An evil aunt and a gun-wielding motorist: The week in ’79 that changed my view of the U.S. forever

A vastly underrated benefit of retirement is having time to read, one of my greatest loves. In my 12 years retired in Rome I’ve read 183 books. That includes some classics I somehow missed in school such as The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Atop my wish list now is You Can’t Go Home Again. It’s Thomas Wolfe’s classic 1940 novel about a writer leaving his small town to find success in Europe and returning home to find people furious at how he portrayed his hometown in a novel.

I’ve wanted to read this since one week in 1979 when I suffered a similar experience, and it has shaped my view of America for nearly 50 years. It’s a view that has been galvanized through 12 years living with these kind Italian people.

Admittedly, my experience had differences. Wolfe’s character, George Webber, returned home a famous writer and he was only mistreated by people in his hometown of Libya Hill.

I returned as a broke, skinny, 23-year-old backpacker with a duffel bag falling apart and a partially pulled groin. I’d just traveled around the world alone for a year and the only things I wrote for public consumption were about a wandering American track club in Finland and a one-month stint covering the Asian Games for The Associated Press in Bangkok.

And unless they were fascinated by Asian soccer, I wasn’t even famous with my own family.

But abused? Mistreated? Definitely. And that one week has affected my view of America – however unfairly – to this day.

The arrival

It started one day in April 1979 when I landed in Honolulu on a redeye from Seoul after five months in Asia, a continent where I met the kindest people in my life. The reverse culture shock hit me five minutes after I cleared customs. I wanted to call my ex-brother-in-law who, having been kicked to the curb by my sister, had moved to Honolulu and I needed a room for a night. 

I had less than $100 to my name. At 23, I had no credit and no credit card.

I went to an airport shop and asked to change a traveler’s check (Remember those?) for the payphone. (Remember those, too?) The woman looked at me as if I was Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.

“What? Do you think this is a bank?” she yelled. “No! Get outta here!” 

I was stunned into silence. It was the first rude person I’d met in months, and it was the first American I’d met upon touching down in my home country. 

I did get change but my ex-brother-in-law wasn’t home. That saved an awkward evening of him trashing my sister, and I wound up crashing in Honolulu’s overcrowded Youth Hostel. 

That morning at the hostel, a Canadian who’d just spent six months in India joined me on a trip to Pizza Hut for our first American food in ages. I found out the hard way that eating a giant combo pizza after months of rice and vegetables is like putting a nuke in your stomach. We spent 15 minutes projectile vomiting in a covered parking lot near the beach.

So much for paradise. I was in my country only a few hours and already missed Thailand.

The trip north

When I landed in Los Angeles, I looked up my old college roommate living in suburban Manhattan Beach. My experience in Honolulu had not curbed my misplaced bravado. I was a 23-year-old from Eugene, Ore., previously so insecure I couldn’t go to a 7-Eleven alone, and had just traveled around the world alone for a year.

I thought I was Ferdinand goddamn Magellan.

Friends and family quickly reminded me I was still just a skinny kid from Eugene. I also learned 99 percent of people don’t give a rupee about your travels.

My roommate didn’t ask me a single question about my trip. Not one. Not:  What was my highlight? Any travel tale from hell? Did you miss the U.S?

No. The only question he asked was what airline I flew to L.A. When I told him Korean Air Lines, he rolled his eyes and said, “Why didn’t you fly a respectable airline?” I let it pass. Five months with the kind Asians had defused my combativeness.

But then it got weird. It got irrational. It got nasty. We were about to go out and I strapped on the money belt that kept all the valuables I couldn’t afford to lose: passport, traveler’s checks, etc. He said to leave it. I said no.

“Leave it!”

“Brian, I’ve worn this every day for a year. I wear it everywhere.”

“Leave it or we’re not going.”

“What is your fucking problem? Why would I leave it?”

He wouldn’t answer. So we sat there. And sat there. Finally, dying for a beer and starving, I relented. To this day I regret not picking up my duffel bag and sleeping on the beach. But in my travels, I learned the value of friendship and forgiveness. I didn’t want to lose a lifelong friend.

