04.30.06
“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again…” Willie Nelson
X liked to call himself a “road scholar”, as opposed to a Rhodes Scholar. I guess after this journey, I’d have to say the same thing. The next morning we left bright and early wandering the streets of Pittsburg waiting to meet up with X’s sister. We arrived at our meeting place and were met by her friend, a Marxist. “A what?”, I thought to myself. Having been brought up in a very conservative Republican family, if I’d ever even heard of Karl Marx, I’m sure I would have thought he was pure evil. After about a half an hour, I realized why I had fought so often with my family over politics. I was fascinated and starved for more. The only class I’d actually heard a name for was the Middle Class, though we lived in a mostly Working Class neighborhood. I’d always been very confused about where we fit in. We were much poorer than most of my parent’s friends but were trying to live in that world. We had to keep up appearances at all cost. I learned very early on that appearances can be very deceiving.
This man was only the first of many incredible characters who would entertain, educate me, and radically change my life. Unfortunately, we had very little time with him. Meanwhile, I was concerned about how tired I was all the time and other body issues that were going on. The next day I went for a pregnancy test, which came out negative. Whew! Being relatively close to home, I would have felt pressured to go back there if I was having a baby. My spirits perked up a bit more, and I was ready to go back on the road.