ABSTRACT
One of my first memories is of driving cross-country with my family, in a camper and a VW bus. We were enroute to the Montreal World's Fair, and if you don't already know what year it was held, I don't choose to enlighten you. Of the fair itself, I remember virtually nothing; of the trip cross-country, I have only confused impressions, but I can categorically state that I liked it. Travel excited me. I was a good traveler, too, even at that age: I never had to stop to pee, I could sit mesmerized by the passing scenery for hours at a time, and I even had the idea (or perhaps my mother subtly suggested it to me) of memorizing the slogans and colors of all the license plates I saw. I think I can date my love of travel to that journey. Oh, there were other family trips-to Big Bend in Texas, to Los Angeles practically every summer, and once to Yosemite-but that fabulous caravan across the continent serves as my model. I remember the fire fall on Mt. Rushmore (or was it Yosemite?); sitting around the campfire while one of my older cousins sang mildly risque songs, accompanying himself on the guitar; and me lying curled up under a blanket in the back of the van for what seemed like hours, trying to delude my parents into thinking they'd left me at the last gas station (I was the seventh child-they were already wise to such tricks). While I doubt that I actually jerked off under that blanket, I know there was an embryonic erotic thrill in my groin, feeling the engine vibrating underneath me and the car swaying around me, that I still feel sometimes in a well-planned bathhouse or a Felliniesque public cruising area-or on a GreyhoundGHl bus.
