Run, Harriet, Run!
By Jackdaw

Hubby Ron had been working 60-hour weeks as various contractors rushed to finish construction on a new high school before opening day. He anticipated that he'd be laid off as soon as the job was finished. Nevertheless, the Red Elvises were playing Allentown, PA on August 15th, so he took time off for a road trip. And, if we were going as far as Allentown, we might as well go to New York, Cambridge, and Buffalo, too.

I went to the truckstop salon and got my roots bleached so Ron could touch up my red hair. We packed all our Red garb, road food, portable bar, and a fresh order of Red Elvises pencils into Harriet, our Little Zippy Redmobile. She'd just had $730 worth of tires, brakes, and sundry repairs done, so she was raring to go. Willie the Road Animal, on his way from Chicago to Allentown, stopped and spent the night at our Chez Strange, but he was up and out and on his way before we woke up on Wednesday morning.

Left home in North Baltimore, OH, gassed up and zeroed out the mileage meter in Bowling Green, then headed to Toledo to pick up and cash Ron's paycheck before hitting the turnpike for points east. The original date for Allentown had been Thursday, Aug. 16; Ron would have been paid at work on Wednesday, cashed his check on the way home, and we would have left early on Thursday. But, because the show was re-scheduled to Wednesday, Ron had them hold his check at the office for pick-up. (Bear with me; the importance of all this becomes apparent later!)

We intended to take I-80 all the way across Pennsylvania because it seemed shorter and cheaper than taking I-76, the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Somewhere just west of the OH/PA line, Ron missed the exit that would have kept us on 80, which is a toll road in OH but not in PA; by the time I noticed that we were no longer on 80, we were 50 miles south of where we wanted to be, and headed for Pittsburgh.

At this point, we could have stayed on 76 and headed for Allentown, which is the route Willie took last October and again on this trip. We could have stayed on 76, then cut back up to 80 on I-79 from just north of Pittsburgh.   Unfortunately, I had the map, and I spotted PA State Route 68, which looked like a short-cut that would get us back to 80 while still taking us east in the meanwhile. Note to travellers: despite how it might look on the map, SR-68 is not a short-cut!

I live in Northwest Ohio, which is flat, flat, flat.   A reasonably straight line on a map in Ohio is a reasonably straight line in real life, too. Assuming that the same would hold true in PA was a serious lapse of logic on my part, perhaps brought about by hypnotic daze of  highway driving. Once you leave the Interstate, Pennsylvania is full of hills, trees, auto-body shops, no-passing zones, and dinky towns with 25mph. speed limits.

We got back to I-80 at 5:30pm, which gave us four hours in which to cover the remaining 250+ miles to Allentown before the show started, never mind finding a hotel and getting something to eat beforehand.   Driving into the approaching night, I was doing 80mph and trucks kept passing me, so I kicked it up to a steady 85.   Run, Harriet, run!

Planning to meet with other Redheads for dinner before the show, Ron had purchased a pre-paid cell phone just for this trip, so we could get in touch with Willie, Your Favorite Fan, and Azariah and Anne, who were headed for Allentown from Chicago, Staten Island, and North Carolina, respectively. A good idea as far as it went, but, ultimately, useless. Note to travellers: since pre-paid cell phones take 24 to 48 hours to activate, and must be activated from your local area code, don't wait until the evening before you leave to buy one.

Allentown at last! We went directly to Crocodile Rock, where we found Red Elvises and Redheads just finishing dinner, one big happy Red family. The CrocRock show has become a rendezvous point for Red Elvises fans in the East, and this show was particularly important, because August 15th is Oleg's birthday.   Your Favorite Fan brought her mom and sister along, and, thanks to her mom's nifty sewing machine (and mom's nifty sewing), she gave all of us embroidered "I (heart) ROKENROL" ribbons, and little red teddy bears, too.

