Atomic Buick Ride Along The Columbia

                                          Me and Jess went for a walk out in the fields this morning. I was thinking about Canned Heat which will make me feel better even when I'm already feeling alright. I roamed all over this country when you still could do that mostly for free and I had an 8 track tape of those guys in my bag. I had more than that and I would get a ride and pull them out and let the guys at the wheel pick something out and hope I hadn't spilled any wine on it or got any seeds stuck in the tape to jam their player up with.
                            I slept with a lot of cows and never got stepped on. I got snotted up on once. I swam in all kinds of shit to get clean,sort of, and stayed outside even when I didn't have to. I had a couple of pairs of levis and three tshirts and pairs of socks and army boots and a field jacket that could live through anything. I had money, then I didn't ,then I did. All kinds of people picked me up. Everyone was cool.
          In about 1981 or so, I was hitchhiking home from visiting my old man, my brother and my sister in Eastern Washington.  I got a ride in Oregon just outside of  The Dalles on the road that runs up along along the Columbia river to Portland, I forget the number. It was a hot, hot motherfucking day and I was hungover from drinking and whoring around with my cowboy brother for a week. I got under an overpass and pretty quick a nice Buick stopped to pick me up. I got in and a nice old guy said hello and held up a quart of Ten High bourbon, which was just what I needed if I couldn't get any buttermilk, my old secret hangover cure.
          Long before Portland we were shitfaced and best friends and I asked him what he did? "I work for the Atomic Energy Commission, I'm taking some 'material' down to Sacramento from the Hanford Plant" he says. Now, even half as drunk as ten motherfuckers, I knew that this was going to be interesting. " How much do we have in here?" I asked him. "It's in the trunk, give me that other bottle under your seat."
          I was on my way down to San Francisco. He was going to Sacramento. With a trunk full of fissile material, maybe, and god only knew how much more whiskey."We need a case of beer, man. Lets stop next town," is what I said.
 He agreed.
         When we stopped I mentioned feeling worried about who might notice our possibly unsteady gates and become concerned enough to maybe mention us to the local constabulary. "I'm immune. No one can fuck with me. I'm a retired colonel and I work for the Army." Good enough. We headed into the store.
    He fell down in the parking lot, I didn't know how much he had before he got me but he'd matched me hit for hit through a quart and a half of Ten High. He was ready to let me drive, he said. "Good thing. I can do it. Lets get the beer next place we see. We gotta go. Come on, I'll give you a hand." As soon as he sat down in the car, he hit the whiskey again. What a hot shit. I took off and hustled on down the road. Never mind all that immunity shit. What a hot shit. We made it through Portland and finished all his Pall Malls leaving us in dire need. He kept on the whiskey, god bless his crazy ass. Me too.
          I stopped for the smokes and the beer down the road after we got around the corner in Portland, he paid for it, he had a ton of money in his wallet. He tells me "Get something good." "Schlitz Malt Liquor?" "Thats it!"
                A couple of more miles down the road he passed out. I pulled into a motel and got the desk guy to help me get him into a room. I gave the keys to  Motel Guy and told him not to give them back to the Old Atom Smasher until at least check out time the next day, took the Schlitz Malt Liquor and ran across 5 to a pasture where I rolled out my bag and drank a couple of cans and watched the stars spin.
                     We'd listened to the radio all day, whatever I wanted, it was past 8 track days by then. The last thing I heard before I parked him and his atomic shit was Taj Mahal doing "She Caught The Katy". I decided to hit the coast highway next day, slow down a little and I had the shit to put me together for the next day in the bag. Hooray for me and fuck the world. I wondered if I was radioactive.
         On the road again.
         What a great fucking ride.