Revolution: Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

I hated school. I hated work. I hated boredom. I hated life. I had no interests. I had no dreams. I just wanted an adventure and I hunted it relentlessly. I never wanted that college life. I hated the college atmosphere. It was filled with smoking students sitting on green lawns, wearing their beatnik sweaters and expensive sandals, while listening to there Political Science Professor like he was a God amongst men, sucking in every attack he threw at them about the realities of life. They said I’d make friends for life in college, I knew friends for life didn’t exist. It was a different time then, filled with inopportune moments of insanity mixed in with the occasional hallucinogens and lots of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I never dreamed of getting to this point.

I dropped in and out of college. After three years I wasn’t going back. I left college for the last time as impulsively as ever—free and happy—like I had a bottomless pocket of money, fully funded, like my lungs were fresh and I could still run a mile in under six minutes. That was the happiest moment of my life. It filled me with intense joy that no other experience could ever measure up to. When I closed my eyes I believed I had a grand future; I had no problems; the past didn’t matter.

I was going to make my life an adventure.

Walking along the road on my way out of that slinky college town, I decided to hitch-hike anywhere the road took me. Hitch-hiking is a dangerous thing if you get picked up by the wrong person, I knew this well enough but I figured in that moment, it wouldn’t matter because death is one life’s greatest adventures. I stuck my thumb out and waited a while before anyone even looked my way. After what seemed like an eternity a Mac truck stopped by my side. A man named Bud was driving, he asked me my name and I told him it, he laughed because it reminded him of a Beatles song. I got that all the time. We made idle chit-chat while commenting on the profane speak of Bud’s fellow truckers through the radio waves. I liked the obscenity of it all. Bud told me of all the things he’s seen in his 15 years of trucking. I was interested, I never knew a trucker. He told me a tale about Kansas and how he once got stuck in a hotel during a tornado. It ripped the roof off and he managed to stay on ground by tying himself to the radiator. I was impressed by his quick thinking in that situation; I also realized that Kansas would not be a place I would like to visit.

I asked Bud were he was headed and he said Jersey. I told him I would like to accompany him the entire way and he obliged. I assume he was lonely and that he didn’t mind the company. He told me he had no wife and that the road was his only love. I envied him. I think he envied me as well. I told him how I sought freedom and that I wanted to liberate my mind of all thoughts of conformity. I didn’t want an obvious life. He stayed quiet but nodded in agreement.

Bud was my first friend on my new journey, my new life. I remember him well. We rode together all the way to Jersey. We ate, he paid, and in return I offered him my companionship. He told me he appreciated that I treated him kindly even though I was a city kid with white collared parents. I told him that I appreciated that he treated me kindly for the same reasons. We parted ways but I never forgot him. He was the backbone of my journey and if he knows it or not, he was my hero.

Jersey was an odd place filled with odd people. Everyone had accents and pronounced there words a little differently than I. To me it felt like a different world. I stopped in a diner on a route I don't remember the name of. The diner boasted that it had the best waffles in town. I’m not exactly a waffle aficionado but I decided to check it out anyways. I sat down and the waitress came to take my order. Her name was Prudence to which I chuckle a bit. She asked what was funny and I told her it was her name. “Beatles fan?” she asked to which I replied “Not really” I then proceeded to tell her my name. She laughed and empathized with me.

“Lucy in the sky with diamonds, more like Lucy on the road in Jersey” Prudence joked. “Yes, Lucy on the road in Jersey” I chuckled back and then I saw him, the love of my life, of course at the time I didn’t know it yet, but it was the start of the greatest love story I’ve ever heard, my own.