In the summer of 1957, my friend’s dad packed the family  into his 1954 Hudson Hornet and they headed west.

They followed their AAA Triptik from Detroit through the Great Plains, Denver, Cheyenne, and then through Utah and Nevada to California.

This was the first major road trip for my friend’s family.  He remembers it with great affection and was overjoyed when his youngest brother mailed him a packet of photos and postcards from the trip.

The Big Changes were only barely starting.  North Beach was a wild place.  My friend was 13 and adventurous.  He hiked around the City at night, and found himself in North Beach.

He tagged along with a group going to the Blackhawk and then the Tin Angel.

He claims – and I say claims – that he met and spent the better part of the evening with Jane Belson and Hube the Cube. She had just premiered her first film, Logos, very avant garde.  Hube was a legendary beat figure famous for nothing but famous.  I take this claim with a grain of salt.  Why would Hube hang out with a 13-year-old kid from Detroit?  But, then again….

I asked my friend what these photos and postcards made him feel.  Did he regret what later happened between his father and him?  Could it have been averted?

He didn’t want to go there.  He just thumbed through the photos.