In 1951 or 1953, three pals I went in my old car down to Mexico City. That was a big adventure.

In 1952 I decided I would go to Europe. I decided to work my way across on a steamship so I wrote to 60 steamship companies and got back 60 rejections. They told me that I wasn’t in the union and that they could only hire union guys. One guy wrote a post script. He told me that in 1912 he had tried to do the same thing and was able to do it because unions weren’t very strong at the time. He told me that I didn’t have a prayer.

Well I thought these 60 guys didn’t know what they were talking about so I hitched-hiked across the United States at the beginning of the summer of 1952. In one day I went to twelve steamship offices. Everyone told me the same thing that they had told me in writing. I thought if they had seen me in person and they needed someone, they might have a little bit more flexibility. I was wrong.

I bought a ticket on a student ship. That was an adventure because we got ¾ of the way across the Atlantic and the ship stopped. We sent stationary at sea for twelve days while they fixed the engines.

They got the engines fixed and I get to Europe and bought a bicycle. I went all around Western Europe on a bike. I stayed in youth hostels. I had pals who said they would go with me but they changed. They started putting in all kinds of conditions and I knew that they were talking to their parents.

I knew their parents and they were wonderful parents. But I had this crazy idea that I was going to work my way over and I wasn’t going to bail out on the idea. So they stay home and I had the trip of a lifetime. I had a nice scrapbook when I came home. I am still in touch with some of the people that I met at youth hostels in France and Germany.

A year after this I got a call from my mother down in Los Angeles. She asked me if I knew so-and so. I said yes that she was a girl that I had met at a youth hostel in West Germany. My mother told me that this young lady had just finished visiting her for a week.

My mother asked me: “do you know that this girl is in love with you?”

I told her that I didn’t know that. I said: “I’m still in college! I’m not ready to think about getting married it all!”

I didn’t experience any hostility or discrimination as a Jewish kid traveling in Europe not long after the Second World War. I go to the hostel and sign in, and I would need a lot of kids like me who were just wandering around Europe. I remember that some North African kids seem to be very interested to see France.

I met three American guys who were pals in school at Berkeley. I met them at one of the early youth hostels. I met one of them again two or three weeks later at a youth hostel in Germany. I asked him what happened to his two pals. One guy had fallen off his bike and scraped his leg badly. The other guy’s father died. The point of the story is that two of the three guys had to go home. I used to see them when they got back to Berkeley.

We weren’t assaulted by anyone on the way down to Mexico. Looking back on it I think it was the time when Mexicans were excited about Yankee visitors. We were on one of the three main highways from the United States. We went down one highway and came back on another. I had three pals with me. We knew enough Spanish to get by. We would roll into these little villages and it was quite an adventure. The kids would come out and most of them were naked. They’d ask for money and then ice cream. We had about four flat tires.