Joel in 1973-1977

In the summer of '73, when we had to wait in long lines to get gasoline and when our daily radio fare was the Nixon hearings, Maureen and I headed east from Hollywood to show off our shining new baby. We were driving a dark green Rambler (had left our beloved Econoline in Gilda Haas's driveway) and we had wedged Joel's porta-crib into the back seat. And back there with him, crazily enough -- I shudder at the craziness of it! -- we had a plastic container of gasoline, because it seemed probable that we would run out somewhere along the way.

We saw Winibee and Shery in Perry, Iowa, my parents in Washington, and Joey and Mary in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and probably stopped to see Gary and Susan Goldsmith in New York before going up to Boston. Maureen took the baby to her parents' place for a few days while I spent a night or two in Dave Humsey's MIT dorm and sped down to Truro with Betsy Grady in her black 280Z. It was my first nude-beach experience.

Joel outside the Michigan information center right after we've crossed back from Canada. It was August 4, 1973, and Joel was nine months old.       For most of the trip he was in the porta-crib in the back seat of our Rambler, and because of the long gas lines that summer I was carrying a plastic container of gasoline in the back seat as well. The thought of it gives me the shakes.