Don’t be put off by the title. Even if it sounds a bit arrogant or assuming. Like, why do you care about my adventures? You’ve already seen “Around the World in 80 Days” and countless episodes of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Perhaps suffered through Pee Wee Herman’s Big one. Why is mine different or special? It isn’t, but it is my hope that my experiences during a 1970 trip to California will strike a chord or awaken one of your own memorable journeys. One, you consider to be epic or life altering. Do share by the way. Please take a seat aboard our 1964 VW Van. There’s plenty of room.
Before we begin, let’s look at the word- “adventure”. What is adventure?
Webster defines adventure as an exciting, unusual and sometimes risky undertaking or experience. That involves stepping outside of your comfort zone. It may involve extreme outdoor activities but, ultimately, adventure is a mindset of curiosity and embracing the unknown.
Then life must be one big adventure. Afterall, every day brings about new challenges. No, life is a series of adventures, independent of one another… No life is? Never mind, I’m with Joni Mitchell. “I really don’t know life at all”. But along with the estimated 110 billion other humans to have walked our planet, it does not stop me from trying to figure it out. Make sense of its purpose. The complexities. The “illusions”, if you will. Regardless of how we view life, there’s no escaping the fact that the concept of adventure is involved. It’s in our DNA.
Adventures, be they mini or grand, vicarious or virtual, either occur spontaneously or are the result of careful planning. Perhaps unwanted. On a micro level, daily living can be viewed as a series of adventures, particularly if lived on the edges when predictability may be a luxury. Each hour may bring what for all intents and purposes is a new mini-adventure, requiring a different set of skills, physical strength, or mental acuity than the previous hour. Perhaps with greater risk and a leap beyond one’s comfort zone. Either resulting in an exhilarating foray, an opportunity for personal growth, or the exact opposite and tragedy strikes. And on it goes. Ain’t life grand?
On a broader scale, we humans seem to thrive on a bit of unpredictability. Perhaps one reason we are so captivated by the daring exploits of others. Reading about them not only provides excitement, but perhaps offers context for our own adventures. I would like to do that. Or if he can do it, so can I. Our thresholds for risk vary and most of us avoid pushing the bounds of comfort and safety too far. Living vicariously through the adventures of others also enables us to connect with others as a group, a nation and occasionally on a global level. Sharing in the experience not only feels good but has other unifying benefits as well.
Approximately, 150 million Americans, 74% of our entire population (94% of all American homes with a television) watched Neil Armstrong, walk on the moon in 1969. Nearly 20% of the entire world’s population or 650 million earthlings also watched. Hundreds of millions of others tuned in via the radio. It’s as if we were all there with him.
Many will claim that such events could not be called an adventure in the traditional sense. Perhaps, but sharing in someone else’s adventures, like the moon landing, unites a large group of people in a shared cultural or societal phenomenon. For many it was a profound emotional and communal connection. We integrate the stories and the accomplishments of others so deeply that the experience becomes a part of our own identity. So let me get this straight. Many of our adventures exist only within the confines of our brains. Then what about our dreams? Yes. Dreams can absolutely be considered adventures — especially if you define adventure as a journey into the unknown. A physical adventure takes you somewhere new in the outside world. A dream takes you somewhere new inside your mind. They are adventures in the emotional and imaginative sense. In dreams, normal rules are suspended. Time bends. Dead people return. Houses become mazes. You can fly, fall, run, hide, search, lose someone, find someone, or wake up changed without ever leaving bed. Usually safer and way less expensive.
I guess I should add Virtual Reality to the mix. You’re no doubt familiar with VR goggles and the 3D experience you get while wearing them. Pretty amazing. I had the chance about five or six years ago to ride Space Explorers: the Infinite. It was an interactive virtual reality experience that brought me and my two grandsons to the International Space Station (ISSS). We were strapped into a shifting turning open capsule wearing our VR goggles. I swear I was actually looking down the outside frame of the space station with the earth far below. While fully enveloped by the darkness of space. Am I allowed to say that the view was “out of this world”? VR triggers the same psychological responses as actual exploration, giving users the feeling of weightlessness and danger that feels otherworldly.
I know what you’re thinking. With AI on the horizon, will much of future human adventures be limited to VR and the vicarious experiences of others? What about the billions of “adventures” taken each and every day on social media? I dare not think about them, if it’s all the same to you.
Let me get back to what we all can agree are real life adventures.
