Is this any good ...? .. my humble effort ...

                                                                Hermosa Beach

      I’d been travelin’ up and down the coast of California for about six months when I hit the beaches. You know Huntington, Redondo, the usual. It wasn’t long before I caught sight of the surfers, man to that 18 year-old boy that looked really cool. So I got myself a job washin’ dishes at this hash house. I was still sleepin’ in alleys and under life guard stands because I was workin’ for a board. And you know what? Before I knew it, I could quit that job because I had enough for a used surfboard.
Now you young cats gotta’ understand, this was 1968, and a short board was anything under ten feet. I got me a 9’6’’ beauty; even painted the American flag on the bottom. I think it was in protest to the Viet Nam War, I’m not sure, but it did look cool.
   I bought the board from a shop on Hermosa Beach, so naturally I stayed there. I mean, how far could I go with a surf board and no car. It was summer, and sleeping on the beach was pleasant, most of the time. When it rained, well, that was a *****. But for the most part, I was happy surfing all day, and cagin’ a meal at night. I usually feed myself by goin’ to the back door of a restaurant and askin’ if I could do some work for a meal. Half the time they would feed me without the required work. Now don’t get me wrong, I always preferred to work for my meal. The times it was given to me made me feel beholdin’, and that is something that has stayed with me well into dotage. I don’t like to owe.
   One of the most memorable times of my back door escapades was the time I knocked at a restaurant’s back door and gave my usual spiel. Well this cook, or maybe he was a chef, let’s me in, walks me over to a table in the kitchen, and says, “Don’t worry about the work, just sit here and I’ll feed you. Just as I was puttin’ the first mouthful of his fine cuisine in my mouth, this woman walks into the kitchen from the dinning room, sees me, and says, “What’s he doing here, get him out of here.” It turned out she was the owner. Well my friend the chef, I’ve decided to promote him, tells the owner, his boss, “When a man come to kitchen hungry, I am goin’ feed him.” As he finished speaking, he lifted the knife he was using to slice some meat with in a menacing manner, pointing it at his boss, and he kept it pointed right at her until she turned and went back through the door she had just come through. Which was a no no. It was the entrance door to the kitchen, the other door next to it was the exit. She was lucky a bus boy wasn’t comin’ through at that moment carrying a tray of her dishes.
   Anyway back to my story. Okay, I’ve got my new surfboard, I’m eatin’ at least once a day, and I’m surfin’. Of course I’ve got nowhere to live, but to an 18 year-old that’s no sweat. But I’m happy as a pig in ****. I need nothin’. But somethin’ was right around the corner.
I had it worked out with one of the life guards to watch my board on the few occasions I left the beach. Surfin’ does work up an appetite. So I’d meander up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) every once and a while to see what I could promote food wise, Well, on the day in question, I was attracted by music blaring out of this storefront shop. It was Canned Heat’s “Goin’ Up to the Country.” At the time I didn’t know it was an old blues number they had redone. In fact they took the name Canned Heat from an old blues tune. But I didn’t know any of that crap at the time. I just knew the song moved me.
   So I’m standing in front of this store just killin’ time until the song was over when this dude walks up to me, and says, “I dig this song too.” He was about my age, maybe a few years older, blond hair, about 6’1’’, and kinda thin. His name was Pete. We get to talkin’ and then he says, ”Wanna’ blow  a joint?” Now in 1968 did you ever hear of a kid who didn’t want to blow a joint? Of course I did.
   He took me to his house that he shared with his sister. It was only a few feet from the beach and it was painted green. That I remember. I also remember his sister, she was my age, beautiful and unattached, which did me no good whatsoever. I was too shy in those days to open my mouth, and the girls of that by gone era were just learning to be assertive. So we danced around one another, but nothing happened. Anyway I was into surfing, not girls. Yeah right!
   The long shot of it was, I was invited to move in half way through the first joint. And that set into motion events that led to me having a knife at my throat, being robbed, murder attempted upon me, me tryin’ to smuggle a pound of pot across the Mexican/US boarder, jail, near death, and all sort of fun things. And no Pete was not a bad guy. Pete was a fuckin’ great guy; he was just an idiot like me.
   Okay folks, I’ve got better things to do than sit here at this fuckin’ computer telling you my life story, and I’m damned sure you got better things to do then hear about my ****. Especially since all this crap went down 42 fuckin’ years ago, so I’ll make a deal with you guys. You just let me tell this **** in my own way, don’t interrupt, and I’ll cut to the chase, so we can all get outta’ here and go for a beer. Deal?
   After a few weeks of living with Pete and his sister, he and I start talkin’ about how we could make real money. We thought that if we went down to Tijuana, copped a pound of primo Mexican Gold, and brought it back to Hermosa Beach, and sold it by the ounce, or “can” as it was referred to in Southern California in those days  we’d be rich. Not to mention all the “free” pot we’d have. So guess what the two idiots do? If your guess was that we hitchhiked to Tijuana to buy a pound of pot and then walk it across the boarder, then give yourself a cigar. That’s exactly what we set out to do. But things didn’t quite work out that way.
   On the way down to Tijuana we get picked up by these two guys that are goin’ down there to cop “Reds” and “Greens.” Now I know those things have legit names, but to me they were downers, not my type of high at all. Anyway I was pretty square in those days. Sure I smoked pot, did a little acid, shot a little acid, shot a little speed, but besides that I was as pure as the driven snow.

                                                          To Be Continue ...