I didn’t think about it being a two-way street.

The next day, another college friend came by to pick me up and take me to Pacific Coast Highway where I would hitchhike back to Eugene. These two guys were both in my fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. We were all Phi Psis, or, as some rival frats sometimes called us, Feces.

(Side note on our one claim to fame: Ever see the movie Animal House? That was filmed in our frat in the fall of ‘77 while we were living there. Remember the scene where Kevin Bacon gets paddled in the ass during initiation and he says, repeatedly, “Thank you, sir! May I have another?” I saw that scene filmed in our dining room.)

And no, we never had a gang rape. In fact, I think we led the campus in virginity three years in a row.

Our frat was new. During the tumultuous anti-establishment times in Eugene during the late 1960s, Phi Psi was one of the many frats that closed. After the war ended in 1975, Phi Psi was one of the many that returned. One of three guys who spearheaded its return was the man picking me up in Manhattan Beach.

During the half hour drive, he also didn’t ask me a single question. He talked all about his job as a headhunter. He gave me updates on some frat brothers. But he had no more interest in me or my travels than if I was a piece of luggage.

It got worse.

I hitchhiked that day to Redwood City, Calif. It’s 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco and the home of my Uncle Howard and Aunt Mary whom my family visited every summer. Mary was a local politician and was out of town when I arrived, and Howard put me up in my cousin Bruce’s old room.

I’d arranged an interview with the San Jose Mercury-News the next day. It was the first interview for a full-time job since graduating in the spring of ‘78. I’d just compiled an international resume. I was excited. I was confident. I was home.

After the interview, Aunt Mary returned. My plan was to spend the night then hitchhike across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County and continue north. 

Aunt Mary had other plans.

“John, I didn’t know you were going to stay this long,” she said, in her first words to me. “I just got home. Can you find somewhere else to stay tonight?”

What?

My own family was kicking me out of their house. She would not let me stay one more night. I was stunned into silence. I’d just arrived from Asia where a Taiwanese man picked me up hitchhiking and took me to the restaurant he owned, fed me a lavish meal then bought me a train ticket to Taipei. 

Strangers in Thailand invited me to their homes to eat (and, um, smoke a little pot). Koreans in Seoul took me to a nightclub on my birthday and had the band play me “Happy Birthday” in Korean. (They also bought me a hooker as a birthday gift, one I kindly turned down.)

And my own family wouldn’t let me crash in their empty room for one night.

So I tried. This was late afternoon. I called a college journalism buddy and two fraternity brothers. None was home. 

I said to my aunt, “I tried calling three friends, and they’re not home. If I can’t stay here, I’ll have to sleep at the airport.”

“OK,” she replied without looking up. “Howard will give you a ride.”

Uncle Limpdick didn’t say a thing in protest, belying my image of him as a rugged football lineman at Fresno State in 1942. I never spoke to my aunt again and hope she suffered a painful death.

Yet it got worse.

Guns in America

San Francisco International did not have couches for long layovers. The entire airport had nothing but plastic hard-backed seats. That was my bed for the night. I slept upright, while twisting my duffel bag strap around my arm to discourage thieves. 

I slept maybe two hours. Hurt, confused and exhausted, I managed to get a bus across the bridge and started hitching. I’d hitchhiked all over on this trip around the world. I wanted to save money but mostly I wanted to meet locals. I hitchhiked through Switzerland, Austria, Germany and into Hungary and Yugoslavia (Remember it?). I hitched the length of Greece. I hitched all over Malaysia and Taiwan.

I met wonderful, kind people, full of stories, questions, knowledge and generosity. I averaged about 20 minutes a wait. 

But this day in California was a Sunday. In California it was illegal to hitchhike on the Interstate. You had to do it on the onramps. I was 550 miles (890 kilometers) from Eugene. If I got lucky, I could make it home that day. 

I wasn’t lucky. I was nearly killed.

