LETTERS BACK HOME

ABOUT THE STORY:


John Mayer was no different than most musicians in the
seventies. He wanted his words and music to change the world. From
broken down taverns to Holiday Inns, his guitar and harmonica echoed
the dreams of a generation. All he needed was a t-shirt, a jean jacket,
patched Levi's, and a woman. This collection of letters tells the story
of a 3000-mile road trip from Canada to Florida and back. Ride with
John from the Key West sunset to Panama City, and dig for 25
million-year-old shark teeth along the way. Live the journey in this
unique tale of a 27 year-old traveler who needed to see what more the
planet offered around the bend.



LETTERS BACK HOME


? By John A. Mayer | 3867 words


Remembering free and easy times on the road
in search of North America and the meaning of life.


Maybe it?s the time of year. Yes, and maybe it?s the time of
man.
And I don?t know who I am. But life is for learning.
Joni Mitchell / Crosby Stills Nash &;amp; Young - "Woodstock", 1970.



The Trip from Canada to Florida and Back



Dear Janis &;amp; Jimi,


It snowed like hell in the winter of 1975. Ten feet drifts
were not uncommon. The cold was unbearable even for a Canadian musician
with thick blood. We gathered in Belleville to decide what must be
done.


I had recently broken up with Irene, Orly was between true
loves, and Pig's girlfriend just showed up with a pizza. As she opened
the door, Bruce Springstein's "Born to Run" escaped into the frigid
northern air at seven decibels. The pizza was cold. We ate it as if it
didn't matter and got ready to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a
blizzard. The weather report from Florida looked a whole lot better
than the frozen windshield of Sharon's 1967 Plymouth Fury.



I realize you have never met these party animals, but when I
sang and played guitar in the Quinte Hotel's Green Door Lounge, they
were fans and friends. Playing the circuit in Southern Ontario provided
a lesson about the diversity of Canadians who frequent bars. This group
was wilder than most. When closing time came one crazy Friday night,
nobody wanted to leave. The bartender flashed the lights, got booed,
turned them off, heard beer bottles smashing on the walls, and called
the police.


I guess that was my standing ovation. My rendition of the
Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" ended the night and my equipment was
all unbroken. The rest of that evening was spent throwing Frisbees in
the park bathed in the light of a full moon and making love, not war.
My corporate style gigs at the Holiday Inn could never compare to this
small town anarchy; I needed to become an uncomplicated rebel for a
while.


My ex-girlfriend Irene, on the other hand, used to work with
my ex-wife Lynda at Liberty Mutual Insurance in Toronto. We both ended
up on the rebound after break ups and I guess the pheromones took over.
Irene had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and big "headlights". Her
Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian background in addition to her mother?s
recipes, made her a great cook, but also endowed her with a shrew-like
temper. I used my karate training to mentally deflect and counter
attack the wildness.


Most of the time we got along, the sex was good, and the
cabbage rolls were excellent. Her daughter Sonya was almost five and
well behaved, but a child means responsibility and, as you know, I was
in need of space and freedom. My own daughter Nicole had a huge safety
net to rely on in case of emotional and financial emergency, so I felt
a little less guilty about leaving the country, but the "kid swap"
thing was disturbing for all of us. I kept thinking of what beat writer
Richard Brautigan said:


"The only hope we have is our children and the seeds we give
them and the gardens we plant together."


Ignoring basic logic and common sense, I made up with Irene.
It just seemed like it was the path of least resistance and best option
at the time. We left my gas guzzling Camaro behind, and drove her new
fuel-efficient Toyota Corolla with Sonya in the back seat toward Key
West. To my surprise, we made it through the border without a problem,
even though I had long hair, a guitar, and patched blue jeans. Orly
followed with the rest of the Belleville sun seekers in a car close
behind, but failed to meet us in New York state as planned. After an
hour, I called the border checkpoint to see if he was there.



BIG MISTAKE!


"Yeah he's here. Who the hell are you!? Don't move, we want
to ask you some questions."