Remember the unbridled self-confidence we had when we were kids? Being a superhero was actually an option. Imagination, of course, is an important component in the adventures of every child. I remember walking to the movies one Saturday morning, alone. I was nine or ten. It was before trash bins existed, and many simply threw their candy wrappers anywhere they pleased. I noticed a paper bag on the street near an alleyway. I picked it up, looked inside to confirm it was empty, folded the top several times, while walking slowly into the alley, placing it on the ground behind a wall. I then made my wish. When I returned after the show, it would contain a superman costume, enabling me with those superpowers possessed by Clark Kent. The rest would be history. I would actually be the hero I admired so much. We all know how that ended.
This was one of many, many adventures I enjoyed during the nineteen 50’s and 60’s. Mostly without parental supervision of course, which is what made these simple forays adventurous. Exhilarating. Walking along the railroad tracks, carefully placing a dozen or so pennies to be flattened by the next train. If you were lucky, you would find one or two after it passed. Every now and then we felt the urge to scale the steel truss supporting the railroad bridge. Hanging on tight in the prone position while the bridge shook and rattled as the train passed beneath us. Crawling through drainage pipes, wandering around ponds to investigate polliwogs and other interesting life forms. Skinny dipping in Tonawanda Creek before it was protected by a water filtration plant. Life felt boundless. Looking back, despite its financial constraints, limited opportunities, or lousy weather, I wouldn’t change a thing. I now view my childhood as having given me a proper foundation for all that was to come. A place in which I was able to nourish something bigger. A testing ground in which I could call upon unknown and untested inner strengths, developing skills mostly through trial and error but ones that would serve me the rest my life.
At times, our reach often exceeds our grasp. We choose risk, uncertainty, and excitement over comfort and predictability. Simply for the rush. Some of us are just not living unless we’re doing Mach 4 with our hair on fire (Top Gun).
Like you, I enjoy a challenge, an environment in which I must perform with whatever tools I can muster to complete a task. Remember that scene in the movie Apollo 13 when the head engineer citing the life and death urgency of their new task, threw a bunch of parts out on a table asking the assembled team to essentially figure out how to put a square peg in a round hole. That’s me. I love a challenge. To me, this is adventure. It’s when I am most alert. My senses keen. My level of excitement high.
At the end of the day, everything is or can be an adventure. Why didn’t I just say that at the beginning?
My Great Adventure along with countless others began as a dream. Now that I think about it, not unlike my grandparents who over 100 years ago left the relative security of home and family for a better way of life. Putting aside their fears and doubts while taking on any and all risks and challenges to adventure out into an unknown world. Because this was their dream. As it was and is for millions of others around the globe, time immemorial.
From dream to reality….
TJ’s Great Adventure-Going to California
Hello,
It was late spring 1970. Dan Fragnito and I had just solidified our plans to visit the land of our dreams…*California. By solidified, I mean we said out loud, “Let’s do it. Let’s go”. Batavia, as most towns are at our age, was just too small. Our thirst for adventure was overwhelming. We could not ignore its call. Converting our desire into a reality, however, would require a bit more than a verbal commitment. A lot more. Things like planning, money, and securing a vehicle.
Regardless, in that moment, I knew exactly how Magellan, Marco Polo or Columbus must have felt. I was now among the greatest explorers of the ages. Lewis and Clark ain’t got nothing on me. Whoa, whoa, snap out of it.
By May school was out for the semester. Time to get serious. Hatch a plan and get the show on the road. ♬♪♫ Going to California. ♬♪♫
Our plan:
*Why California? California had been my Mecca, the Holy Land, …Oz for most of my teenage years. It was the 60’s, after all, and it seemed like everything was happening there. It was at the center of the Counterculture Revolution, actually born at the corner of Haight and Ashbury near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Well, legend has it anyway. Home to the free speech movement, think Berkeley, as well as a battleground for civil and labor rights. It was the future. Not because of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But for boundless possibilities. That and the weather. Remember I grew up near Buffalo.
Part of the dream of course was the mystique, real or imagined, of California, the ideal, regardless of the reality. At that time many others were leaving the comfort and security of their homes and family and seeking adventure in numbers that seemed historic. Baby boomers were on the move while the entire nation was in the midst of change. Radical change. Societal. Political. Cultural. At times it felt as though I was part of a cohesive, far-reaching energy, different than any in history. Then again, what did I know? I only knew these times, my times. Besides I was a teenager, impacted by pesky hormones.
Nothing captured the mood better than the 1974 hit song by Dave Loggins, please come to Boston. The three cities he sings about represented major destinations for us rambling boys and girls. Too young, too free, and not ready to settle down. In my opinion, you would have been better off selecting Boulder over Denver. Just saying.
To some California was the land of fruit and nuts. Sun heads. Not to me. For me it was heaven. And I had to get there.
