Leaving For Greece

 
In two previous entries I have told you about my time in Italy and in Switzerland, but let me start from the beginning of how that trip came to be.  It was the spring of 1990.  I had just finished five and a half years of college in order to get my four-year degree in Marketing at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.  I had graduated the previous December and had been saving every penny for me and my girlfriend Lona's upcoming dream trip to Greece in April with our roomate Claudia Tribbiani.  Lona and I knew nothing about Greece, but Claudia had visited there almost two years earlier and had not stopped talking about it ever since.  She wanted to go back and she wanted us to come with.  The beautiful islands, the clear blue water of the Mediterranean Sea, the incredibly friendly people, the cheap living, the amazing history…it was all there.  I loved to travel and had been all over the country following the Grateful Dead around for the previous five years, but I had never been overseas and was not sure I needed to go all the way to Greece for good times.

 

Claudia was relentless though and never wavered in her commitment to get me and Lona to go there with her.  I was still unconvinced until one fateful evening in the spring of 1989 when she pulled out her trump card and forever changed my life.  She returned home from the video rental store, opened up a bottle of wine, sat Lona and I down on the couch and popped a tape of ‘Summer Lovers’ into the VCR.  Summer Lovers is a 1982 movie starring Daryl Hannah, Peter Gallagher and the beautiful French actress Valerie Quennessen.  Basically it was how a young American couple (Daryl and Peter) go to the Greek islands for the summer.  They are amazed by the beauty and freedom of the place…the relaxed, laid back atmosphere and of course the nude beaches.  They meet the French girl (Valerie) and they start a summer-long threesome.  Not technically the greatest movie, but holy crap it had me hook, line and sinker on the idea of going to the Greek islands with two women!

 

It was decided...we were going to Greece!  And then we figured that since we were already over there we would go see more of Europe after Greece.  So for one full year we meticulously planned our journey.  We pored over maps, read books, did research, bought backpacks, got our passports, got Eurail passes and most importantly - saved our money.  Through various questionably legal means I had managed to save up $14,000 for Lona and I over the previous few years.  Mostly by selling various items in the parking lots on tour with the Dead, including tie-dyed tee-shirts, beer, mixed drinks, clothes from Guatemala and Bali that a friend of mine had imported…whatever I could sell.  It was incredibly profitable, paying for me to travel the country while I still managed to save a lot of money.  I kept all of the cash in stacked piles of rubber-banded $500 bundles in my sock drawer.

 

After carefully researching the various banks in Minneapolis I finally decided on a downtown bank that did not charge a fee for travelers checks.  It was March, about a month before we were scheduled to fly out of Chicago for Athens.  I called the bank and told them I was coming in to open an account with a large deposit.  Then I loaded up all the piles of 20’s, 50’s and 100 dollar bills into a duffel bag and made my way to the bank.  I was not sure how to proceed when I got there, so I got in line with all the rest of the customers.  When I finally got up to the counter I leaned over and quietly told the guy I wanted to open an account with a lot of cash to deposit.  He told me okay, hand it over.  I padded the duffel bag and told him it was a lot of cash.  He seemed unconcerned in the least and said that’s fine, let him have it.  I shrugged my shoulders, unzipped the bag and started dumping piles of money onto the counter while the people behind me gasped.  It was weird, like I was doing the exact opposite of robbing a bank.  A shifty-looking guy in a black leather jacket with hair most of the way down his back in a bank emptying a duffel bag full of cash.

 

The previously unimpressed bank teller instantly freaked out and did a spread-eagle belly-flop onto the pile of cash like a soldier jumping on a landmine.  “No, no, don’t do that here!” he shouted.  "Come around back with me!”  So after quickly scooping all the money back into the bag and calling for someone else to take over his teller spot, he led me around through a secure door into a back room where we sat and counted money for about an hour.  He was young and excited and acted like he had never seen that much money.  Luckily, this was shortly before a law was passed that whenever you deposit more than $10,000 in cash you have to account to the Feds as to where the money came from.  I would have been screwed.  So I safely deposited the $14,000.  Then shortly before we left for Greece I took out $7,000 in travelers checks, $3,000 in cash which I left at Lona’s parents house in Waukesha, WI where we would be temporarily living whenever we got back, and I left $4,000 in the Minneapolis bank for the future.

