out who he is and what he wants from life. Disillusioned by conventional social mores he adopts a fatalistic attitude and towards the draft as well as towards the accepted definitions of success and what constitutes a life well lived.
He goes surfing.
His journey takes him first to Mexico, the Army, Korea and back to California where the doors of perception continue to open. Once out of the Army he sets out to hitchhike across the country in the middle of winter only to change his mind and head to Hawaii.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491818565

Alan Brown

Alan Brown is a seasoned children’s illustrator with over twenty years’ experience. He has a keen interest in the comic book world; he loves illustrating bold graphic pieces and strips. He works from his studio in the north of England with his trusty sidekick, Otto the chocolate cockapoo, and his two sons, Wilf and Ted.

Book preview

SURF, SEX

And

PSYCHEDELICS

A Novel

By

Alan Brown

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AuthorHouse™ LLC

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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© 2013 Alan Brown. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/13/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1858-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1857-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1856-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917268

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Interlude

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

For Asherah

Chapter 1

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The final water polo game was on November 14, 1965, and after that I saw no real reason to continue attending classes. Co-incidentally it was also the final game of the football season. I mention this only because this is what my life had become. In addition to being on the Water Polo Team, I was also the school mascot, and as such was expected to attend all the football games. On that particular day, because the football game was in San Francisco taking place at the same time as my water polo game, I was unable to attend. So who gives a damn? I was in school solely for the social and athletic opportunities it afforded me. I decided to keep up the appearance of going to class to keep my Mom from insisting that I get a full time job, as well as allowing me to pursue my social and romantic interests, and could continue to be Big Al, aka the Animal, self-styled bon vivant, jock and ladies man. I was a BMOC, a true horses ass, and though I knew that I was above average in intelligence persisted in playing the dumb jock" lest anyone have expectations of me.

I was currently squiring two co-eds, Karen, and Daphne. They were as different as two people could be, each one mirroring an aspect of my evolving personality. Ironically I met both of them on the same day. In addition to being on the water polo team, and school mascot, I was also the representative of the Varsity Club to the Inter-club Council. Turns out that they were both there. Daphne was there as a rep for the Dental Club, while Karen was from the International Club. Like I said they were two completely different people, not only physically, but also culturally, and politically as well. Daphne was tall, almost as tall as me, and had gone to high school in San Diego, her father; an executive at Hewlett-Packard had been transferred to the Bay Area where they had purchased a large home in Saratoga. She, like her parents was politically conservative. Her goal in life was to marry well and live a life much like her parents. What drew her to me, I’ll never know? At that time however I still clung to those same middle class aspirations taught to me by my parents. I remember seeing her at Fall Registration and apparently she also saw me. I was in full Big Al mode that day, and I think the fact that I was seemingly an important person appealed to her future aspirations. How wrong an assessment that proved to be. She appealed to me because she was reflective of what I thought I wanted, as well as what was expected of me. Karen, as I said, was a polar opposite; she too came from a middle class, conservative home, her father a petroleum engineer for Shell. She had attended an exclusive High School in Nigeria where her father worked. After high school she was shipped to her uncles house in California to go to College, and some how ended up at SJCC. There the similarities ended. She joined the very liberal International Club and eventually came into my life. I got to know her during a debate at a Council Meeting about who should have the right to sponsor the annual Christmas Ball. The two clubs vying for the honor were the International Club, and the ultra-conservative Merchandising Club, which claimed primacy by the simple fact that it had always sponsored the Ball. So what’s the problem? The debate was long and heated, talk about a tempest in a teapot, but finally a vote was called for. The vote was tied until it came time for me to cast the final vote. I voted for, drum roll, please, the International Club, a vote that cost me my seat on the council, no big loss, and thrust me into Karen’s arms. She was true delight cute and sexy, smart, witty, and charming. I had always been attracted to intelligent girls, but never had the courage to date one, having always confused good grades with intelligence. At that time my GPA was somewhere in the 1’s, Karen however, didn’t seem to mind.

And so I ended up dating them both, Daphne, who represented both my past, and ironically my parent’s expectations of my future, and Karen, the one who mirrored my newly emerging consciousness.

Speaking of which, November 14th was also an important day for me in the evolution of that consciousness. The entire week of November 10th was significant in yet another respect. That week had seen the largest, and fiercest demonstrations to date against our involvement in Viet Nam. A few days previous a large rally in Berkeley had been violently broken up by the Oakland Chapter of The Hells Angels. At that time I was strongly in favor of the War and thought that the demonstrators had gotten what they had coming. As a result there was a debate scheduled for the 14th at San Jose State featuring appearances by the Viet Nam Day Committee, and the Hells Angels. It was to be held at Noon in the Quad. As my game was not scheduled to begin until 3PM I made plans to attend. It turned out to be a cold, raw day, with a driving rain and therefore the debate had been moved into the student union. By 10 o’clock the place had begun to fill and by noon was packed with people. It was there, that I first heard, cogent well-reasoned arguments against the war. It was then I began to see another way of looking at things, and by the time Sonny Barger took the stage in rebuttal, the pro war arguments seemed both crude and weak. Indeed I could sense that even Sonny didn’t believe the words he was speaking and that many of the younger Angles had been moved by the arguments against the war, and so by the time Alan Ginsberg stood up to chant the Heart Sutra, I could feel my mind opening, like a flower after a cold dark winter to the prospect of peace.

