VISION: The Value of Travel--On to Louisiana State University and Back

Once I returned to Hawaii in 1962 I did not leave the state until January of 1969, when Pearl and I picked up a new car, a Barracuda with super sound system, in Los Angeles, and drove to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  If anything could have convinced me that state of mind can cure illness, it was this experience.  I began to cough, with a sore throat and fever as we drove into Las Vegas.  One day and night there, and all symptoms of a cold or flu disappeared.

Otherwise the drive was not particularly memorable.  However, when I saw the film, Green Book, about travel in the South in that 60's decade, I can note that while we could stay at any motel and got served at all restaurants, this was not so for African Americans.  Also, too, anywhere we traveled during my 3.5 years at Louisiana State University there was no prejudice of any sort.  We did see separate drinking fountains for Blacks and Whites, and I particularly remember one quandary when, during my Army Reserve summer camp, trucks dropped us off at Fort Polk, blacks went one way and whites another, when a white guy saw I was confused, and said, come with them.

Our first stop when we arrived on the LSU campus, was to check with married student housing, for our last communications with them indicated that our application was still on hold.  I walked into their office, and the person greeting me turned out to be the person who was at that very moment typing a letter, letting us know that we were approved for an Edward Gay Family apartment.  I've forgotten the cost, but one today costs $750/month.  We lived there for our entire stay, which also turned out to be an ideal location for Pearl, as she found a job at a seniors' community only two blocks away.  A couple of years later, close by, a Popeye's opened, the second after the original in New Orleans.

At least twice a month during weekends we drove to some festival in the region:  crawfish, jambalaya, cochon de lait and much more.  I caught a few bass in the bayous and we made it to a couple of Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

On campus, there was Pete Maravich and his basketball exploits, plus those tailgates before the football games, all played at night before a raucous and drunk crowd.

One of our early drives was to Florida, with John (Stanford classmate) and Marie.  I recall that we passed Biloxi, Florida, to be explained.

That first summer in 1969 we decided to drive up to Montreal to visit Man and His World, the follow-up to their 1967 World Fair.  I remember when we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, candy town, reading about some kind of rock concert in Bethel, a small town just a short drive away.  We were tempted.  

People think that the Woodstock Festival was held in Woodstock.  Bethel is 46 miles away.  That is where the outdoor concerts occurred.  Good thing we did not go, for all was a rainy mess there, with people needing to walk miles from where their car was parked.

During this summer trip up north, Hurricane Camille, a Category 5, rolled over the coastline of Mississippi and totally wiped out the highway we were on earlier that year, and much more.  However, all those hurricanes, and not one appeared when we were in Louisiana.

My PhD was in biochemical engineering (built a microreactor and tunable laser--before you could buy one-- to investigate the effect on the DNA/RNA bonds of E. coli), with minors in law and business management.  Again, I went out of my way to take more non-chemical engineering courses.  Remember, that vision thing?

Both our parents came to my graduation, and Pearl's joined us on our drive back to the West Coast.  By then we had replaced the Barracuda with a Thunderbird.

One of our stops was in Atlanta, where we went to a Braves baseball game.  This was when their stadium was a circle.  We sat far away on the top level past the foul line in right field.  A ball actually came our way and Pearl somehow got it.  She gave it to her father, who was an outstanding pitcher in his day.

Here is a posting of this trip and the start of my now 47 years on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii in August of 1972.  I still have an office there today.  On return we bought the first of our penthouses, Coronet, a block from the Honolulu Art Academy, now called Honolulu Museum of Art.  We lived on the top in the right apartment.

One advantage of working at a university is that you are given an opportunity to dabble in your intellectual fantasies during the summer period.  My next trip will combine my assignments on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Starpower (also known as fusion) in the '70's.

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