 

Even though we had done a lot of planning and preparation, our overall plan was still very uncertain and open to change.  The loose plan was that Lona and I would fly one-way to Athens with Claudia, spend a few days there on the mainland, and then jump on a boat and start island-hopping around the Greek islands.  Claudia would be with us for 2 months, but after that we were on our own as she would have to come back home.  Then the two of us would continue on for a month or two until our money dwindled down to the point where we had to cash in our 1-month Eurail passes.  Then we would use those to wind our way through Europe until we got to Ireland.  We would stay in Dublin until all our money had run out and then we would fly home.

 

It was not just planning a vacation though, it was also planning the complete changing of our lives.  I had graduated from college and wanted to come back to Minneapolis and make a life there where all my friends were, but Lona was a few years younger than me and really missed her family.  She wanted to live closer to them in Waukesha as the five-hour drive home was too long for her.  Finally I agreed that we would move out of Minneapolis.  So in the weeks leading up to the trip, we also had to pack up all of our belongings and move them down to Lona’s parent’s basement.

 

I knew I did not want to live in Waukesha where I had grown up and went to high school…it would feel like I was moving backwards.  And Lona did not want to live in Minneapolis…too far from her family.  So the vague plan was that whenever we got back from Europe we would live at her parent’s house until we got acclimated to being back in the States.  Then we would use the cash I had stashed there to move, possibly to Madison, WI.  It seemed like a good compromise.  Madison is a somewhat big, somewhat happening city, yet only an hour from her family.  We did not know anybody that lived there so it would be a fresh, exciting way to start our post-college, post vacation-of-a-lifetime lives.

 

As the fateful day to leave for Greece grew closer, we starting packing our backpacks.  These packs would hold everything we needed for the next 6 months or so.  Our entire lives would be in our packs.  We wanted to go as light as possible so we just packed 5 tee-shirts, 5 pairs of underwear/socks, a few pairs of shorts, bathing suits, a light jacket, toiletries…and most importantly, the acid.  How would we get LSD into Greece?  We wouldn’t need much…maybe 10 hits each and we could trip once on every island.  So I cut a small quarter-inch slit in the inner lining waistband of one of my pairs of shorts and carefully slid the quarter-inch by three-inch strip of paper acid into the waistband.  I was nervous about it, but I kept telling myself it was completely undetectable and it would be so worth it once we got there.  Tripping in Greece…literally!

 

Finally the day had arrived.  We had moved out of our apartment in Minneapolis and all of our stuff was in Lona’s parent’s house.  Claudia’s mom drove us down to Chicago for the long flight to Athens, with a layover in Frankfurt.  The next day we finally arrived in the old Athens International Airport and taxied to the terminal.  It looked like a decrepit, rundown old building but the most frightening thing was the large military tank with soldiers standing all around it awaiting our plane.  Had they somehow found out about the LSD in my shorts?  Were they going to arrest me as soon as I got off the plane?  They were all carrying machine guns.  Were they going to shoot me?  I had seen the movie ‘Midnight Express’…were they going to throw me in a Turkish prison?  That made no sense since we were in Greece, but I was still pretty nervous as I walked out of the plane door and squinted into the bright sunlight.

