Page 80 - MN

80
The white Austin Healey suffered a sad death and again snow was involved. I was driving to Aspen, Colorado, to play at the Red Onion. It was the middle of winter and the highway was snow packed. I was driving alone, making pretty good time, when I saw a clump of snow on the road. I knew if I swerved to go around I could lose control and go off the road, so I straddled it. Well, it wasn't a clump of snow. It was a snow-covered rock and it took out the entire bottom of the engine and transmission. Damn.
A guy gave me a ride into a nearby town and I got someone to go tow the Healey to a garage, and later back to Portland. But I couldn't afford to fix it so it languished in my parents' car port. I guess it languished too long because without bothering to tell me they got rid of it. If you didn't take care of cocker spaniels or Austin-Healeys at our house you'd come home and find them gone.
Meanwhile, back in Colorado, I had to get to the Aspen gig so I asked if I could pay someone to drive me there. A guy at the garage said he would and we jumped into his car. I knew we were in trouble. It was a muscle car with huge rear tires and we spent five hours sliding all over the snow-covered mountain highway, at one point stopping just inches short of a cliff. Scary.
My next car was a Plymouth Barracuda and it was a great ski car. The back seat folded down and you could throw in lots of skis. I also got the small V-8 engine because I'd learned my lesson about overpowered cars in snow country. No muscle cars for me.
So I had a good car and one night Brian and I auditioned at the Purple Onion in San Francisco. We failed and dealt with it in the traditional musician's fashion-- we got roaring drunk. We were staggering down some street in North Beach and a little black kid came up and said, "Hey mister, want to buy a raffle ticket?"
Brian said, "I don't, but my friend's drunk and he'll buy it." I said sure, I'll buy the ticket and gave him a couple bucks. It was a raffle for Synanon, the drug rehab place in San Francisco, and we promptly forgot all about it.
Three or four months later we were playing the Royal Lanai, a bar in Waikiki, Hawaii, and I got a call from the mainland. I had won the raffle! The prize was a Ford Mustang. We had two months to go on our Hawaii gig and I'd just bought the Barracuda so I realized I didn't need another car. I had a Monterey friend go collect the car, sell it and send me the money. Brian was really pissed.
One final blizzard story. I drove the Barracuda back to Ketchum, Idaho, from an opening act gig in Lake Tahoe and again it was snowing. I drove straight through, about 12 hours, with stops for meals and coffee and I finally made it to Ketchum. I remember singing with joy. I was home!
I drove through town, turned down to our cabin, and went to turn right at the T-junction 50 yards from home. Wrong. The road had iced up and instead of turning I went straight ahead into a big snow drift, right up to the windshield. 50