Naturally music was a big part of my life. LP’s, 45’s, Dick Clark, the British invasion. California themed songs edged their way into my psyche. Perhaps they were instrumental in creating the alure in the first place. Music reinforced what I was feeling. The Beach Boys kept sending their “good vibrations”. While the Mamas and Papa’s added emotion to my California dreaming. You weren’t worth your salt if you weren’t “wearing flowers in your hair”, according to Scott McKenzie. Even the Brits chimed in with “Monterey” and “San Franciscan Nights” by Eric Burden and the Animals. Otis Readings (Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay added soul to that stunningly beautiful city. Want a classic? How about Tony Bennetts “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”?
Kudos to Mike Love and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. There 1965 “Wish They All Could Be California Girls” came true. By the time Dan and I arrived it was packed. I got me one of them when I returned for good later in the decade. An actual native, born and raised on the beaches of southern California.
Back on track-
As it turned out, summer jobs in a small town are scarce and limited in scope. Even rarer if one plans to leave mid-summer. Facing this reality, we opted to become “entrepreneurs”. We were now house painters. There were fewer barriers to entry than anything else we could think of. Besides our fathers had ladders, a couple of used brushes, and a few bed sheets to catch splatters. Water based paints had yet to be invented, so cleanup was miserable. I’m pretty sure we convinced our clients to supply the paint, avoiding any cash outlay on our part.
We placed an ad in the Batavia Daily News and ended up with a total of four customers. I can’t remember how much we charged, but apparently it was enough. In one instance, we knocked off 25% to not paint the front peak of an old three-story home. It out-distanced our old heavy wooden ladders, even while standing on the highest reasonably safe wrung, arm outstretched as far as possible, beyond the wasp’s nests, I could not reach the last few inches of the peak. Ugh. Wait a minute. Wasps? That’s not good. The nest turned out to be abandoned. The home owner was okay with the slight difference in the yellow shades.
Preparations continued. We bought a used, slightly rusted, two tone, 1964 VW bus from somewhere. We cleaned it out, removed the middle and back row seats to make room for my grandparent’s steamer trunk. It would house our clothing and act as one support for our bed. By bed I mean a sheet of plywood and our sleeping bags. The engine compartment would act as the other. Our survival equipment like a stove, pots and pans, utensils, et cetera, also fit nicely underneath. Mary Fragnito, Dan’s mother, made sliding curtains for each of the van windows. Presumedly for privacy but they did enable us to sleep in a bit if needed.
We somehow found a AAA TripTik of the USA somewhat specific to our route. It had a list of gas stations, motels, KOAs, and rest stops. ETA’s to any location was of course calculated manually and any traffic delays, construction zones or speed traps were made known…when we arrived at their location.
Originally our plan was to park the bus wherever we decided to stop for the night. It seems though that some communities frowned upon that. Besides KOAs had showers, toilets, and picnic tables. At $2 a night, we used them frequently.
Enough prep talk. It was mid-July and time to time to say goodbye to Batavia, family and friends.
California, here we come.
Please stay tuned for the next installment.
Next-Part 2…Available in a few days.
I am not an expert when it comes to Commencement speeches. However, I do know that around this time each year a few seem to surface that stand out from the hundreds of others. I am aware of a few that catapulted to national awareness:
On May 9, 2026 Eric Church delivered a moving commencement speech for the graduating class of UNC Chapel Hill, structured around the 6 strings of a guitar. Each string, or pillar, represents Faith, Family, Love and Partnership, Ambition vs Resilience, Community, and Individuality. He closed it out with a special performance of his song “Carolina”.
I f you have 15 minutes or so of free time I highly recommend you watch it here on YouTube.
TJ
I left my home in the small Western New York city of Batavia in March 1977 vowing never to shovel snow again. Never say never. Settling for 38 years in what was for me the "promised land" of Santa Barbara, California. I married, helped raise a family, started a business, traveled and live a wonderful life. We spent the last 10 years of our west coast journey in the small, quiet, picturesque town of Ojai. My oldest friends call me TJ.
My wife Deborah and I moved to Colorado in 2015 to be near our daughter, her husband and 2 growing grand-boys. Add 2 bulldogs (French & English) to the mix and our hands and hearts are full. We all reside in Niwot, a small quaint town 15 minutes north of Boulder. The mighty Rocky Mountains are at our doorstep.
I am a man, son, brother, cousin, friend, husband, father, uncle, grand father, in-law and mostly retired Coloradan. You can read more about me on the About Page. If you are curious about my professional life you can visit my Career at Venture Horizon.
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