All The Young Dudes

When I was 19, after spending nearly my entire life growing up in the Los Angles area, I began to make half-hearted plans to leave this crowded place and establish roots elsewhere.
Seems all guys have the same ideas, at about the same stage of life. The desire to find his own way. To claim his own place. Establish manhood on his own terms.
I think it's a 'gene thing' among us.

For me,two places held allure. Chicago was the city of my birth, and sole foundation of my family roots, and the foremost in my thoughts. As most of my relation was leaving for points west(California,of course), or passing on, I never made that move. Actually, it's a longer story than that,also involving a girl I never married. Nuf said.

Promised Land #2: Arizona. Everybody was doing it. Arizona was new and still had a rugged reputation, with a lot of technology industry type stuff moving there (to flee California.)

Generally, jobs were there for the taking. A couple buddies of mine drove east supplied with gas money and $185 between them, landing jobs on the day of arrival, and living out of a '72 dodge station wagon for two weeks until the first paycheck, which put them into a slummy pad. Within a few months, they upgraded to a nice apartment, returning to visit California to preach the Arizona gospel to the rest of us, and disappeared again, to resurface a couple years later with homes(and mates).
Arizona was happening,ya know?

Soon, lots of restless young dudes from California were hitching their wagons eastward on Interstate 40,and that desert trail swallowed up a few more of my gang, never to be seen or heard from again. One spoke of never returning, proving the point by leaving behind two unanswered traffic tickets.
Stickin' it to The Man on his way out. Gotta respect that,yeah?
He urged me to follow. But by this time, I was hitched to a different kind of wagon, had sired twice, and accepted the reality that I wouldn't be leaving for anywhere in a very long while.

We shared some beers, hugs and tears, and he drove off into the night.
(I miss that crazy bastard more than all the others.)

It's been a long time.
And finally, I sense my time is coming.