Unfortunately for my frozen buddy, his past indiscretions had
caught up with him and he was refused entry to the Promised Land. We
would later hear that his alternate destination was Vancouver, B.C.,
and another adventure would come alive in the telling a year later. The
Toyota was fired up, headed south, and the rear view mirror was filled
with imaginary patrol cars and flashing lights for two hours.



Dear Rocky &;amp; Bullwinkle,


The highway didn't turn black until Georgia. Things that
should have been green were brown. The Florida Welcome Center received
us and we were thankful, but it was still cold! Not like -10* F, but
not exactly southern cornbread warm either. We wanted to stop in
Sarasota, but it was still cold. We wanted to stop in Venice, but it
was still cold. We wanted to stop in Fort Myers, but it was still cold.
We stopped in the Everglades because it was so natural and had
alligators, but it was still cold ~ all right "cool".


We set up the tent on our Flamingo campsite with the barbecue
on a pole. I recall thinking that palm trees must be envied by the
wind. Sleep came quickly and deep, and it rained all night long on the
St. Augustine grass and sandspurs.


The next day we went crabbing on the bridge in the canal. No
one had money for a net or trap, so we used a rusty old barbecue grate
with a chicken neck bone tied to it for bait. Amazingly the blue crabs
would hang on to this thing while we reeled it up and dumped them into
a bucket. You had to be fast, because once they realized they were
about to become dinner, the crabs would jump off and scurry down the
drain hole back into the water fifteen feet below.


Blue crabs "cry" like lobsters when you cook them; a sound
that makes vegetarians go to war! Damn good eating and worth the
effort. Everyone knows they're dead when they hit the boiling water
anyway.


We were finally in "Florida Mode" and ready for alligators.
Billy Bob the Snake Man had arrived at the nature center and was
entertaining the crowd with a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck.
Gators were splashing around trying to devour hunks of meat. Pelicans
circled above and waited for dead Canadian tourists to become part of
the food chain. Flamingoes flew past in attack formation.



Enough! On to Key West.


Dear John &;amp; Marilyn,


We drove back through Florida City, past Key Largo, over the
Islamorada Bridge, Boca Chica, Stock Island, Smathers Beach, Duval
Street, Sloppy Joe's, Mallory Square, and the Key West sunset! My
guitar came out of its case as if by magic and I began to play for the
crowd along with the conga drum brothers from hell and a host of other
solar intoxicated musicians. Shark boats with big red balls dangling
from the netting lined the pier. T-shirt and trinket sellers were
everywhere. A half an hour later, we scooped up the $6.50 from my open
case and headed to Winn Dixie for food.


The Smathers Beach parking lot seemed like a good place to
spend the night with the seats reclined and Sonya tucked away in the
back. The cops didn't agree and kept moving us around until we finally
ended up behind Neisner's Department Store next to the scorpion and
snake infested canal. With an incentive to rise early and move on, we
headed to the beach and grabbed a prime parking spot next to the
showers and rest rooms. C-COLD once again! Hot water was obviously too
much to ask for, but at least we were all clean and ready for a great
day at the beach ~


PLOP.


Seagull shit had just fallen from the sky as if pre-ordained
by Jonathan Livingston to land on my belly button. I chased that damn
thing all over the place but just made myself look foolish. A young
Tammy Faye Bakker recruited as a beach NARC came up to me and asked if
I had any pot, and at that point it was time to lay down and watch the
waves roll in.


The beach community wasn't hard to spot. They all had prime
parking spaces like us along the sidewalk, because everyone wanted to
sell stuff to the tourists. Conch shells were displayed, jewelry hung
on black velvet cloth from open van doors, new and used tie-dyed
t-shirts and clothing flapped in the wind.


Smathers Beach was alive!


