Road trip and wedding, 1972

October 21, 2017 • 1:45 pm

It turns out that my old college friends, whom I’m visiting in Cambridge, have a lot of snapshots taken around 1971 and 1972, right after we finished college. I’ll put up a few of them just for grins.

Four of us—Tim and Betsy (the people I’m visiting), Kenny King (my best friend, now deceased) and I—went to the wedding of two other college friends in Fort Worth, Texas. That was a high society affair, as the bride’s family were big oil people in Texas, and loaded. It was August in 1972. We drove from Williamsburg, Virginia to Fries, Virginia (to attend the annual Fiddler’s Convention), and then all the way to Forth Worth in a 1971 Dodge Colt, spending the night in the Highland House, a drug halfway house and the only place where we could score a “free sleep”.  (The rules they told us: “Stash your dope off the lot, and dudes and chicks gotta split up.”) It was filthy but the price ($0) was right.

Remember, these are hand-held photos of old snapshots in an album:

Here tiz! Joker Joe’s, a truckstop and firework emporium in Tennessee. Left to right: me, Betsy, and Kenny.

Our arrival in Texas! Left to right: Tim, Kenny, and I:

This was taken after going to downtown Fort Worth to rent our tuxes (several of us were in the wedding party). Left to right, Bob Hancock, Kenny, Will Hausman (the groom), me (flashing), and Richard Mohs, from Webster, South Dakota. We all lived in the same dorm during freshman year (1967-1968) at William and Mary.

The wedding party, as dapper as a group of dressed-up hippies can be. Left to right: Tim, Richard, me, Phil (Will’s brother) and Kenny.

I have others, but they’re too salacious to post here.

After the wedding Richard drove us to his home in Webster, South Dakota (a tiny town in the middle of grainfields) and then, after a short stay lubricated with America’s worst beer (Grain Belt), Kenny and I took off hitchhiking towards Boston. That segment was an epic trip, too long to recount here.

29 thoughts on “Road trip and wedding, 1972”

  3. Really cool. You’re the only one without glasses! I didn’t know you smoked…for some reason, people who smoke make me feel safe. Maybe because all my grandparents smoked. Is that weird?

    And you have others that are too salacious? C’mon, you know your readers can take it! 🙂

  4. Was Richard Photoshopped in? I didn’t know there were *any* guys with neat and tidy hair back then. 🙂

    1. If it’ll help the imagery, he always maintained that he lost his virginity in the back seat of a ’56 Packard Clipper with Torsion-Level suspension.

  6. I hate to say it but even all dressed up, you guys did not clean up too well. We’ll just chock it up to the economy living. Anyway, your wedding trip preceded my own arrival in Dallas, Texas by only four years to start a career.

  9. I conclude Sam Adams Cherry Wheat did not exist in 1973, because before the recent spate of micro-brewed Belgian atrocities or the trendy Death-by-hops 3000 IBU IPAs, it was America’s worst beer.

    1. I hate it by itself, but it is quite good mixed 50/50 w/ Guinness. A spin off of the “black and tan”.

      Agree on the excess IBU IPAs. Blech

      1. A spin off of the “black and tan”.

        Don’t try ordering one of those in Ireland.

    2. Micro-brewed Belgian atrocities? Orval? Chimay? Duvel? Mort Subite? etc. etc, among the best beers in the world.

      1. I think that was a particularly tough time for a young couple just starting out to make it for the long haul — the Age of Updike, you might say.

  12. Thanks for sharing. I absolutely love that period. Even though i was only six in 72. And once again you all look like a bunch of rock stars.

  13. I actually like Grain Belt. But I’m from South Dakota so maybe that explains it… 🙂

    1. In the summer of ’73, the MN 18 yo legal to drink law took hold for its brief lifespan. Spent many a happy afternoon in Grain Belt Park drinking free Grain Belt Premiums. (The good stuff – the regular GB was swill.)

    1. PCC(E) recounted some of a story about that a couple of weeks ago – something involving a lawsuit, which I didn’t understand.

    2. Conscientious objector; I worked in a hospital for 13 months till I found out I’d been drafted illegally, and filed a class action lawsuit through the ACLU, which released me and about 2000-odd other COs from duty (nobody wes drafted into the army the year we all were “drafted” as COs, which was illegal.

  17. The hitchhiking story sounds interesting. I have some stories like that but I’ve never hitchiked anywhere. Looks like fun.

    2. Also, technically, flashing is showing full on nipple and this is not that. Just being grammatically correct. Enticing either way but not flashing.

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