Three like-minded students living on campus at Cal Poly SLO, got this wild idea in the Fall of ‘73 to go to an Emerson, Lake and Palmer concert, this one held at the Anaheim Convention Center on a Friday or Saturday night. I don’t think there was a worse time to go. It was during the height of the oil embargo. It was all any driver could do at the time to find and fill the tank with gas.
And so began the adventure.
For starters, one of the friends I went with would need to borrow his brother’s car. His brother also attending Cal Poly then.
The second order of business was to make sure the car’s fuel tank was full before we left.
Thirdly, we basically left on a whim, essentially with the clothes on our backs and not much else.
We managed to make it to the home of the driver, who happened to be very tuned in, fast realized that finding and getting more gas was going to be a really iffy proposition and decided instead to siphon the gas out of one of his family member’s cars and put that into the tank of the car we were using. That took care of that little matter.
Next, we piled into the car and set off. We had to go basically from the Pomona area to Anaheim and back on whatever amount of gas was in the car’s tank. Then there was that.
To make matters worse, we were running late. On the freeway and driving faster than the speed limit, the driver noticed a CHP officer in the rear-view mirror.
Slowing the car’s speed considerably, the person riding shotgun (I was sitting on the backseat), kept turning around looking out the door window checking to see where the CHP officer was in spite of the fact that we (the driver and me) implored him not to.
Needless to say we got pulled over. However, this was no ordinary traffic stop. The driver pulled off onto the shoulder next to the fast lane (in the median, in other words), slammed on the brakes, stopped the car, got out, giving the impression he was beside himself before asserting in a commanding voice that we were in the right and did nothing wrong. Of course, that was directed squarely at the patrolman.
To which the officer replied as the account was later repeated to us, something to the effect of “First of all, you don’t pull off onto the median. Second, you don’t get out of the car and approach an officer of the law in the manner in which you did. And third, you don’t slam on the brakes when stopping!”
I don’t remember how long the whole exchange took, but I gather not long and the driver was let off with a warning, as I seem to recall.
Once again on our way, I’m pretty sure we made it to the Anaheim Convention Center in time to see the entire concert which, by the way, was par excellence.
What we had done was accomplish what we set out to.
The only thing left now was to drive back to the family home of the driver, get a good night’s rest and the following morning gather our belongings which was probably on a Sunday and head back to campus.
The funny thing is, I don’t remember that part of the trip. All I can say is, unlike the outbound journey, the inbound part of the ride must have been totally uneventful.
We’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.
We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.
Top Stories Newsletter.