On the road as a Pius Itinerant, being unique was a survival trait. Different styles of survival for ever-changing environments. I had a knack for finding short-term jobs in strange places and making local contacts rapidly. My frequent travel buddy Bill ( Captain Zero) stirred up places to live, though. If he waved us off an opportunity that he thought was just too good to be true, I went along. His ability to perceive the odd was keen.
People thought we were odd and unique because we were unrooted. Please don’t count on us being there next week.
We considered the rooted ones to be odd. Unique in a strange way- conformist, limited in view, tied to one job for life, and limited in world view. This was the 1960s. Society in the States was just coming out of the conformist cocoon it had wrapped itself in in the fifties. The House Un-American Activities BS was still a warmly held memory in the minds of some of the ultra-straight individuals we met on the road. If I played a church-sponsored coffeehouse, they were the parents of the teens in the audience ( remember I was only 18 or 19 myself).
Writing about this, it feels like someone just threw open an archive. One that should have stayed sealed at that. Lots of those people were just like the MAGATS today. They were trying as hard as they could to be as conformist as possible. If you tried, and we did, to expose them to the light of day, they hissed, covered their eyes, and had a sheer hissy-fit. The word on their lips then was Commie, today it would be Liberal. Same thing, limited minds trying to find single words for very complex items, and a slur works the best for them.
I’d take out my guitar, play some blues, and be asked why I was playing that N word music (I won’t use that word!). Needless to say, some towns, counties, and states we left sooner than most. While we didn’t actually see anyone wearing a tinfoil helmet to protect them against the mind invasion of liberal ideas, lots of folks had a sort of intellectual equivalent.
It seems to some extent as though I’m describing modern America, but I’ve been talking about a world gone over sixty years ago. I won’t say that some things never change, but they are strangely persistent. I am grateful that I am not on the road these days. Sometimes, it seems like we’ve made little progress, or even that we’ve gone backwards.
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I was always a bit of an oddity- I don’t know if that makes me unique or not- but I do know it makes sharing memories with other ladies of a certain age precarious……
With your talent for writing beleive me you are unique in the best possible and creative way!
Your memories do remind me of things today, and reminds me that we humans seem to stay the same more than we change. But remembering that is a good thing because it means we can not let down our guard. Not ever. Love our communities, love our countries, and yet always be ready for big change coming.