The first Conch Train of the day rolled by with a load of
gawking tourists, and was mooned by two wild looking Viet Nam vets.
After pulling up their khaki shorts, they salvaged a makeshift wooden
bed from the salt pond and dragged it onto the beach for a laugh. We
all had our pictures taken beside this treasure like it was a
Presidential poster from the White House and we were Sunshine Senators.



After the photo session, Shooter Bill and Black Jack gave us
a tour of their converted "Wisconsin Bread" delivery truck. It had a
complete kitchen and washroom with everything two Vets could need
including marijuana. I noticed an open book by Hunter S. Thompson on
the table with a line highlighted in yellow:


"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to
anyone, but they've always worked for me."


Noon arrived and it was time to go to work. Borrowing
flippers and a mask, I swam out to collect conch shells in about seven
feet of water amid schools of tropical fish and three mean looking
barracudas. It was a damn good thing I took my ring off or I would have
looked like a flashing lure to hungry things with teeth. With a little
cleaning and local know how, we had shells to sell and meat to eat,
although I could have done without the "meat". Rubber is more
descriptive, even when chopped and made into fritters. I paid back that
diarrhea seagull with leftovers from the grill.


Duval Street was always packed and music flowed everywhere.
With promo in hand, I knocked on doors trying to get a gig but, of
course, I had to have been booked in advance to play the "cool" places.
On to Simonton Street and the 900 Bar, with it's huge horseshoe bar and
eclectic owner. Big Al lumbered up with a lit Monte Christo hanging
just above the combustion point of his beard and said,


"Play me a song kid, and I'll tell you if you're any good!"



Three shots of peppermint schnapps for a dollar later and I
had the job. At 4:00 A.M. I was still playing with empty shot glasses
lined up in front of me and my eyes closed. Irene said "It's time to
pack it in man," so we loaded up the Toyota and left with twenty bucks
more than we had the day before.


We lived in the Keys for a month and I loved the laid back
life. A whole community lived in the woods by the ocean on Boca Chica
Key, with kitchen tents, barbecues, coolers, and kids. I was playing
music, Irene was selling shells, and Sonya couldn't have been happier
splashing in the water and playing with new kids she would meet every
day. We didn't need much money to survive and we were WARM! But Key
West was getting more crowded every day with the warmer February
weather and a decision was made to head on up the Gulf Coast to see
what else was out there. The drive back to the Everglades was a long
one.


Dear Prudence,


We made it to Homestead, Highway 41, Fort Myers, Punta Gorda,
and finally Venice! I was too tired to drive any farther, so we pulled
into a rest area and crashed for the night. We awoke to the sound of
digging, sifting, and car doors slamming. Behind the parking lot next
to the canal, an archaeological event was occuring. People were sifting
through the freshly dredged canal dirt to find ~


1 to 25 million-year-old shark teeth.


Old guys with $30,000 motor homes, hippies, local types; they
were all trying to scoop up as many teeth as they could. A visit to the
hardware store later and we were set up to join the crazies in the
pits. We staked our claim and dug two four-feet-deep "mines" which
produced a pretty good haul of teeth. Shawn and Mary, a young
back-to-nature couple from Washington state, showed us how to make
jewelry, and a new industry was born. It was a damn good thing because
we were down to our last $10. A desperate phone call to mom asking for
money was avoided.


Irene didn't like Shawn and Mary. Maybe they were too
perfect. Calmness, serenity, and acceptance of things they could not
change emanated from their space on the planet. A bad word or nasty
attitude never came up, traits Irene misread as phoniness. I could only
see two allies willing to show us how to survive on our wits with
Earth's raw materials.


Nokomis Beach was just up the road from Venice and quickly
became the base of operation for our shark tooth necklace Factory
Outlet Store. This consisted of two blankets, a cooler, beads, teeth,
carpet thread, sea urchin spines, and a drill bit. People would come
right up and ask if they could buy some of this neat stuff, providing
us money for beer and food once again. I even wore a shark tooth
earring (for display purposes only), but used a clip-on keeper that no
one ever saw under my long hair and bandana. At this point in our
journey, we acted and sounded like Florida locals right down to the
drawl. It was ironic that two Canadian beach bums were selling
souvenirs to unsuspecting Canadian tourists.


