the summer after second grade i went on a roadtrip with my best friend and his mom. she had a vw bug that broke down at least five times, but she always managed to fix it, if only temporarily.
we stopped at several communes on our way north, sometimes run by gay and lesbians, sometimes hippies. i remember one near eureka that was a nudist colony to boot. j and i were eight and not particularly comfortable with all that saggy old people skin we were being exposed to. the sweat lodge/yurt made it a worthwhile pit stop, though. j got stung by a bee, i jumped over a rattle snake, we tested out electric fencing with grass, ate stolen peaches fresh off the tree, i got bit by a dog (and developed a healthy phobia of them that lasted 25 years) and we got to go to a small town school for a couple of months. the teachers weren’t comfortable with j and i being best friends and living under the same roof, since he’s a boy and i’m a girl, so they decided to separate us by putting me back a grade. j’s mom went ballistic, she yanked me out and i got home schooled. home schooling, i learned quickly, was way harder than regular school because adults who love you also know how smart you are and therefore will challenge you at your actual level. i didn’t care for it. on halloween my mom picked me up and we jumped on a train headed home. that was my first overnight train ride. if it had been almost any night other than october 31st, i probably would have enjoyed it. as it was, i got a tootsie roll from the conductor and was bitter about my lackluster halloween candy haul.
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