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On Saturday 21 August 1965 the journey by car began. Peter, Julian and I set off from the Plaza Hotel, Milwaukee in the 1957 Buick and drove the 70 miles to Madison.

We spent that day based at Nigel’s godfathers home. Prof Austin Ranney. We went shopping and each bought a pillow, a blanket and a rectangular piece of foam 6ft by 3ft and about half an inch thick! I’m not sure whose bright idea it was, but we thought that if we were to sleep in a camp site, without a tent, this kit would be ideal as long as it didn’t rain. If it rained we could get back into the Buick!

We were entertained and fed well by the Ranneys and we slept on the floor with our new kit.

Next day we were on our way, aiming west. We had decided that we would drive in rotation, for no more than 2 hours for each driver. We drove for 500 miles that day, but had difficulty in finding a campsite. What we did find, and we regularly used them thereafter, was a roadside park. A lay-by off the main highway, with picnic benches. They were useful, because if it rained we could sleep under them.

We were aiming for the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. We went through or round, La Crosse, Minneapolis/St Paul and Sioux Falls before arriving at the Badlands National Park.

And then we arrived at Mount Rushmore which needs no explanation.

We had travelled from the state of Wisconsin through Minnesota, then South Dakota and into Wyoming. Yellowstone Park was the first major target. The Park is largely in the north west corner of Wyoming but it extends into Montana and Idaho.

The scenery on the way to Yellowstone was stunning – miles and miles of prairie interspersed with small towns. We drove over the Bighorn Mountains at 9,000 feet, through Cody (named after Buffalo Bill Cody), and then some glaciated valleys before arriving at Yellowstone. We managed to rent a cabin for the night.

We spent the next day exploring the Park, the lakes, the canyons and the geysers. Old Faithful is the star of the volcanic areas.

There was plenty of wildlife in Yellowstone. We remained in the car whenever bears approached us.

It was time to move south. The next target was Salt Lake City. We drove through the Teton National Park where the superb Jackson and Jenny Lakes sat amongst the mountain ranges. We then had a long trek down the west side of Idaho, through Alpine and over two 6,000 ft high passes and then into Idaho.

Shortly before we reached Montpelier we found a superb camp site with fire places where we lit a fire and cooked our evening meal. We then pitched down around the fire but we all woke a couple of hours later covered in dew. By 5.30am we were on our way again.

We kept driving south through small townships into Utah and then the larger towns of Logan and Brigham. At lunchtime on 26 August 1965 we arrived at Salt Lake City.

It was hilarious. It was hot. We were hot. We found somewhere to park by the lake and changed into our swimming trunks. People were staring at us as we rushed into the water. We thought it was our long hair (because American men at that time all had crew cuts). We dived in only to find that the lake was indeed salty. Painful to the eyes, nose and lips.

Once we had sorted ourselves out and stopped splashing we found we could enjoy the sensation of being able to raise our legs and arms without sinking. It would have been easy for us to lie on our back and read a newspaper.

After showering and lunch we started the trek through the Salt Lake Desert. We then had a four hour drive through prairie and mountains and more desert before arriving at Elko and then Carlin where we stayed the night.

Next day we circled Reno and aimed for Sacramento.

We were in California!

We decided on a roadside rest area just south of Sacramento for our night stop but it turned out to be a poor choice. Cars were coming and going all night with the young lovers of Sacramento spending time there in their cars.

Next day we ventured into San Francisco via San Rafael and the Golden Gate.

We explored the city and found ourselves in the wrong place at one stage. A man lying in the gutter had clearly been stabbed in the chest. Much blood. But we found our way to Chinatown and we rode a cable car and behaved as tourists should.

We then set off down Highway #1 which runs down the Californian coast. We were aiming for a town named Salinas. We wanted to arrive there the next day. At one point we saw, from a cliff top, a beach with massive waves crashing on to the sand. We decided to stop and we played cricket and football on the beach and we risked swimming. The waves knocked us down and threw us about but it was great fun.