The Venice rest area became home, the shrubbery provided a
place for romantic interludes, and life was good for at least two
weeks. A nearby oyster bed gave us fresh seafood at low tide and I
quickly learned why they make special tools to shuck those little
rascals. A screwdriver and hunting knife yielded nicks and cuts all
over my guitar playing fingers, but it was worth it. Rolled in a
cornmeal mixture and griddled in a pan on the barbecue, the oysters
provided our shark tooth mining community with a free feast worth more
than money. Corn on the cob, veggies, buns, lots of beer, and sunshine
was the recipe for having fun and living off the land.


Eventually, the Toyota became overcrowded with too much
stuff. A decision was made to stash the shark tooth "factory in a box"
under the car while we slept and by morning it was stolen. Tempers
rose, accusations flew, and Irene threw my guitar out on the highway
screaming that I loved that damn thing more than her. After rescuing my
Ovation, I began to think she was right.


That night we set up the tent at the end of a service road
hidden in the pines and everything calmed down until 6:00 A.M. Not
fifty feet away, I spotted a black Florida panther making his rounds
and I realized something else had laid claim to this patch of
palmettos. I preferred eating at IHOP, rather than getting eaten in the
bush, so we packed up and left the cat to find another meal.



"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us
at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself
in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." ~ John
Wayne.


"Life goes on. Shit happens. Get over it. Next!" ~ Surfside
Johnny.


Back at the rest area, we started digging again, and it
wasn't long before we replaced a lot of what we had lost. After 2 hours
in the pits, it was time to hit the restroom. I opened the unlocked
stall door to find some perverted, sick bastard playing with himself.
For me to be speechless is a rare event. I returned to the shark mine
and related my experience to the rest of the miners. Shovels were
dropped, sifters were abandoned, and a posse was formed to rid the
neighborhood of "pond scum". Upon returning to the scene, the stall was
vacated, and all we found was a note taped to the door stating the day
and time this guy would return on a weekly basis. Luckily it never
happened.


By now we were doing well again, necklace sales were steady,
and we ate regular meals. The need to explore and move on was starting
to arise but I didn't know what or where. I tried body surfing in the
waves generated by a storm and almost got trapped in a riptide. Then it
came to me. It was time for a side trip to Daytona for Spring Break.
Driving on the beach, bikini babes, and lots of customers for shark
tooth jewelry. We packed up again and headed northeast across the
scrubland.


Dear John &;amp; George,


Daytona was CRAZY! It took over two2 hours to crawl through
town, but we did get to drive on the beach and sell a few necklaces.
After a wild day with surfers and college kids, we headed toward the
peace and quiet of Ocala National Forest. I was just happy to get away
from all that noise and motion, so when I found what seemed to be a
hidden driveway in a rest area, I parked the car. We reclined the seats
and went down for the night.


"Did you feel that?"


Irene shook me awake and handed over the flashlight.
Something had just brushed against the car and rustled off into the
trees. There was no moon, it was pitch black, and the Ever-ready
batteries were running low as I pressed the dim light against the
window.


"Holy Crap! Look at all of those eyes," I said.



There must have been a hundred raccoons staring at us from
the picnic area and they were NOT intimidated. Why would they be? A
swift commando attack with that many soldiers would surely do us in. I
ruled out Irene's theory that an alligator or a bear was out there. The
'coons didn't want to become prey for a predator while munching garbage
and would have posted lookouts. I bravely opened the door and went
outside to try to scare them away. I could have been a tree for all
they cared, so we all went back to sleep. At 4:30 A.M. the front seat
was flooded with the blinding light of a State Trooper?s "real"
flashlight and, after the officer ran the license plate, we were told
to rent a motel room next time.


