Europe Travels
Late Summer and Early Fall, 1970
| 1970 Commercial Appeal article |
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After graduating from Memphis State University in August of 1969, I moved to Washington D.C. and lived with my brother. After working for one year and making a fair amount of money, I went to Europe. At that time I knew of no people who went to Europe. The only way I could think of going was going in some kind of group. So I joined about 800 students and teachers from my alma mater MSU who where leaving Memphis the first of July to go to University of Innsbruck for one month. It was supposed to be a travel study program where we would spend about three weeks studying in the University of Innsbruck, one week of travel and then fly back to the United States. When it came time to fly back to the United States, everyone but me got on the plane. I had seen kids hitchhiking around Europe and not on a tour bus like I was, and I thought I would try it. So I stayed and hitchhiked around Europe for the next three months, August, September and October. In August the roads were filled with crowds of young people hitchhiking and staying at youth hostels. But then in September when school started and it began to turn cool, I became the lone hitchhiker on the roads with my large orange external frame backpack. In Spain I met and hooked up with four other hippie travelers. Two were from the United States. One was a Berlin kid with long, long black hair, who did not speak any English. The fourth was a French Canadian from the Yukon name Tycho Langtree. This man was one of the most unusual people I have ever met and become friends with in all of my life. Tycoon was of French Canadian decent and had grown up in the Yukon. When very young his father had a shoot out with the Canadian Mounties when they had come to for Tycho to force him to go to school. We all tried to go to Morocco together. We took a ferry from Malaga, Spain to Melilla, North Africa. Melilla is actually a small Spanish town located on the north coast of Morocco. We had no trouble getting into the town of Melilla, but we tried to take a taxi over the border to Morocco. But when we got to the border they would not let us in because of our long hair. We got kicked out of North Africa and sent back to Spain because. This was and is my only trip to Africa. Once we pulled into some local place in the evening. A very large German shepherd was tied with a chain to the collar around his neck. He saw us and came after us before we got out of our car. Although I am not afraid of large dogs, this dog was terrifying. He was being restrained by the chain and was only on his two back paws and his front two were in the air as he strained to get at us. The dog was snarling and barking and looked mean and mad as hell. Although he was restrained by the chain, none of us wanted to get out of the car for fear of the chain breaking which it looked like it would. Well Tycho, will little hesitation, got out of the car walked right up to the dog and put his nose an inch from the dogs nose. The dog was barking, and snapping his mouth viciously, straining his leash trying to get at Tycho to tear him apart. Well for 10 minutes, Tycho was nose to nose with this rabid dog, talking to him in a low voice soothingly. Finally the dog backed dog and became a cute friendly German shepherd that we could all pat. I was dumbfounded and amazed. Latter my four friends wanted to buy an old cheap car to drive to Italy. But the problem was that they all basically had no money. So the decision was made to return to Barcelona and sell some pot to make enough money to buy a car. So for the first and only time in my life, I dealt, much to my dismay. I sold to American sailors who where on shore leave. It was pretty nerve wracking as General Franco was still in control in Spain and soldiers with machine guns were every corner. But it all went smoothly and we bought an old used small car and were off to Italy. |
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Myself with a BIG joint next to one of my sleeping American friends in a hostel in Spain. 
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Tycho Langtree smoking a joint Chillum style.
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The Berlin stoner on the left, and the two American hips.
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American on far left, some local in a cowboy like hat, the Berlin kid in comtemplation, the other American, and Tycho Langtree on the far right. This was some kind of bar in Spain.
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The next four photos was some kind of Western Movie Set somewhere in Spain. We visited and toured around this movie set. I sure would like to know where this movie set in Spain was. But for all I know it was located in the South of France or in Italy. 
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Left to Right - American1, Berliner, American2, Tycho Langtree.
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These are some friends that some day I hope to remember who they are and where I knew them.
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Buddy Fowler and Trudy Dean, friends from Memphis, Bit-ov-Sole head shop on the island of Ibiza, Spain Buddy had his first one in Memphis. Unfortunately when I got there, they were both gone. I did meet up with Trudy in Rome 
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