Once Simon left for graduate school, I literally had nothing on the table. No job, no gigs, nothing. My weekly calendar used to be scribbled full of gigs and events, but now it had precisely one item on it - karate on Saturdays at 10 am. Even The Chipmunks had gone on hiatus. David Seville had found out that Alvin wasn't available, and so decided to take Armen to Hawaii for a long-delayed vacation.
So I went back out in search of a new gig. I met back up with Joan, Harry, and Freddie, all of whom promised to keep their eyes peeled for anybody needing a drummer. I spent many weekend nights going to rock and roll gigs, meeting other groups, trying to get my name out there. I answered a bunch of ads I saw at music stores. And I came up completely empty. I simply couldn't find a gig at all. And as the gig-less weeks started piling up, it got harder and harder to get off my tail and leave the apartment. I was gaining weight, indulging in a few too many ice cream sundaes, and slowly getting sucked into becoming a complete and utter bum. I remember laying on the couch at one point, glumly wondering if that final Nutty Squirrels gig would be the last time I'd ever play the drums on stage.
One morning in April 1965, I was woken up by a phone call. I wasn't fully awake or coherent when I answered, so I didn't quite understand who was on the phone, or what was being said. But my brain eventually snapped into gear. It was Mrs. Lowell, who lived next door to Mrs. Gorman. And she was calling to let me know that Mrs. Gorman had passed away.
When I got off the phone with her, I gave in to the desire to just sit on the floor and cry my eyes out. My brothers were far away, and now my adopted mother was dead. I had never felt so completely and utterly alone.
I had seen Mrs. Gorman the previous Saturday morning for a few minutes, like I did most Saturdays. I would drive up, she'd come to the door, we'd chat a bit about our lives, then I'd head over to karate class. At my last visit, I had told her all about trying to find a gig, and feeling really lost without Alvin and Simon nearby. She had told me, "Theodore, you're more resourceful than you think. You simply need to figure out what you want to do, and then go out and do it."
It may have been just a little pep talk from my surrogate mother, but I decided to hold on to it tightly. I considered it her final gift to me, and I was determined not to fail her. Wherever she was, I wanted her to see me doing well, and to be proud of me.
Alvin was still God-knows-where on his "tour", and Simon elected not to fly back to Los Angeles to attend Mrs. Gorman's memorial service. Simon grimaces a bit when he says, "I convinced myself that it was not necessary. I had just ensconced myself into New York, and was beginning to rebuild my social life. I decided flying back would be a waste of funds when I was attempting to economize, and that Mrs. Gorman would have understood. It was extremely self-centered on my part. Missing her memorial service remains one of my great regrets in life."
This meant that I was the only chipmunk in attendance at the service. I wore my black suit, and murmured "thank you for coming" to the few people who approached me. Mrs. Gorman never told us in so many words, but we were aware that several of her friends and colleagues didn't entirely approve of her adopting us. Two of those friends gave short eulogies before I was asked to come up and say a few words. Standing on a footstool at the lectern, I spoke as slowly and clearly as I could. I ended by saying, "Mrs. Gorman opened her home and opened her heart to me and my brothers. Let her be an example to all of us, to follow in the teachings of Jesus." I probably made a few people uncomfortable with that line, but I'm guessing Mrs. Gorman would've thought it especially apt.
With my brothers out of town, it fell to me to handle the estate. Mrs. Gorman had wiled us the house and all its possessions, with her modest savings going to her church. Simon suggested we sell the house and put the possessions in storage, to deal with when he returned - a suggestion I immediately put into motion. By the end of May, the house had sold, our bank accounts were about to get a huge boost, and I was able to start working on the next step of my plan.
In my twice-weekly phone calls with Simon, I had repeatedly told him of my struggles to get a gig anywhere. Simon would tell me that I just needed to be patient and persistent. I mentioned that maybe I was just in the wrong city, but Simon's response to that was tepid. "I could readily sense that you were attempting to elicit an invitation from me for you to relocate to New York. But, to be exceptionally blunt, I did not wish you to join me. Not because I thought you could not succeed here, but for purely selfish reasons. I envisioned you making demands on my time, and most likely pestering me to join a musical group with you. I had just begun building a new life, and, rather selfishly, I was not prepared to share it with you at that juncture."
I picked up on Simon's lack of enthusiasm, and initially decided to stick it out in Los Angeles. But then it hit me. Just because Simon wasn't interested in having me there didn't mean I couldn't go. New York's a big city. He didn't even have to know I was there. I could scope out the scene, see if I liked the vibe, and find out firsthand if there were gigs available for a versatile chipmunk drummer. The idea was intimidating, but Mrs. Gorman's pep talk kept me from backing away from it.