 

We walked down the steps to the concrete tarmac, past the tank and the row of machine gun-carrying soldiers eyeing us carefully and then into the run-down old terminal.  I got my baggage and that was it!  We had made it!  I had to pee so I went into the bathroom but there were no toilets or urinals.  There were literally just holes in the ground with what are called ‘elephant feet’ on either side of the hole to stand on if you have to poop.  You were supposed to put one foot one on either side of the hole and squat.  Gross.  Fortunately I just had to pee so I stood over the smelly mess and aimed down into the hole.  Then with all three of our backpacks secure we jumped into a cab and headed for Athens.  The beginning of our 4-month adventure in Greece and then 2 more months in the rest of Europe had begun!  Many more stories to come, especially about the various escapades on the many Greek islands we would visit.

Running From The Cops

“There is a huge body of evidence to support the notion that me and the police were put on this earth to do extremely different things and never to mingle professionally with each other, except at official functions, when we all wear ties and drink heavily and whoop it up like the natural, good-humored wild boys that we know in our hearts that we are.  These occasions are rare, but they happen — despite the forked tongue of fate that has put us forever on different paths.”

This is a quote from one of my favorite authors, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.  His death in 2005 prompted me to get my only tattoo, which is his symbol of the ‘Gonzo’ fist/sword on my right leg.

I too have had an extremely contentious and lively relationship with the police over the years but I have finally reached a place in my life where I no longer fear cops or see them as the bad guys.  Now I welcome the sight of a squad car driving past my house with my wife and 2 small children here, whereas in years past I would tense up in fear at the mere sight of a cop.  I have had numerous run-ins with the police in the past and some of those stories will probably come out in the future, but today’s entry will just be about running from the police.  A few ‘low-speed’ chases.

My first chase happened one night in the summer of 1995 when I was living in Madison, WI.  My friend Sean Morrison had come down from Minneapolis, MN for a week to visit and stay with me while doing a two-day concert stage construction job in Milwaukee.  He drove down on his 1968 Moto Guzzi motorcycle but it rained the whole way.  When he finally arrived at my house he was soaked, miserable, and the bike was not doing much better.  One of the problems was that all the moisture was causing the spark plugs to foul out and he kept having to stop and fix the bike.  In addition, it was old and falling apart and there were wires sticking out all over and the right rearview mirror was hanging by a cord.

 

When he reached my doorstep I realized that he desperately needed a beer so I quickly ushered him in, grabbed a couple of cold ones and let him dry off and chill out for awhile.  The rain had finally stopped so after a few beers we went out to look at his bike.  He changed the plugs, fixed the rearview mirror, messed with the engine for a bit and said we should take it for a ride.  I suggested we head over to my buddy Mitch Manson’s house.  He only lived about a mile away and I knew Mitch would love to see Sean.  So I grabbed a case of bottled beer, jumped on the back of the bike and we were off.  We rode it around for a bit but it quickly started hitching and stop/starting and running horribly again.  Sean was pissed off, but we lurched and hitched our way to Mitch’s place and went in with the beer to hang out.

 

After a few hours with Mitch and most of the beer gone, it was time to head back to my place.  Sean had to get up early the next morning and make the 1½ hour ride to Milwaukee for the job.  He would not be able to take his bike so I told him he could use mine.  So we left Mitch’s place...but we were drunk.  We should have just walked home but instead Sean got on his bike and got the thing to start.  The mirror immediately fell off and was again dangling by a cord.  I jumped on behind Sean and reached around him with my right hand to hold the rearview mirror in place thinking that would make us look ‘legal’.  Like that stupid mirror was our biggest problem.  We set off from Mitch’s and took a left on East Washington Avenue with the bike lurching and hitching and wires sticking out and Sean drunkenly weaving while I did my best to hang on to the bike with my two legs, hold the beer with left hand and the mirror with my right hand.  Two complete morons, but we did not have far to go so I figured we would be okay.

 

We got to the intersection on Washington Ave to take a left into my neighborhood but Sean could not to come to a complete stop or the bike would die.  So we did a slow rolling stop, lurching through the intersection and waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before completing the turn.  Unfortunately one member of the oncoming traffic happened to be a cop.  As he drove past us he was staring at the dilapidated bike and then he looked up and we locked eyes.  He immediately hit the siren but he could not stop because he was going with the flow of traffic and had cars behind him.  Washington Avenue is a 4-lane road with a median in the middle so he had to keep going a couple of blocks down to the next intersection and do a U-turn before coming back to get us.