My mind alive with new ideas I reluctantly left the debate at 2 in order to make it back in time for my 3 o’clock game. We ended up winning by something like 22-3, and I scored twice, and even played goalie in the fourth period allowing no goals. Not a bad way to cap an otherwise lack luster collegiate career.

I continued to get up each morning and go to school, aware of the fact that I was on academic probation, knowing full well that come the end of the semester I would, as they say, be relieved of academic responsibilities. In short, I would flunk out. The thought did not disturb me greatly, even though I knew that I would thereby become eligible for the draft. Not a good thing to be in 1965 when the Selective Service System was revving up to provide fresh meat to fight and die for god and country in a place half way around the world. I, along with many of my peers had a rather fatalistic attitude towards the whole thing, but again we didn’t know any better. We were twenty, and would live forever. I resigned myself to the fact that sometime in 1966 my number would be up and I would be drafted. But of even more concern was what I would do in the short time that remained. I couldn’t sponge off my mother, that was clear. I would have to get a job, and as Christmas was approaching, I decided to go back to my summer job, shagging shopping carts at a Big Box store with a parking lot the size of Texas. During the summer it wasn’t too bad because I was always outside in the warm sun pushing long lies of up to 60 heavy metal carts up a slight incline and into the store. If nothing else it was good exercise. It also had the advantage of being a job with minimum supervision and responsibility, which meant that I had ample time to flirt with passing girls, or to visit with my friends when they would drop by. I had worked there all summer, but had quit when school and water polo had started up in September. Now however, it was a different game altogether. Gone were those halcyon days of summer, replaced by the rainy nights of California’s monsoon season. My life at work was now, to put it mildly, cold, wet, and miserable. I hated it, but persevered. It was then that I was exposed for the first time to that American phenomenon, the Christmas Rush. I saw no joy, no regard for ones fellow human beings. Only a get in, grab something, get out, and, oh, don’t forget to be rude to the help while you’re at it attitude. Spread that old Christmas cheer, consumerism run rampant. Needless to say, that given my bad attitude I was let go as soon as the rush was over. I was neither surprised, nor upset by the way things turned out.

In the meantime I had taken Karen to the Christmas Ball. We had a great time in San Francisco, enjoying a nice diner, and at the ball, which was held aboard a tour boat that cruised the Bay for the duration of the dance.

Unfortunately, things did not turn out as planned.

Because of that part of me that wanted to be like every body else, I made the mistake of trying to suck up to Karen’s uncle, who was a big time Republican and unknown to me, heartily despised by my date. Oh well, there was still Daphne, and I made a date to see her on New Years Eve. Aside from girl troubles, the only other fly in the ointment was the untimely death of my '58 Chevy Belle Air, it having suffered its final demise after the Christmas Ball. As a result, I was without wheels.

At that time my friend, Zach was busy working in the warehouse of the same Big Box where I had recently been employed. He was also going to school and supporting Patricia who he had married in September. Occasionally we would make runs to the beach as his schedule allowed, but these we infrequent at best.

The end of the semester arrived and my scholastic career, at least for the present time was on hiatus. I managed to hold a succession of menial jobs, but could find nothing that I truly enjoyed, and was thus still car-less. The situation however was not as bad as might appear at first sight. I generally could count on Mom spending most weekends either with her girlfriend Joan, or else with one of her boyfriends, inevitably the men she dated were married IBM executives, and as a consequence her car was often available. It was my Mom’s car and it fit her to a tee. It was a 1957 Lincoln, painted pink with white trim and my friends and I referred to it a the Batmobile. I drove the Batmobile almost every weekend from mid January until I got new wheels in May. Because I hadn’t been exactly pounding the pavement looking for work, I had lots of time during the week to surf. No Car, no problem, I had solved my surf transportation issues by stashing my board at a friends’ house in Santa Cruz and hitchhiking over the hill several days a week. I was thus able to surf 2-3 days during the week as well as on weekends, not bad for having no wheels. In those days the surf breaks in Santa Cruz were often all but deserted on weekdays and I scored many uncrowded days that winter and early spring.

Time passed, and I still hadn’t heard boo from the Draft Board until early in March, when I got a letter to report for my pre-induction physical. On the appointed day, I found myself on a bus bound for the induction center in Oakland. Once there, we were all treated like steers in a meat packing plant. Stand in line, follow the man in front of you, no talking, turn your head and cough. I was there all damn day, and at the end they pronounced me fit to serve. One step closer to the meat grinder, and I still did not have a clue as to what I was going to do.

Then in late April, good old Mom came up to me and said that she had prevailed upon some of her friends at IBM to see what they could do to get me a job. I don’t know what strings she pulled or whose short hairs she’d tugged on, but I became an IBM’er. Despite the fact that I wasn’t really looking for a job, I was stoked to be working at Big Blue. It was a job in the warehouse, but it paid well $110.00 per week at a time when most people my age were only making 1.50 per hour. You could actually live on that back then. I may have even been making more than my mom. I felt rich! I immediately made plans to save for a trip to Hawaii on my first vacation. Shortly after that I bought myself some wheels. I got a 1957 Studebaker with a Mercury V-8 engine for $150.00 and felt as if I’d gotten the deal of the century. She was a sweet, stylish ride, and fast as hell.

But then the fickle hand of Karma intervened. I received my notice to be inducted on the 15th of May.