I had just about made up my mind to drive out there when I had yet another dose of bad luck. I was out at a club watching a rock and roll band one night, and a drunk guy drove his own truck into mine, totaling both vehicles and sending himself to the hospital for an extended stay. Now I had no transportation to even get around town. I couldn't just buy another car, or even rent one. Any vehicle had to be extensively worked over before I could drive it. And to make matters worse, when Scooter picked me up for karate the next morning, he revealed to me that the guy who had previously retrofitted our vehicles had moved to Texas to open his own shop. That meant we no longer knew anybody who could retrofit a vehicle for a rodent.
"Don't worry that fuzzy head of yours," Scooter told me. "Minor setback! That's all it is. Plenty of other ways to New York. You'll figure it out."
He was right, of course. There were plenty of other ways to get there. I could get there by airplane, or take a bus, or take the train like Simon did. But after mulling it over a bit more, I decided how I wanted to get to New York.
I was going to hitchhike.
Hitchhiking has fallen out of favor over the years, but in the sixties, it was pretty common. So I decided I wanted to "see America" by hitchhiking across it. I had Scooter help me move out of my apartment, and put everything in storage with Mrs. Gorman's things. Then I packed up some clothes, some snacks, some well-hidden cash, and my ukulele, and began hitching my way across the country.
My trip didn't have a very auspicious start. Nobody stopped for me for a few hours. And the first guy who did pick me up immediately told me to go sit in the back seat because "I don't like rodents". (Then why stop for me?) He didn't say another word, and after about twenty miles or so, he said "that's enough". He pulled over in Riverside, and told me to get out. As I did so, I did some quick calculations in my head. I would need another hundred and fifty rides like that one before I reached New York...and it'd probably be the early 1970s before I got there.
Luckily, things picked up after that. I did often have to wait quite a bit for a lift, but when I did, I'd just pull out my ukulele and entertain myself by trying to work out another song I liked. Eventually, some kind soul would see my homemade NEW YORK CITY, PLEASE sign, and stop for me.
One trucker named Hoss took me all the way from Riverside to St Louis. He knew a bunch of great places to stop for food - there really is something special about truck-stop chocolate cake. I thanked him by buying all of our meals during that stretch, and by playing him the few Jim Reeves songs I knew on my ukulele. He liked to chat, so we spent much of the trip gabbing about our lives. He said he hoped to find me playing gigs in New York the next time he was up that way, but I never did see him again. He was hauling for Hormel meats, and I still think of Hoss each time I see that company name in the grocery store.
But there was somebody else I met on my journey who sticks in my mind even more.
"Hippies" weren't really a thing in 1965 yet, but it's not like the concept sprang out of nowhere. There were bohemians and beatniks, both of which had something of a similar vibe. And although the people in this car that picked me up in St. Louis weren't hippies really, you could sort of tell they would be in a few years. There was a guy driving, a girl in the passenger seat...and a female squirrel in the back, who shyly waved hello.
Despite spending many hours with them, I never found out if they all knew each other, or if the human couple had picked her up as a hitchhiker, too. In fact, I never learned any of their names. It simply never came up, and I never asked.
They did ask me to play for them, though, and I was happy to oblige. The driver asked me to play some Bob Dylan, and I managed to fumble through "Blowin' in the Wind". He tried to teach me "Like a Rolling Stone", but none of them played guitar - they were just singing notes at me as I tried to play them. Between that, and them trying to remember which lyric came next in the song, it ended up as something of a musical train wreck. After that song limped to a close, they seemed content to let me get back to my repertoire of Beatles songs.
It began getting dark, so they invited me to spend the night with them - an invitation I gladly accepted. As they drove along the darkening road looking for a motel, I once more picked up my ukulele. I strummed a few chords, then fell into playing and singing the Beatles song "If I Fell" rather quietly. About halfway through, I noticed the squirrel sitting closer to me, staring rather intently. I had only seen that look on one other girl - Elaine. I finished the song, at which point she leaned over and kissed me softly on the cheek. And that's when I started to realize just how powerful those Beatles songs really were.
At about that time, we finally found a motel. We got a room (which I paid for half of), and we stumbled in for the night. We shared a meal of raisins and crackers, and then the guy rolled a joint and lit up. He passed it to the two girls, who each took a hit, who then passed it to me. I must have looked as inexperienced as I actually was, because the squirrel said, "here, let me show you how". She was a pretty good teacher, from what I recall.
The front seat couple got into one bed, and Backseat Squirrel got in the other. I was about to try to make a makeshift bed on the comfortable chair when the squirrel looked at me and patted the space in the bed next to her. I hesitated for, oh, half a second before grinning and climbing in. I was getting comfortable when some sounds made me look over at the other bed. The other couple had started having sex. This absolutely boggled my mind, as I had never seen anybody have sex before. Heck, I'd never even seen a female naked before. But before I had a chance to really take it in, Backseat Squirrel tapped me on the shoulder. "You know," she said softly, "it's a lot more fun to play than it is to watch."
And then, as the saying used to go, Backseat Squirrel proceeded to make Theodore Chipmunk a man.