On my voyage to New York on Queen Mary I had met Corky who was a tearaway young Californian from Salinas. I forget his surname. He always seemed to find the prettiest (and the wealthiest) girls on the ship. He said that if we managed to get ourselves to California we should visit him and his family in Salinas.

That evening Peter and I left the beach and went in search of food and a telephone box so that we could speak to Corky and see if a visit the next morning was suitable. Yes that would be great he said.

Peter and I returned to the beach to find that Julian and Nigel had collected piles of wood from the beach and had a great fire going in a little cove sheltered by a huge rock. We ate by the fire and slept by it and during the night if we woke we put more wood on to keep it going.

Next morning we drove to Salinas, arriving there at about 10.00. I rang Corky to get directions to his parents home. Terrible news. Corky had had an accident that night, had driven over a 200 foot cliff and was in hospital. There had been 2 others in the car, one unhurt and the other in hospital as well. The family insisted that we had breakfast with them which we did.

After breakfast, a friend of Corky drove us to Carmel and then to the hospital. Corky was in poor shape with chest injuries, a swollen face and a broken arm. We stayed for about half an hour and were then taken to the home of an uncle (a hard nosed former FBI cop) where we had lunch with 10 of the family. Two large meals in one day! They looked after us really well.

Next stop was Big Sur where there was a large campsite and music and a dance floor but no girls of the right age, so we all went to bed.

The aim next day was to get to LA and drive through it and then on down to Newport Beach. Nigel’s godfather from Wisconsin, Austin Ranney, had a beach house on Newport Beach where we were promised a floor and a couch to rest at night.

All we had was a telephone number. We found a public telephone box, which was being used by a number of girls. On learning that we were English, they invited us to their house on 50th Street. Before we did that we found Austin Ranneys house, showered and changed and went to 50th Street to find 11 girls and 2 chaperones (mothers). We spent much of the next few days on the beach with the girls!

We then heard that a friend of Austin Ranney was happy to have us to stay for the next few days. The family had a beautiful house in the Newport Beach area. I failed to make a note of his name but we knew that he was Vice Chancellor of the University of California – Irvine. I have googled him and found that he was Jack Peltason. The Irvine campus had only just been set up when we were there, but Jack became the first VC and in 1984 he became the Chancellor and then President of the whole of the University of California between 1992 and 1995.

Why this eminent academic would agree to house four long haired young Englishmen I know not. He had 3 children and on the first night the eldest, Nancy and a girlfriend took us all to Balboa Island – a popular rendezvous for youngsters. They were all a little young for us!

The next day we had the car serviced, to ensure that it was ready for the 3000 miles trip across the US. Nancy showed us round the new Irvine campus before she and her father flew to Illinois where she was about to start her first year at University.

The lure of the 11 girls at 50th Street took us back there for the rest of the day, but we said goodbye to them and to the Peltasons and set off for Las Vegas. We had had wonderful hospitality in Newport Beach and a memorable week.

I will now write the story of the journey going east, much of it along Route 66.

Many years ago, when Jane had the use of her hands, she digitised all the photos that I had taken during the 1965 USA trip. When we were in Milwaukee I had bought a reasonably good camera. I am telling you this because, since I wrote Part 1, I have found many more of the photos I took that summer.

I have also found a photo I have not seen before of the Captains table on Queen Mary on my voyage from Southampton to New York. My father had invited me to sit at his table in First Class one night and father had taken my dinner jacket so that I was properly dressed for the evening. Before dinner he had a cocktail party in his cabin for his dinner guests and he told the story against himself of capsizing the new sailing dinghy he had bought me and my sister Liz some years earlier.

Before I start the story of the 10,000 mile car trip in Part 3, I will show you a few more photos of those first few weeks working in Milwaukee.

This building was near the Plaza Hotel, Milwaukee. Lake Michigan was just beyond it.

This is Roger Bialcik at the lake in northern Wisconsin, where we spent the final weekend before we set off on the USA tour

And some more photos of the lake

After that interlude we will move to the next instalment which will take us to California and our activities there. Just to remind you, 1965 was the year when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were touring the US. As our hair was longer than the standard crew cut of young US men, there were a number of occasions where we were thought to be the famous musicians. But more of that later. On to Part 3.

