An Ill-advised trip to the Conejo

 An Ill-advised trip to the Conejo



     I believe history has proven that decisions made under the innfluence of drugs or alcohol or a combination of both may not be wise. This took place in the 1970's when so many poor drug-addled selections ended in complete disaster. There was the time I talked to a UCSB Co-ed on the phone at my salesman job on a Thursday and drove up there on Saturday morning with a bag of weed, a gallon of cheap red wine, and a water pipe. I called her number when I arrived in "the American Riviera" expecting a hero's welcome and probably a wild weekend of drugs, sex and rock and roll. Instead I got a stuttering faceful of no I have to study with a touch of what kind of weirdo would do something like this. There was also the time when Greg, finding himself getting nowhere with a crush he had on a fellow UCLA student asked her if she was a lesbian. She was not. Hayo! Of course, long miserable returns from Tijuana were the end results of making a choice to drive down South after a night of drinking and a midnight departure. Billy Hogan and I once drove to the Colorado river, arriving at around sunup to empty streets and only gnarly fishermen in sight. We expected chicks in bikinis...when we left LA around 1 am. This could go on forever but I may leave the other two hundred to other posts. This revolves around Greg and myself having nothing much to do, a sheet of blotter acid and the word from Kevin that he had found a cozy pad in Camarillo where he was relocating to start his new life in "Pleasant Valley". As dusk settled over South Gate and blotters melted on our tongues we decided it would be cool to surprise cousin Kent and pop into his groovy new pad for psychedelic hi-jinks. We may have driven up the 101 a time or two but probably never paid much attention to signs saying Camarillo, Newbury Park, or Thousand Oaks as we were headed for Paso Robles or even that city by the bay where Frisco Greg once lived. As we stone rolled along, we got more and more excited taking on the Conejo grade blasting Aqualung and Who's Next chugging up the 7% incline. As we came over the rise in complete darkness we beheld the town of Camarillo below with its 20,000 residents and 2200 streets forming a haystack that one Kevin Smith was a needle. The rustic town covers 20 square miles there on the eastern edge of the Oxnard plain. You see, he did not have a phone, we had no address and in our youthful optimism we just thought we could spot his VW shoutmobile parked out on one of the few streets. We could not.


           Cam'rillo from the top of the hrade                        

Comments

  1. KentJune 26, 2025 at 3:41 AM

    Ah the shoutmobile. So many memories.and fragments of memories.

    ReplyDelete

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