My generation came of age in a period of great discord and political
tragedy in the late 1960’s that was also a time of new thinking and creativity.
A significant cultural shift was erupting in music and film and there was one
film that was very impactful at our all-boys, Catholic high school in Anaheim,
California. The movie was Easy Rider and was adapted for the 8mm, silent
film screen in a 1971 mockumentary by our school’s Film Club titled “Easy
Cruiser”. One of the hit songs from the movie’s soundtrack was “Born to be Wild”
by Steppenwolf which became my anthem before the movie was distributed in 1969.
You can hear it at the 14 second mark of “Easy Cruiser”.
I played the 45 rpm single every morning after waking up on
my tiny turntable with a three-inch speaker to get me energized for the day. I
guess I had this wild streak in me that contradicted my outward behavior
because, just like in the movie, I was in search of independence, enlightenment
and freedom but was shackled by my uneasiness and timidity around people. I
wanted to express myself as being different but at the same time I feared the reaction
of others that might lead to public humiliation in an all-male environment where
one’s position in the pecking order was an essential daily concern. I had an
opportunity to express my wild side during my senior year in 1971 when I was involved
in after-school sports and I needed a way to get to and from the campus that
was four miles away. At this point, I had a driver’s license, but no car and I was
also working a part-time job. My parents came up with the solution; our next-door
neighbor had just retired from the Postal Service and he was selling his blue
Vespa scooter that he drove to work day in and day out. We bought the scooter
for a meager sum and that became my transportation. Finally, I had the
opportunity to express my inner rebellious Wyatt (Peter Fonda) from Easy
Rider and so I decided to adorn my ride with the stars and stripes just
like he did for his motorcycle.
I
had some spare time during the weekends and got to work painting the shells
covering my 2-stroke, 50cc engine with the red, white, and blue. Many of the other
guys had their souped-up cars with V-8 engines roaring in and out of the lot before
and after school but this horned-rim glasses-wearing myope could not compete with
the muscle car bravado of my peers. Although I had the desire to shine like Wyatt
on his chrome-heavy, star-spangled Harley Davidson, I succumbed to my
introverted, nerdy persona on the Monday morning of my virgin journey to
campus. Like in the song, I got the “motor runnin', headed out on the highway, looking
for adventure” but when I approached La Palma Ave from Brookhurst Ave and turned
right, suddenly a sinking feeling of inhibition gripped me like it had so many
times before
Instead of continuing down the main drag I decided to turn
down a side street and approach campus out of sight of my classmates. Faculty
parking spaces abutted the building at the end of the street and were angled so
I could squeeze my machine into the tiny slot between the parking pillar and
the brick building tucked away so nobody would notice me. In those brief moments,
I said goodbye to my aspirations for adventure and instead said hello to my fears
of rejection and humiliation. This was my pattern through the rest of the year
and into college. I was surprised to find out that some of the cool guys who
were high on the social hierarchy considered my Vespa to be cool, but that was
not enough for me to park my nerd chariot in the lot with the Detroit iron
beasts customized to perfection by my classmates. This sense of fear and
humiliation continued through my years of adulthood until the decade of the 2000’s
when maturity and pharmacology came to the rescue.
In Easy Rider, while hanging out with the hitch-hiking
stranger somewhere in the Southwest, Wyatt asks “You ever want to be somebody
else?” The stranger replied, “I'd like to try Porky Pig.” For me, maturity
brought with it Wyatt’s reply to the stranger, “I never wanted to be anybody
else.” If I answered that question in high school, I would have replied
differently. I was fortunate in my middle age that the advances in pharmacology
played a huge role in my journey too. New compounds called selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors (SSRI), otherwise known as antidepressants, helped to suppress the
social anxiety that caused my fears and allowed me to feel normal and comfortable
in my own skin. The lessons learned from my painful youth taught me that to attain the full
expression of individualism that my Easy Scooter symbolized, I needed to choose
the arduous path to self-discovery requiring the courage to confront the inertia
imposed by my anxieties. Unlike Wyatt and Billy reaching Mardi Gras by way of an
effortless drug deal, my desire was to beat the system with hard work and determination
so as not to end up in a fatal heap on a lonely southern highway.
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