be free.” The neighborhood had other boys my age who were into motorcycles also. There was a restaurant in the area of our neighborhood. The restaurant was a hang-out place for me and some of the other boys that lived around there. One night, me and a couple of the guys were sitting in a booth having a Coke when suddenly the young lady who was the only cook on duty began yelling, “Fire! Fire! Help! Fire!” I ran back to the kitchen and saw flames shooting up from the grill. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and used it. The fire was coming from the oil in the french fry baskets. The oil popped back on me and I was burned. The hospital bills added up to thousands, and my dad took me to the restaurant’s insurance company for payment. My arms were completely wrapped in bandages. My dad told them he wanted my medical bills taken care of. They said, “O.K., anything else?” My dad looked at me and asked, “What do you want, Carl?” I said, “I want a motorcycle.” The insurance agent asked how much that would cost. I told him that $300.00 would do it. They wrote a check to us right there, we signed that we had been compensated for the pain I had endured, and the medical bills were paid. The insurance agent was happy to do that, my dad was satisfied and I was like, oh yeah, I am getting a brand new motorcycle!
My best friend Eric was one of them. He lived two houses down, and I would pull up to his house on my bike, rev up the engine and yell, “Hey Eric, let’s go ride and be free.” He would run out, jump on his bike and we would take off riding usually until dark. Then we would head for home before our parents started to worry too much about us.
Eric was a different kind of kid. He was a deep thinker— sometimes too deep for his own good. Of course, in the 60’s that was cool. Eric and I had a common interest in the “riding to be free” thing. He was the kind of kid who liked to work on his own bike to be sure it was done right. Eric was bright; I never saw him get himself into something he could not figure a way out. His father would give him space in the garage to work on his bikes, but that was about it.
San Diego County was really a great place to ride motorcycles back in the 60’s and early 70’s. I grew up in a lot of open countryside. Some properties had fences with barbed wire gates, but we just rode around in the wide-open spaces. We would open a gate, ride through and close it behind us; no one ever said anything. Sometimes I used to take my sleeping bag on weekends and ride until we found a perfect place to camp, usually under a big oak tree next to a stream or pond. The weather was perfect for motorcycles and camping. I loved to ride during the Santa Ana winds that blow every year. The winds are very warm and they clear the sky of any clouds or smog leaving a perfect blue sky.
One day after school, I was riding in the canyon behind our house and saw Eric coming at a fast speed on his bike. He just blew right past me and I took off after him. He was a very good rider. Eventually, I caught up with him at the place we always hung out— the big oak tree. When I got there, he was acting a little different— kind of wild. He was always wild, but this was different.
I asked him what was going on. He said, “This is what’s going on” and pulled a half gallon of wine out from under his jacket. He took the top off and chugged some of the wine down. Looking at me with a wild look in his eyes, he said that he had stolen it from the winery down the street! That’s when I began to drink. We drank some wine, then rode our bikes; this was kind of fun…or was it? Actually, I got sick a lot and wondered why people like the stuff.
Eric and I were like brothers. I actually spent more time with him than I did my real brother, Calvin. Calvin was into sports and really excelled in track and football as the running back. Calvin had his picture and story in the sports section of the local newspaper a few times. Calvin went to compete in the state finals in the 100-yard dash, and placed in the top ten; it was an honor for him to be there. My brother and I went to the beach in the summer a lot, and spent many hours conversing back and forth about every subject imaginable. In that way, he was a good big brother to me, but mostly he did his thing and I did mine.
I loved riding motorcycles with my friend Eric everyday. That was one of the things I always enjoyed during that time in my life. Eric and I would listen to albums like the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and started to smoke some weed. We had fun together, and let our wild side go, well…wild.
One day, we started kidding around with each other about just taking off on our bikes and never coming back. We said things like, “We’ll show our parents; they will be sorry they didn’t listen; they will wish they loved us more.” Then the kidding around turned into the real thing. We gathered enough supplies to fit on the back of a motorcycle, sleeping bags, canned food and a couple hundred dollars. Eric and I devised a plan; we would leave as if going to school one day having already hid our supplies so we could pick them up later. We met one morning, loaded up the motorcycle, and just took off. We rode through the California desert and into Arizona.
We were running away and did not really know where we were going. We found ourselves up in the mountains of Arizona, near Prescott, when it started to snow. I have never been so cold in all my life; riding that motorcycle made the cold actually hurt. We stopped because our hands were going numb. I could not tell if I was holding on tight or not; we stopped to warm up but only got wet under the trees, ice and snow falling on us. I was seriously wondering, “Why am I doing this?” We ultimately turned around and camped out at Lake Mead for a few nights. I discovered that hanging out like this had a greater price tag than I thought. I was so hungry I would have eaten a rabbit raw if I could have gotten my hands on one. Bored and running low on money, we headed closer to home—the desert in Ocotillo Wells. We were familiar with that area, having ridden out there many times on weekends.
We went to a bridge where a dry wash underneath made a good place to camp out. Eric was riding around on his 500cc Triumph like it was a dirt bike. He would take off across the desert and be gone for an hour or two; sometimes I wondered if he was coming back. I just lay under that bridge and thought about home. I wondered if anyone cared I was gone.
I was sitting there on the sand under the San Felipe Creek Bridge when I heard a voice that sounded like my dad’s. At first I thought I was dreaming, but I looked up and there was my dad climbing down the steep embankment. I could not believe it! How did he find me? I thought to myself, are you dreaming? My dad walked up to me, just smiled and said, “Carl, are you ready to come home yet?” The way he said it, I wanted to cry. I felt bad for leaving the way I had. Was I ready? I was so ready; I was dirty, hungry, tired, and needed some real sleep. I needed to be around people who loved me.
Later when we got home, I asked my dad how he found us under that one bridge 120 miles out in the desert. He said that he and my mother were so worried about me that for several days they could not sleep. They decided to go look for us themselves. They knew we liked Ocotillo Wells so they drove out there.
As they were driving down the highway and approaching a bridge, my mother looked at my dad and said, “Glen, stop the car on the bridge. Carl is here.” My dad said, “What do you mean? Do you think he’s here?” “No, I know he’s here. Carl is here.” She pointed and said, “Go look under there.” Those were her exact words, and she was exactly right. My mother and father were praying people, and I am sure that God had an angel direct them to me in the middle of the desert that day.
MY HIGH SCHOOL DAYS
While I was still in high school, I remember feeling the peace of God come over me in a powerful way. I met a young man in his twenties at a youth meeting at one of the high school students’ homes. His house was open to students one night a week. I was invited by one of the other kids to come, so I thought why not, if it is boring I can leave. It was not boring, it was fun, and I felt good when it was over—as if I had done something very healthy for my spirit.
The only thing about this meeting was that it was somewhat crowded and to this day, I avoid crowds whenever possible. We were packed into a family room, probably 30 kids or so and I did not like