The drive back to Venice produced no surprises. We got to see
the Disney World parking lot on the way and the beach became a place to
sleep for about two days. Some of the mining community had moved on and
were replaced by a new batch of wide-eyed diggers. A few of us drove to
Sarasota to visit the Ringling Brothers Museum where they had original
artwork painted by the Masters. A replica statue of Michelangelo?s
"David" graced the outside garden amid dozens of other Old World
pieces. The place was crammed with stuff and possibly a little gaudy,
but we enjoyed it anyway.


After a picnic lunch and Frisbee tossing on the lawn, we
headed to Lido Beach to see how the other half lives. Expensive looking
places surrounded us as lily-white northerners strolled along the shore
trying to get that $5000 tan. The whole place smelled like coconut oil
and broiled lobster. We went back home to the rest area and poverty. I
remembered a quote by Bob Dylan:


"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the
morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to
do."


In a week we made enough money to move up the coast. Cedar
Key was holding an art festival, so we made a side trip to check it
out. If I had had more money, one particular painting would have been
strapped to the roof and taken back to Canada. It was a spacey
rendition of the galaxy, the planets, dolphins, and other cool stuff. I
don't remember the artist's name, but he had clearly expanded his mind
and was destined for greatness twenty years from now. We spent all
afternoon at the festival walking around with cold beer, eating good
seafood, and elevating our consciousness.


The next day we drove to Panama City where the white sand
beaches and dunes were beautiful but barren. The devastation from a
hurricane a few years before was still everywhere, but it appeared that
rebuilding was taking place slowly. No one was on the beach to buy
necklaces and we were bored, so we moved on to Pensacola.



No one told us about "dry" counties and we had just run out
of beer. It was just the start of something scarier. That night we paid
a fee and set the tent up in a local campground with facilities and
showers. The Good Old Boy Redneck Society was alive and well in
northern Florida and a longhaired musician with Ontario tags was not
the preferred choice for a camp neighbor. A six-pack and a bug-zapper
were considered high-quality entertainment.


I loaded the shotgun just in case.


Sonya had to visit the restroom only thirty yards away and
wandered off on her own while we were cooking dinner. We should have
been paying more attention. All hell broke loose five minutes later
when the whole camp heard screaming coming from the Ladies room. A
scowling woman was carrying a tearful Sonya back to our site as I was
running toward the building. She had accidentally locked herself inside
and panicked. Of course, from that moment on, we were on a list of
suspected child molesters and the dawn, the highway, and a hot coffee
couldn't come fast enough.


"What next?" I asked. "How about Nashville?" she said, so we
turned north on I-65 toward Graceland and the Grand 'Ole Opry. We
didn't get to see much without money, but we saw the gates and admired
the building fa?ade. It was getting colder and the car kept heading
north like a horse toward the barn. Interstate 75 ended in Detroit. We
crossed the border, and headed for Toronto with our shark tooth
"factory in a box", an appetite for Mom's home cooking, and enough
stories to talk about for a year. My twenties were unfolding in an
unusual way, and the journey was good.


Irene and I settled back into her parent's basement apartment
and life returned to normal for a while. Suburban Toronto was like any
other place with suburbs; a slow train chugging through a mental
wasteland. BOR-ING. My newfound buddy the "Ricker" helped to inspire my
songwriting and kept the creative flame alive, but it didn't take long
for the road to call out once again. The journey to the Pacific in a
Volkswagen van emblazoned with a peace symbol began a month later. A
book called "Volkswagen Repair for the Complete Idiot" became our bible
and a call back home from Vancouver to learn of Mom's brush with breast
cancer brought reality back into focus.



To be continued ~



If you are wondering who these letters are addressed to, this might
help.


Dear Janis (Joplin) &;amp; Jimi (Hendrix)
Dear Rocky (the Flying Squirrel) &;amp; Bullwinkle (the Moose)
Dear John (F. Kennedy) &;amp; Marilyn (Monroe)
Dear Prudence (a Beatles Song)
Dear John (Lennon) &;amp; George (Harrison)