One of my American friends, Roger Bialcik (more about him later), wants to know why I have never published the story of the three months that a group of us Brits spent in the USA in 1965.

As we are between cruises and because I feel that there should be a record of the highlights of one’s life, I will endeavour to put the story together. Our grandchildren may appreciate it!

It was 1965. I was in my first year at University studying law. I can’t recall whose idea it was that we should go to the USA during our first summer vacation. Julian Avery, a fellow law student, and I decided to explore the idea. We felt that in the US we would need to work for a time and accumulate enough money to fund a tour of the States during the second half of the trip.

I knew that my grandfather Charles William Hewson had a friend called Hal Kadish who he had met on cruise ships in the fifties. Hal owned hotels in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mother had exchanged Christmas cards with him after grandfather had died. Incidentally grandfather died from a heart condition while on a Caribbean cruise on RMS Andes and was buried at sea off Trinidad.

My mother suggested I wrote to Hal Kadish, which I did, and he replied indicating that he would be happy to give the two of us work in one of his Milwaukee hotels, the Ambassador, and accommodation in another of his hotels, the Plaza.

By then we had realised that, if we were to work in the US, we would have to emigrate to that country. Julian and I made applications which involved us attending interviews at the American Embassy in London and taking an Oath of allegiance to the American flag!

At some point Nigel Pugh, who I had grown up with in Southampton and who was also studying law, indicated that he would like to join Julian and me. As he had a godfather who was a Professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (only 70 miles west of Milwaukee) he would stay with his godfather and do a 6 week course in jurisprudence while Julian and I were working.

At the time Greyhound buses had an offer of 3 months travel anywhere in the US for $99 for 90 days. We all bought tickets on the basis that that would be the mode of transport we would use to tour the US during the second half of the trip.

Julian and Nigel arranged to fly to New York with BUNAC (British Universities North American Club) and I found that the old Queen Mary was leaving Southampton 5 days before and would be arriving in NY the day that they flew in.

My father George Smith was by that time a Cunard Captain and (I only discovered this recently) must have persuaded Cunard to switch him to Queen Mary for that trip so that he was aboard while I was travelling. It was a bonus because I received invitations to numerous drinks parties and other celebrations.

I didn’t get the impression that father was there to check that I behaved myself but perhaps that was his intention! It was a great voyage because in those days many American High School children were taken to Europe by their wealthy parents to celebrate their graduation. There were a large number of young ladies returning to the US on that voyage on Queen Mary. One of them was Susan Moore from North Carolina.

I do remember the arrival in New York. Queen Mary berthed at Cunard’s Pier 90 and I could see Nigel and Julian on the quay as the tugs pulled and pushed us into the berth.

They were brought aboard and after lunch we met Peter Kendall’s parents. Peter (more about him later) was at school with me at Canford, but as his fathers job had taken his parents to New York, Peter had decided to apply to an American university and Cornell (prestigious Ivy League) offered him a place and he had just finished his first year there.

Peter’s parents had agreed to accommodate the 3 of us for the night before we set off for Wisconsin. In the afternoon we met up with Peter who had a holiday job in the British Pavilion at the 1965 Worlds Fair. He had to dress up as a Beefeater every day. Hot work in July in NY.

 

“Pete Kendall has now read the blog and in Comments has corrected a few errors. He has also sent this photo of him wearing the Beefeater garb. He points out that it has GR on it and not ER. He says the job was boring and lunch in the British Lion pub was the highlight of the day!”

 

That night we all had dinner with my father in NY and next day Nigel, Julian and I boarded a Greyhound bus for the trip to Wisconsin via Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago. In Chicago we split and Julian and I set off to Milwaukee and Nigel to Madison. For us it was then a taxi to the Plaza Hotel, Milwaukee where they were awaiting us and within minutes a phone call from our sponsor Hal Kadish. He would meet us for breakfast at 7.30 the next morning!