 

I thought we were doomed but Sean recognized the fact that the cop would not be able to get to us for a bit, so he gunned the lame bike as fast as it would go through the intersection and into my neighborhood.  We lurched our way one block up a hill, took a right onto my street, and then hiccupped and bounced our way to my house a block up on the left.  I was freaking out.  Were we really running from the cops?!  Yep.  I could hear the angry siren getting closer.

 

Luckily my garage door was open so we slid the bike in, laid it down and shut the garage door just as the cop lights came into view.  We crouched down and cautiously peered out of the garage window.  There was the cop, slowly driving up the street towards us, shining his spotlight left, right, in every driveway and yard looking for us.  He got to my house and the light was impossibly bright as it filled up the entire garage.  It lingered for a bit and then moved on.  We were safe!  My heart was racing and the adrenaline flowing.  I knew we had been incredibly stupid for not walking home, but it was quite a rush getting away from the cops.

 

Another ‘episode’ occurred a few years later in the fall of 2003.  I went over to my buddy B-Dog’s house in Minneapolis to watch Monday Night Football.  We had a couple of beers and then B-Dog said:  “Hey, check this out.”  He left the room for a second and returned with a bottle of Patron tequila.  Uh oh.  Patron came on the market in 1989 but until that night I had never tried it before.  So expensive…so smooth…so good.  We had a few shots in between beers and by the end of the game I was hammered and had reached a full ‘10’ on the stupid-meter.  Not only did I know better than to drink and drive, but I upped the stupid-ante by asking B-Dog for some weed to go.  Just a small bud I reasoned...enough for one bowl when I got home.

 

As all my friends know, I do not smoke weed.  I had not smoked since my second year in college in 1985.  Over the years I will try it every once in awhile, like maybe once every 5 years, but it always incapacitates me to the point that it is pointless.  I have forgotten how to be stoned.  But it had been a few years and I was feeling good so I decided it would be a good idea to bring some home for a night cap.  So B-Dog gave me a small bud and I stuck it in my cigarette cellophane wrapper and hit the road.  I got in my car and took off for the 20-minute ride from south Minneapolis to Plymouth.  Oh sweet jesus what am I doing I asked myself when I got on the freeway and had to use my left hand to cover my left eye to keep from seeing double.  The one-eyed driving trick worked though and I got all the way to the driveway of my condo with no incident.  Yes!!

 

I was so excited to be alive and not arrested that as soon as I made the right turn into my long driveway I floored my 1997 Chevy Camaro and she responded instantly by shooting forward at top speed.  I was still accelerating and probably up to 40 mph when I went through the stop-sign and hit the railroad track crossing that went over our driveway at the top of a small hump.  I knew at this speed I would catch a little bit of air and I was excited at the prospect of ‘flying’.  Everything was groovy until I noticed a car passing me on my left as I was gracefully soaring through the air anticipating the landing.  It was a cop.  Holy crap!  This could not be any worse.  I was drunk, carrying pot, and driving recklessly while speeding through a stop-sign.  He hit the lights and siren instantly.

 

I had to think fast.  In addition to being long, the driveway was narrow with a pond on one side and trees on the other.  I knew he would not be able to turn around until he got all the way out to the main road so I had a few seconds of extra time.  The Camaro landed and I kept the accelerator to the floor as I headed for my underground parking garage on the other side of the building.  It was like a bat-cave in that you had to go past our building, make a sharp right turn, hit the remote button to raise the garage door, and then dive down underground into the building.  I always felt like Batman coming home, or when I would strap myself into the Camaro to leave and zoom up and out of the garage into the light.  Lately though the battery in my garage remote had been dying so sometimes it would work but sometimes it would not, so then I would have to hit the button like 10 times to get the door up or even get out of the car and use my condo key to raise it.

