Written by Rocky Saxbe

After graduating from SMU in May 1969, I had a couple of months before beginning my three-year stint with the Marines. My folks were living in Washington D.C. and lined up a job for me working construction on new high rises going up in Rosslyn, just across the river from DC. I hated the job and being alone in a strange city. Desperate to escape the reality of reporting to the Marines and the probability of going to war,  I saved enough money to quit the job and took off on a long road trip from coast to coast and to an unexpected love affair that has continued for over 50 years.

It began with a bizarre Fourth of July in Washington. My college roommate Jim Hart and I partied hard through the night.  Jim crashed, and I decided to cruise the sleeping city I was about to leave. Around dawn, I parked in front of the Capitol building. Not a soul was around as I ascended the steps where every President since Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated. The very same steps that rioters had desecrated on January 6, 2021. I gazed south toward the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial and wondered about choices I had made and where they’d take me. Finally, a friendly Capitol policeman appeared. We briefly talked about the beautiful morning and my Marine Corps commitment. He wished me well as I headed to my car to pick up Hart for my final civilian walkabout.

A fun week with Jim in New York City was the perfect start for my journey. From there, I flew to Banff, Alberta, to meet another SMU buddy, Mark Cline, who was visiting his girlfriend. After a week in Canada, Cline and I  decided to make the thousand-mile trek to San Francisco, where he had some business to transact, and I had friends who would take us in. We made it in two days, driving Cline’s VW bus,  stopping only in Eugene, Oregon, to sneak into a dormitory at the University to shower. We could hear The Doors playing a loud concert at the football stadium but elected to push on.

I’d never been to California, but like most kids in the Midwest, I grew up with the Beach Boys, Jan&Dean, and other West Coast bands, imagining myself someday on the beach with a blond and a surfboard. By 1969, my musical tastes had shifted to Led Zepplin, Jefferson Airplane, and Iron Butterfly; Bob Dylan remained my favorite poet whose lyrics fit the times as if written personally for me and my state of mind. Like Scott McKenzie sings, “If You’re Going To San Francisco, Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair,” I knew I was on my way to the coolest city on the planet.

My good friends from high school, Jim Swanson and Ross Shepard, had a walk-up apartment on Sanchez Street and welcomed us to their pad, offering the floor for us to crash. Swanson owned a vintage WWII army weapons carrier and one day decided a trip to the beach was in order. There was enough room in the truck to include Jim, Ross, Cline, me, and a few random hippies. Ross’s girlfriend Betsy was summering in the city with her best friend, Suzy Sloan, and as our gang prepared for the expedition to the beach, Betsy persuaded Suzy to join us.

We arrived at her apartment on Delores Street, honked the horn, and Suzy popped her head out of the upstairs window. I looked up and saw her face and long black hair framed by the window and couldn’t believe it. I was going to spend the day with Suzy Sloan, a beautiful Bexley girl who was an enigma to me and always appeared aloof and unapproachable. I helped her up into the back of the truck, and we stood together behind the cab as Swanson headed to the beach.

By the time we hit the Golden Gate Bridge, talking, laughing, and waving at curious motorists, it was as if we’d been friends forever. I’d never bonded with anyone else so fast. After that day at the beach, dinner, and the many enchantments of San Francisco, I was hooked, and for the next several weeks, we were inseparable.

We had picnics at Golden Gate Park, joined friends at Stinson Beach for drumming circles, and watched the moon landing. We hung out in Haight Ashbury, where the hippies lived, danced with the Hari Krishnas, and zig-zagged down Lombard, the curviest street in the world.  We lounged on seedy couches in the Fillmore Ballroom, smoking weed and listening to the Everly Brothers, Canned Heat, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Canned Heat’s “Goin’ Up Country” has been burned into my brain ever since!

My favorite time was hanging out at Suzy’s apartment, listening to records, and talking endlessly. She was amazing, making me forget the Marines and everything else going on in the world. Our weeks together sped by in a daze of mutual infatuation. Until meeting Suzy, I had convinced myself that the Marines and Vietnam made any romantic entanglement impractical. That conviction, however, was shattered by the time I had to leave San Francisco and Suzy. I was in love with a hippie.