After breakfast next day Mr Kadish took us in his Lincoln Continental to the Ambassador Hotel and we were soon set to work. I was to clean carpets in hotel rooms and Julian was to wash walls. The other staff made it clear that we must not work too hard – not too many rooms a day. They would be doing the job once we had left they said. So 3 rooms a day was the maximum we were told. A room took an hour but we were employed for 8 hours a day. Inevitably to kill time we had to watch TV for hours on end, hoping that the housekeeper wouldn’t catch us.

The room where we lived at the Plaza was fine. It had a kitchen and bathroom and shower and a TV. We bought in food from nearby stores and would eat breakfast and our evening meals there. The hotel had a great bar where they allowed us to drink (we were Mr Kadish’s boys) despite not being 21, the relevant age in Wisconsin.

Our weekdays were breakfast at 7.00 then out to the bus at 7.30 for the trip across town to the Ambassador for an 8.00 start. Lunch was our main meal. Plenty of choice and the same food that was available for the hotel guests. At the end of the day it was a bus trip back to the Plaza.

As we didn’t know anyone apart from Hal Kadish (who was in his 80’s) and his lady friend Miss Alice, the only other people we mingled with in the early days were people we met in the hotel bar. Some were law students with wives who were doing post graduate courses locally for the summer. Others were older regulars who just wanted us to talk. They said they loved our accents. And they bought us drinks to keep us talking.

But Hal Kadish was incredibly generous. He took us out to dinner every week with his lady friend Miss Alice. We went to the American Legion Club which he said he helped to create, the Wisconsin Club (original member) the Milwaukee Golf Club and others. He was very kind but the journeys there and back with him driving the Lincoln Continental were scary.

Additionally he provided our accommodation in the Plaza without charge and he set up a company to ensure that we didn’t have to pay any income tax on our earnings.

I recently Googled him and initially Kadish Park came up. When I delved deeper I found that a park in Milwaukee was named after Mrs Alice Kadish. So at some point Hal and Alice had married. And my recollection was that when we were dining with them they were very elderly.

After we had been in Milwaukee for about 3 weeks, one evening as we traveled back in the bus after work, a girl of our age sitting just behind us said she had been listening to us talking and was intrigued by our accents. She wondered if we would like to see the night life of Milwaukee one evening! Of course we did. We told her where we were staying and she said that she would call us and would come with her cousin.

Blanche was her name and a week or so later Blanche and her cousin made contact and came to collect us. Her cousin was not the blonde we had been hoping for, but a young man called Roger Bialcik (more about Roger later).

From that night on until we left Milwaukee a month later we spent most of our spare time with Roger and Blanche and their friend Valerie and their families.

They took us to a variety of bars, to the State Fair, to a drive-in movie, to barbecues at the homes of their parents and siblings and there were only 3 days in our last month in Milwaukee when we didn’t meet up with them. Their hospitality and kindness to Julian and me was fantastic.

Before we met Roger, he and a group of his old friends had organised a weekend in northern nWisconsin. Rogers parents had a cottage near a small town called Suring and that was to be the base. It coincided with our last weekend in Milwaukee and Roger invited Julian and me to join them for the weekend.

On the Friday afternoon Roger and his friend Marty collected us from the Plaza and we drove north to Plymouth (inland from Sheboygan). There we picked up Glenn and later Gary. Eventually we reached an ancient bar they knew in a place called Hintz. We stayed there until about 2.00am when we drove to one of Roger’s uncles home.

Looking back my memory is of a mobile home with a log fire burning at one end with a semi circle of young children asleep on the floor with their feet all pointing at the fire. (This was August!). We were served with bacon and eggs at about 2.30am and then we left for the cottage.

Next morning when we sobered up, we found that the cottage was alongside a beautiful lake. We swam and sat in the sun and waterskied. We visited some of Rogers relatives and Blanche’s parents and we then went into Suring and Lasches bar. They were expecting us. They loved England. There were photos of the Queen on the walls and all the girls wanted to meet the Englishmen (who loved it of course).

 

 

 

Continue reading “The USA – Part 1”