.. After the dust- bowl town with the Angel and the woodruff key, we were on Route 66 and westward bound. Gas was cheap back then our slim wallets still had enough to get to ‘the city’ in California.

The bar up ahead looked promising after all that desert in Nevada. It appeared to have just been dropped into place. A small parking lot with two cars, one of them with California plates. There was literally, nothing visible from horizon to horizon. Just the endless highway. A few dust devils and actual sagebrush.

Out of the saddles and into the bar we strode, awkwardly as riding can do things to your body that doesn’t relate to standing and walking. It’s just the odd feeling from all that vibration that your hands are on opposite arms. Weird. Akin to my illusions at sea when land would not be visible. After a few weeks in the ‘middle’ if the ocean, it seems the ship is standing still and the water is flowing by!

Any way, most motorcycle riders get the upside down hands thing after 100 miles or so, no one talks about it. Our bikes were a little rougher on the road than today’s huge highway cruisers. Bruce’s BMW was a little smoother than the Indian Tomahawk/Enfield. I shudder even now thinking how it would have been on the 600cc Matchless single.

So after we shook off the muscle memories and went in, the bar had two women patrons and the barkeep. The two women were older and looked at those two young men like coyotes gazing upon a nice jack rabbit nearby. Smiles and almost instantly, an offer to cool down with a few cold ones. ‘Sure’! After a few (the women were drinking hard stuff) it was revealed that one of them was a California Senator and the other woman was the Senator’s aide.

Betty Fiorina was the Senators name, I never forgot it. It pops up now and then in the news and in my mind.

Lots of laughs and some mild flirtation ensued and it was time for the gals to hop into their Buick convertible and us to kick start the bikes and weave down the highway. Blood alcohol content, who cares? Not a car in sight and road hazards were an occasional sign and a few lizards or ruckchucks. 1. If you noticed, motorcycles now do not have kick starters. You have seen them in movies where you heave your body up in the saddle and push hard on the way down onto a pedal on the right side of the machine. It usually started on one kick.

Class act meets Brando and Lee Marvin and no one knew what to do except drink and laugh. Much later, a decade or two, I caught a name on some senate bill and it’s the same last name of the Senator they met. Family business. There was a photo and she looked very trim and self assured. Splitting image of mom.

Onward to Northern California and the back entrance to Berkeley on Shasta Road. Bruce was confident, I was just stunned. The place we wheeled up to had several chimneys, a tile roof and a pretty good view of the San Francisco bay . More class and style than either of us had ever experienced.

An old friend of Bruce’s, Charlie Jirousek, lived there with about six other people. He was a luthier and built guitars out of Brazilian Rosewood. So he was broke too. He also had a massive Malamute, North, that shed hair at a bodacious rate. A month later, Charlie covered the C.F. Martin logo on the tuning head with one of his, a mother of pearl arrow. His guitar business was called ‘Arrowhead’ I was concerned that even at this time, the Martin logo would encourage theft. It works. To this day musicians that hear of play it remark on it’s tone and beauty. “what is it?” I tell them to look inside the sound hole. Martin D-28.

Charlie had a big sack full of the hair and stated someday he would make a shirt out of it. 4 decades went by until the shirt appeared. It had an odd smell and dogs seemed attracted to Charlie. So The three of them spent a lot of time around the main living room fireplace playing guitars and eating peanut butter from Charlie’s jar. A half gallon jar. White bread used now and then. It was enjoyable for me to meet another person as pleasant and eccentric as we were.

To this day, I still enjoy a peanut butter sandwich with heavy butter on both slabs of bread. Add the thick crunchy style peanut butter. Those sandwich’s were free and the music was excellent and heart felt. A lot of joy around that fireplace.

We all knew what our lives were like as we played the same music. Leadbelly, Blind Blake, Willy McDowell. It’s called country blues music. There was one tune, Old Country Rock that just hit the spot. We played it a lot. It was pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

1. Ruckchuck . An animal nearby in the weeds that makes a lot of noise. Scared away by an aluminum cooking pot swinging in front of our headlamps.