I made it all the way to Yreka, Calif. It is 22 miles (36 kilometers) from the Oregon border. And I was stuck. Traffic on this Sunday was light. On the onramp it was not existent. 

And it was hot. Yreka was always steaming when my family drove through there every summer, and it was in the 90s on this day. I waited an hour. Two hours. Three hours. Not a single car came by. It was getting late in the afternoon. I would not risk trying the Interstate. Neither would any motorist.

Finally, a semi truck came by. Tired, hot, thirsty, hungry and near broke, I stuck out my thumb. And the driver did something that lit my fuse. It wasn’t that he didn’t stop.

He laughed. 

That did it. I put all the frustrations and anger of a lousy week back home …

… into a raised middle finger.

SCREEEEEECH!!!! The semi skidded to a stop.

Uh-oh. I was in no condition to get in a fight with a trucker. I should’ve been so lucky. He came around the cab to the curb about 30 feet from me.

He held a shotgun.

“What the FUCK did you just do?!” he yelled.

Stammering, I said, “Look, pal. I’ve been out here three hours. I haven’t seen a single car. I’m out of money. I need to get home to Oregon. And you laughed. I’m sorry. But I’m at the breaking point.”

He didn’t give me a ride. He only gave me my life – along with a resounding, “FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!” He drove off.

He didn’t fire a shot but he certainly shot down my romantic notion of hitchhiking all the way home from L.A.

I walked to the Yreka Greyhound station.

Another frat rat from Hell

This story isn’t over. 

Going to Plan B, I would take a bus across the border, spend the night and hitch home the next morning. Oregon allowed hitchhiking on the freeway. I had a fraternity brother living in Medford 50 miles (90 kilometers) north of Yreka. 

That brother was also one of the three men who jumpstarted our fraternity. Certainly he would remember the fraternal creed of always being there for a brother. 

The characters in Animal House had more character.

From the Greyhound station, I called him, collect. It was about 6 p.m. I remember this conversation from 47 years ago as if it happened yesterday:

“Hey, Bill. It’s Henyo (my nickname in the frat). Listen, I need a favor. I just traveled around the world for a year and I’m hitchhiking to Eugene. I’m almost broke and I’m stuck in Yreka without a ride. Can I take a bus to Medford and crash at your place? I’ll be gone the next morning.”

“I’m going out tonight,” he said.

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, can you leave a key under your welcome mat?”

“I don’t have a welcome mat.”

“Do you have a friend who could put me up for the night?”

“No.”

“Bill, I’m really stuck. Can you help me out?”

“I’m sorry.”

Like my aunt, I never saw or heard of Bill again. I hope he died a painful death.

I had just enough money to buy a bus ticket to Eugene. I arrived in Eugene at about 10 p.m., limping from a pulled groin hiking up a California onramp and flat broke, still painfully skinny from a December bout with typhoid in Thailand. My parents were there to greet me.

It wasn’t good to be home. 

During my 12 years retired in Rome, I’ve occasionally thought about that homecoming. It was a foreshadowing of American rudeness I’d experience for the rest of my life. 

In 12 years in Rome, the only rude people I have met have been Americans. Not Brits. Not Canadians. Not Germans. Not even French. I have yet to meet a rude Italian. 

At least, not men. Pre-Marina, I went out with two rude Italian women. But they only insulted my Italian which I’m overly sensitive about. (In response, I’d say, in perfect Italian, “If you don’t like my Italian, go find a Fiat mechanic living with his mom,” then never see them again.)

That week in ‘79 taught me the notion of fraternity brotherhood is a fallacy, that American narcissism is a reality. As I watch from afar the U.S. falling apart on so many levels, divided like never before, I am saddened but not shocked.

Some Europeans have told me about the great hospitality they experienced in the U.S. Maybe Americans are nicer to outsiders than each other. But for me, one week nearly half a century ago formed an opinion that hasn’t faded over the years.

Thomas Wolfe was right. You can’t go home again. Home isn’t necessarily where you started. It’s where you eventually find a sense of belonging. I am home now.

Home is Rome.