The waitress took our order for coffee. That’s all we ordered until the Pizza Hut protested so we started getting toast and English muffins and always stayed until closing. The usual suspects were Gary, a VietNam Vet, Kerry a.k.a. Mr. Coffee, Alan, called Captain Weirdo though I called him Captain America, and myself. Sometimes David, the quiet one, and Bill, also a Vietnam Veteran would show up.

The year was 1975. Elvis was still touring and bell bottoms and long hair were popular. M.A.S.H was a popular tv show making green Army jackets popular. In the real world the Vietnam War ended April 30th and Vets were readjusting to civilian life. New words like space cadet, far out, pad and threads were being used. We were also learning about post traumatic stress disorder from the Vets.

I had been at a four year college the year before with no direction and mediocre grades, so in June of 1974 I went back home. I watched a lot of the Nixon Impeachment hearings that summer and worked on an ink drawing of a stone grist mill. In between I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches washed down with coca cola.

My parents kept insisting I get out and do something so finally I went to a football game with an old friend. Somehow I felt disconnected and had no interest in football or talking about high school. I had learned things and met some unusual people and the old things no longer seemed important or interesting.

That Fall classes began at the Community College which was an old furniture store. It had a handful of classes and most of us had been together in high school. A large counter had a secretary who helped with registration and other matters while in the back were several small buildings with classrooms. It had the look and feel of high school 2.0. which I thought I had escaped at college in Georgia.

There I made some very good friends, had long intelligent conversations about almost anything and had more freedom to know different kinds of people. I felt like I finally belonged somewhere and felt free to express myself. I almost felt like an adult but all that changed when I went back home.

Somewhere I had picked up this idea that through the right knowledge and experiences you could become more enlightened and engaged in life. You would become the real you and be self actualized. Transcendentalism was another idea. It started around 1836 with poets, philosophers and theologians to get away from understanding everything just through reason. Nature, art and literature were some of the ways God could talk in a mystical way. It was very intuitive.

It felt romantic and made me feel different having knowledge and experiences other people didn’t. At Georgia everything seemed limitless and full of possibilities. Back home I was already defined and felt like I was in a cage. My life felt limited or was it? Looking back there were opportunities if only I had been open to them. I was too idealistic to see them.

Meanwhile Vets talked to guidance counselors and took aptitude and personality tests. Other students were exploring career opportunities. I took some tests too which showed artistic leanings with suggestions like commercial or graphic artist. I didn’t follow up, instead I just concentrated on getting my A.A. Degree and experiencing and learning different things. Part of the idea of self actualizing.

My parents were worried about my lack of direction which was partly because I feared making the wrong career choice. They did try to have a conversation but I shrugged them off thinking they would be against my being a commercial artist. I did say something about being a teacher that seemed to placate them for a while.

In early Spring of 1975 my parents encouraged me, actually dragged me to a tent revival with the idea of straightening me out and giving me direction. It would have been much better if we  had conversations about my hearing loss and my talents and personality. Maybe we could have come up with some career possibilities but I might not have listened.

At the fairgrounds I left my parents and made my way through the standing crowd to the restrooms. Going back I got stopped behind a group of people talking and was waiting for them to move when a short, thin guy about my age started talking to me. We were standing under the covered entrance of the restrooms and being tall I could see my parents. 

They were getting annoyed as Alan and I talked, then angry as the crowd started toward the revival gate. We just clicked and kept talking like old friends as the crowd disappeared into the revival. Christian music was playing on an organ as people sang then someone said a prayer.

He would arch his dark eyebrows over his brown glasses as he stroked his bearded chin then suddenly his eyes would brighten as he quickly rattled off something as he had a sudden inspiration. He was excitable with an expressive face, talking fast using his hands a lot. A leather visor kept long hair out of his eyes and flip up sun visors sat on his glasses. He was  eccentric, lively, and sometimes theatrical and kind of reminded me of a leprechaun.

We walked over to the revival, two opposites, I was tall and laid back, he was short and excitable. I was Joe Buck and he was Ratso Rizzo from the Midnight Cowboy. Several people gave us “hairy eyeballs”, cold stares,as we entered the tent about thirty minutes late. Someone  had been saved and was giving his testimonial. It sounded kind of scripted but who am I to say.

 I was doing well in school taking biology, American government and several other subjects and spending free time drawing. Maybe it was immaturity but I was not thinking at all about making a living and possibly getting married. I just felt if I followed my interests and stayed true to myself everything would turn out okay. 

That sounds strange to many people but that is who I was then. I felt I had to follow this one true path to fulfill my destiny. Looking back it was so impractical. Much of the time calling if it ever comes arrives after maturing so when you’re young be pragmatic, choose the best work option available and become competent. You will gain self worth and respect making it easier to later change careers if you choose. Feelings, fears, pride and misguided thinking kept me in an intuitive bubble keeping me from clearly seeing reality. 

That is how I thought in 1975 and why I was such an enigma to my parents. I became good friends with Alan and we started meeting the other guys at the Pizza Hut, drinking coffee and eating toast, talking until closing. We all seemed to be searching for meaning, validation or simply to be understood. There was nothing bad or devious about any of us. The main thing is we all felt different and on the outside of society looking in.

Sometimes me and Alan would go over to my house and we would just keep talking until my dad threw us out figuratively. Alan got more energized as the night burned on while I fought through grogginess.Then around four thirty I began to experience sudden clarity and felt like I could understand and talk about anything. Sometimes it felt mystical and enlightening like an altered state of consciousness.

Alan talked about Faust and his bargain with Mephistopheles, the Devil, and we wondered if Jim Morrison had made this deal. He talked about being an outsider at a tiny Oklahoma high school then it was C.S. Lewis and the Screwtape Letters and Alan acting out one of the devil scenes with crazy eyes and gleaming face as he rubbed his hands together. Being at odd places at weird times would sometimes come up and we would talk about how it affected your feelings and mind.

Alan was always full of surprises and kind of quirky like the time I went to his house before Christmas and he was brewing tea on a butane camping stove in his bedroom. A hitchhiker from Canada he met a few days before was staying with him so we spent an hour or two talking about Canada and his experiences on the road.

 Then about six months later I visited him and his mother again at a new house. Alan was all excited and wanted to show me his new pad out back. He led me across the backyard and into a large tin roof open air shed. We stopped in front of a large white box refrigerator for storing egg crates and he pulled the metal lever opening the thick six inch door. We stepped inside and I had to crouch as I sat down against one wall.

The ceiling may have been five and a half feet high with a bare light bulb and ventilation fan. Two other guys I had never met were sitting against another wall smoking. Probably Canadian hitchhikers. Alan was sitting in the middle next to an air mattress and butane camping stove. A hazy cigarette cloud hovered just inches above him.

I don’t remember any of the conversation except Alan talking about wiring his door so at night he could flip a switch electrifying the outside. My chest was getting tighter and eyes burning and I kept looking up wondering when it was going to rain cigarettes. The room kept feeling smaller so after about thirty minutes I left. 

We knew each other about two years but he’s one of those characters that sticks in your mind. He gave me a Bible that says Merry Christmas 1975, Alan and every time I read it I remember our good times. The day he left we talked a little and I remember he was imagining fixing his old Plymouth to look like a spaceship. Then we said our goodbyes and he drove down our driveway and was gone. Good luck Alan. You showed up when I really needed a friend.