Bob Driller

He took me on a ride I'll never forget
He taught me about living from the ground up



A bicycle wasn't always his mode. I met him when it was a car. I was the 10th Hippy in El Paso Texas. Larry Parks and I had been "doing theater" (which was GREATFUN for 4 years)when he took me to this wonderful old mansion turned apartment building up the hill from downtown.

First there was a scrollly iron gate for a door, then a high ceilinged courtyard with a beautiful non working fountain in the middle. There were apartments on either side of the fountain in what once had been either the living or eating quarters. the bedrooms upstairs were each rented out and everyone in that building smoked marijuana. I had just been introduced.

I fantasized how the building would look if it were whole. Sigh. But the people I met! They thought and acted JUST LIKE ME!!! I'd been consiously looking for years, thought I'd find them in the theater, almost but not quite. Here they were! What could I do for them, with them all about them? Even in my dreams today I go back to that place.

One day, Bob Driller was just plopped on the couch when I came in. I looked at this craggy and lined (to me, I was 25) face and saw character, lots of living and knowledge. He was 33, quite old by my standards. It took a year, however, for me to persuade him. I just KNEW he could get me out of this EXTREMLY boring and tight middle class life I was living. I just knew. I had to beg him and badger him and nag him. He gave in, I'm sure thinking he could dump me off somewhere and I wouldn't bother him anymore.

We went on the ride of my life, peppered with learning how to act in Mexico, in a cowboy bar, cook in a summer resort stoned on acid, hitchhike all over the west, almost freeze to death one night, only Driller had some money a ride had given us and he made me walk to the only hotel in town where he got me a warm bath and bed. No, he didn't want to drop me off by that time.

I had a fur coat, an old one, for the rest of 35 years. I knew I could turn it inside out and not freeze to death. I could go into a cowboy bar and get something to eat. I learned to respect Indians, cowboys, old farmers because those were the people who gave us rides, not the monied folk, they were scared of us.

One day, in Tucson where I worked for the Airmen's Club on Davis-Monthan base and Driller worked driving the street sweeper at night on the univerisity of Arizona campus. One day Driller was reading a magazine and recognized this old friend of his who was living in a commune in Washington State. He wrote to him and the fellow said to come on up. Me being who I was, wanted to save up money and then go. Oh, going was totally on my mind, I wanted OUT, OUT, OUT of cities. So I was working, saving for maybe a week, I was going to get a raise soon, when I came home to no Driller, no TV, no Driller clothes, nothing. I got on the phone to his friends finding out what he was doing. What he was doing was taking 16 year old Heidi and going to Tolstoy Farm. He didn't want to wait around for me to save money. Against his friends advice I got up really early in the morning and gave away all my goods, except for 7 big boxes. I got a ride to the bus station and headed to Washington State. What a Looooooooooooooooooooooooong ride. When I gotinto Spokane I didn't see anyone that looked like a hippy for awhile and then a bunch of people rushed into the station, smelling like pacholie and draped in handmade gear. That was my ride.

Now words from the man himself...

I had just loaded steel coils and the load was consigned to L.A.A short way to the on ramp of the ohio toll road. At the ramp there was a sign that says cleveland and east or chicago and west. My turn signals said I was headed west so i hauled on the wheel and shifted some gears. That big cat purred as we looked into the afternoon sun. Aw godammit how great is that? All the way to LA; Loved how the chicanos of el paso used to say elll ayay mon. magical land at the end of the road where dreams sometime come true or are shattered on the beach at santa monica.

Did I ever tell you how the only time I truly feel at ease and at peace is when that road is under me? For most of my life I never wanted any trip to end but as i got older that wasn't true anymore. Now I am still anxious to start but don't mind when i stop. When traveling these days i sometimes pass places where I hitched yrs ago and all those days come back to me. Slept in an abandoned truck outside Barstow...got a ride with a bunch of black folk in a great big old caddy at the edge of kingman.....you hungry boy said a big fat woman. yes mam and she gave me some baloney and cold biscuits. The school principal who picked me up in ore. and took me all the way to leachville ark. where I stayed with his family for a couple wks. He was using me as an example for his teenage son ''see what could become of you if don't finish school.'' I'm not sure it worked because the kid loved hanging out with me and hearing my stories. always remember the grayhound driver who let me ride beyond my stop after i told him i was going to KC but only had money for a ticket to russell kan and it was winter with wind coming all thw way down from alberta. Saw a beautiful whore in a restaurant in denver she saw me looking and came out said you looking for something? I got eyes baby but no bread'' she just shrugged and went back inside...god how I ached for her.

Driller's email: bomar80_92@msn.com


Driller said: "I have some bad news for you; Heidi died. She had been sick for yrs. She had lupus for yrs. the same as my Marilyn, so she didn't have good health insurance and also didn't take very good care of herself. She had lost most of that beautiful blond hair and gained lots of weight. When I would see Earl and ask how is Heidi he would always reply''she never has a good day'' .Her sons are grown and one is a career man in the Army while the other does computer stuff somewhere around here. I thought you might like to know."

Yes, I want to know!

Heidi was 16 when I first met her in Tucson. She'd escaped from an orphanage and some activist politicals hid her out in an attic until they could fly her to Tucson to yet another politcal commune. Bob and I went to meetings of that group and Heidi found we wern't so tight assed and such true believers. We took her home with us. Eventually she was Bob's lover and we because a threesome. Later Heidi broke off and I didn't hear of her again until Bob ran off with the TV and Heidi to move to Tolstoy Farm in Eastern Washinton State. She promptly married a man there who looked just like Driller, but had gentle atributes. eastern Washington. And I followed for the best period of my life. Living on a really good commune (that's still there)