On The Road In The 1970's: Part 88

 When I reached the first academic building I saw on Clarion College's campus, the entrance door to the building was locked up. So I sat down on the steps in front of the academic building, placed my large knapsack next to me, and began to think about where I should hide outside on the campus for the night--before one of the local town cops might notice me and order me off-campus or out-of-town or arrest me for loitering, vagrancy, trespassing or some kind of phony trumped-up drug possession-related charge, perhaps?

Luckily, however, while I was sitting on the front steps of the locked academic building on the then-deserted campus in the very late evening, a culturally straight-looking, lone white male student with short hair appeared. And, after glancing at me sitting on the steps while walking by me a few yards, he then turned around and asked, in a curious, friendly Midwestern accent:  "Don't you have a place inside to spend the night?"

"I was hoping to get into this building. But the door is locked," I replied.

The young white guy, who looked like he was around 18 or 19 years-old, then laughed and said:  "I know where there's an unlocked back door that gets you into the stairs and up to some classrooms, if you follow me."

"Far out!" I replied as I stood up while picking up my knapsack.

As we walked to the unlocked back door, the white young guy, who was around 6 feet tall, not built like an athlete but neither overweight nor thin (like me), and dressed more in a mod student style than a hippie student style, mentioned that the reason he was on the then-deserted campus at this late evening hour was because he was being initiated into one of Clarion College's male fraternities.

In order to be accepted as a full number of his college fraternity, he was required by his new fraternity brothers to prove hiss fitness for fraternity membership by sneaking into the classroom buildings late at night and writing the fraternity's Greek letters name on the blackboards in some of the classrooms.

And he was in the middle of carrying out that mission that his fraternity brothers had ordered when, after stumbling across me, he seemed to get a flash in his mind that helping a slightly older generational baby-boomer brother on the street while on his fraternity mission also reflected what the true spirit of male fraternity was about.

Once inside the academic building and up the stairs a few flights, the white frat student then led me into one of the empty classrooms at the end of the hall. And, before writing the Greek letters on the blackboard, advised me:  "Just stay here for the night and no one will probably notice you. As long as you're out of here before classes start here in the morning."

"Thanks for being a fraternity brother for me," I called after him as he quickly left the classroom to chalk up his fraternity's Greek letters on other classroom blackboards on that floor of the building.

Although the classroom floor was hard, I did manage to fall asleep for three or four hours during the night. But by the time the sun was rising, I was awake and read to leave the classroom, walk down the stairway, exit through the backdoor and get back on the road --before anyone else had arrived on Clarion College's campus.

On The Road In The 1970's: Part 87

 Being in a campus town, I only had to wait a few minutes on the road that led to the Interstate Highway entrance, before a young white woman hippie-freak, driving on her way to her day job, stopped her car and gave me and my large knapsack a short lift to the entrance of the highway that led south to the Ohio Turnpike. And less than ten minutes after she dropped me off, a van, with a guy driving, who was a long-haired hippie-freak-looking student, and two passengers, another long-haired guy who was a hippie-freak-looking student and a woman who was also a hippie-freak-looking student, offered me a ride.

All three were students at Clarion College in Clarion, Pennsylvania, who had been visiting the campus town I spent the night before in, during the previous week. And all three of the hippie-freak-looking students were already high from smoking the weed by the time they invited me to join them for free in the van on their trip back east.

Since they quickly shared a joint with me in the van, after I boarded it, and the cassette tape player in the van was playing rock music loudly during the whole time it took to reach Clarion College in Clarion, Pennsylvania by the late evening, I can't recall conversing with the three of them much during the hours of riding east in the van with them.

So my only recollection of what happened on this van ride into Ohio, and then east on Interstate 80 into Pennsylvania, is just listening while stoned to rock music as the van moved east on the Ohio Turnpike at more than 65 mph and onto Interstate 80  into Pennsylvania.

What i do remember, though, is arriving at the off-campus apartment they shared in Clarion, Pennsylvania in the late evening. And then quickly sensing that, from their point of view, the ride I htiched from them didn't include any offer for me to crash in their offcampus pad for the night.

So, after we all entered the pad they shared, still all stoned, but feeling an immediate vibe coming from the others in the living room that I was supposed to spend the night elsewhere in Clarion, I quickly snuck out of their apartment and disappeared from their scene, without them even noticing that I was leaving. They also likely didn't notice me disappearing from their apartment because they hadn't really all conversed much with me during our stoned drive to Clarion, Pennsylvania. So they still were not yet even award of my name and it hadn't really registered in their minds that I might be included in their scene for the night after arriving in Clarion.

No knowing anyone in Clarion and needing a place to hide away from any cops in the town during the night while I slept, I eventually headed for one of the buildings on Clarion College's campus.