 

So I got to the sharp right turn and I was hammering on the remote button and praying it would work and YES it worked instantly!  I made the turn, dove underground, pulled into the first available stall, killed the lights and turned it off.  I jumped out of the car and quickly ran to the wall in front of the car and crouched down.  There were small windows running the length of the parking garage and I could see the red, white and blue cop lights bouncing off the ceiling and the far walls of the garage.  Thankfully the garage door had come back down in time to keep the cop from getting inside so his car was parked in the driveway.  Then I noticed a strong flashlight shining through the windows as he was going from window to window peering in trying to see me and/or my car.  I held my breath as he passed right above me and moved on.

 

When he got to the far end of the building I raced to the door and went into the condo's work-out room.  I worried that if he was angry enough that cop might get the building manager to let him in to find the car and the owner.  I figured he could not arrest me for DWI if he could not find me though so I hung out in the work-out room for about a half hour.  Then I cautiously poked my head out, went upstairs to the main level, peeked out a window and he was gone.  Phew!  I went up to my third-floor room and smoked the weed reasoning that it would calm my nerves.  Nope.  I got so paranoid I had to shut off all my lights and hide in bed till I fell asleep.  Do not drink and drive people!

 

Another brush with cops on the run occurred during the Halloween weekend of 1985.  Although this time I was sort of running with the cops instead of away from them.  It was during my second year of college at the University of Minnesota and I had come back home to Waukesha, WI for the weekend to visit my girlfriend Lona who was still in high school.  There was a big Halloween costume party that Saturday night so our idea was for Lona to dress up as a man while I dressed up as a woman.  She wore a nice suit out of her dad's closet.  I wore one of her mom's dresses with a well-stuffed bra, high heels, and was sporting a nice black knock-off purse.

 

After I finally got all my make-up on with the help of Lona's mom we headed to the house-party in my 1978 Toyota Celica.  We were a little late and there were cars parked up and down the block.  We finally found a spot to park on the street around the corner about a block away.  I had just pulled into my spot and we were about to get out when a cop pulled up next to me and made the signal to roll down my window.  I did.  He opened his passenger window, looked at me dressed in drag and asked if we were going to the party.  I nervously told him that we were.  He told me not to bother because as soon as more backup arrived they were going to raid it.  Then he moved on.

 

Holy crap! The drinking age at the time was 19, but half my friends were still underage.  They were all going to get busted if I didn’t do something.  As soon as the cop rounded the corner I told Lona to wait there and I jumped out of the car.  I started running through the grass, intending to cut through the yards and get to the party house before the cops did.  I was not making good time though because my pointed high heels kept digging into the grass and slowing me down.  I was getting frustrated trying to run and not fall over when suddenly I hear Lona shout out through the passenger window of the car:  “Take off your shooooes!”

 

Oh yeah, duh.  I stopped and took a few seconds to unlatch them.  Yes!  So much better!  With shoes in hand and dress flowing behind me I cut through the neighborhood yards till I made it to the house.  I pounded on the back door and finally somebody opened the door.  He was irritated and told me it was $2 a cup but that I had to go around to the front door.  I pushed past him into the house and started yelling:  “Cops! Cops!  They’re getting ready to raid!”

 

The place was packed and the music was cranking but word got around quickly.  Within seconds all of the underage kids started spilling out the back door and spread out into the neighborhood like ants.  A few got caught inside when the cops arrived a few minutes later, but most of the under-agers made it to safety.  My girlfriend was underage at the time too so we never got to go to the party, but as I walked back to my car in my sexy sheer fish-net stockings I had the satisfaction of knowing that at least I saved a bunch of my friends from getting one of those damn juvy-drinking tickets.

 

(Again, I do not condone running from the cops and you should NEVER drink and drive.  I do not drink and drive anymore and I am lucky to be alive and/or to have not hurt anybody.)