Road Trippin in 1973
Estimated reading time: 14 minutes, 25 seconds
Biking, Hiking, and
Searching for Love!
“June, what do you think of this flyer before I mimeograph it,” I asked the Church secretary. I had developed on my own the idea of a summer bike trip to youth hostels in Pennsylvania, with the final one in Cape Cod.
The recruitment flyer was the last step in finding the pre-teens and starting the summer biking trips.
“It looks good to me. How many copies do you need?”
“I am not sure; what do you think?”
You need enough to include in the bulletin and share in the community; I would go with 100,” June explained.
We settled on the numbers, and I started the mimeograph process.
While I watched the copies print, my mind began to free associate. I had worked out of St. John’s in Brooklyn as a VISTA Volunteer since February 1972. My primary work was as a community and tenant organizer, but I also worked with pre-teens. The idea of the seven weekly bike trips had been an outgrowth of conversations from potential participants.
Thru the help of Fr. John, Lutheran Social Services had agreed to provide supervision for me and training to handle a group of pre-teens on road trips.
“How is it going,” June asked.
“Steady but slow.”
“You seem to be thinking about something.”
“I guess so. I was thinking about the trips and thinking about the future.”
The phone rang, and June answered it.
I took the finished flyers and set them on the table to dry.
“I will be back,” I whispered to June as I went outside to clear my head.
The summer of 1973 was my last summer as a VISTA volunteer. I debated between staying and leaving for a graduate program that I had postponed. Would it be my last year in Brooklyn?
I enjoyed living in the Big Apple, especially in East Williamsburg, but I did not know what my next job might be. Grad school could be an easy solution but would not start until the fall of 1974.
Of course, in my heart, I was still hoping to reconnect with my last college girlfriend. Everyone called her my imaginary girlfriend as no one had met her. I wrote letters but never received any from her. It might have helped if I remembered to mail all the letters.
After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.