Crocodile Rock is a nice big club with great decor, and a not-bad sit-down restaurant attatched. It's too bad that, for a venue this size, their sound system isn't known for its fidelity, just for its volume. Also, they have no accessibilty ramps, either permanent or portable (other than a flimsy sheet of plywood), so, if you or any of your friends uses a wheelchair, plan to order the big burly bouncers to lift them up and down the few low steps that are in the way.   Aside from that, the show was great; Anne and Azariah bellydanced, and several other "birthday people" helped Oleg celebrate. The drum head with the painted, arm-pumping devotchka finally split beyond using, and Lori (?), an old friend of the band and birthday girl, captured it as her present to take home.

After the show, and a few photo ops with Harriet for those who wanted their picture taken with her, the celebration continued at the hotel across the street, a great old place called the Americus Center.   Ron had managed to get us a room there just before the show; Anne and Az and their friend Donny had arrived early enough to have explored the unoccupied floors, discovering an unused ballroom and a way up and out onto the roof!   Donny set up a sumptuous bar in their room, I trotted up with spare libations and a cooler full of food, Red Elvises arrived with beers and friends, Ron came in dressed in a caftan after he got his bag out of the car and finally got into our room to shower quickly and change (I had accidentaly pushed the button that activated the night lock, so he'd had to hunt up the night manager and a master key), and a good time was had by all. Eventually, most of us made it out to a rooftop ramble, 13 stories above downtown Allentown in the middle of the night. Top o' the world, Ma, top o' the world!

My advice to anyone who wants to get and hold the attention of the band after a show is: put food in front of them!  Zhenya and Oleg will munch a bit while they socialize, but Igor, after "channelling" Elvis during a performance, is a hungry Russian in desperate need of sustenance. There we were, sitting on the floor, working our way through spicy chicken wings, pita bread, pistachios, Fritos, and Fig Newtons; Igor created a small mountain of bones and nutshells while maintaining conversations with several people.

Even crazed fans must sleep sometime; eventually, we all toddled off to our own rooms to grab some much-needed shut-eye.   Willie had to get back to Chicago and work the next night, A,A,&D planned to follow the band to NYC for the show at The Bitter End on Friday night, and we'd decided to skip NYC and go up to my old stomping ground in Massachusetts, so I could show Ron around and try to look up some old friends before heading into Boston/Cambridge for the show on Saturday night.   We slept happily, without a clue that the doo-doo would hit the fan in the morning.

Our first sign of trouble on Thursday morning was the discovery that the half-bottle of tequilla I'd shoved into the cooler the night before had not been securely capped, and so had leaked out onto and into the few remaining vestiges of our road food stash (tequilla-in-a-pita, anyone?)   No great loss, just pesky, and a waste of booze.

The big catastrophe came when Ron discovered that the envelope containing his pay stub and all of our road cash, over $500, was not in the side pocket of his bag where he'd shoved it after cashing his check the day before, so he could get at it easily when he opened the trunk along the way, for gas, food, etc.   In all the post-show excitement the previous night, he'd forgotten that it was there, in that open side pocket; it could have fallen out on the street when he went to fetch his bag from the car, or it could have been snatched out of the bag when he left the bag sitting in the hotel corridor in front of our room door while he spent 20 minutes hunting up the night manager to let him into our room with a pass key because I had locked the night lock when I went up to the party.

He raged, he wept, he ransacked our luggage several times, all to no avail.   The cash was toast, and that's all there was to it. After some rapid calculations involving our non-existent bank balances, outstanding bills, projected layoff, and existing credit card debt (which had just dropped below $10,000 for the first time in years), I said, "It's only money. You'll make more. We're going to find a bank, I'll wave the magic plastic card, and we'll continue the trip. "Luckily, I'd grabbed an envelope with $75 worth of "old money" I'd been saving out from some art show profits before we left home, so we had some cash for breakfast.

"Breakfast" was sometime around one in the afternoon, at the Federal Grill, a cigar bar across from the hotel and a couple doors down from CrocRock.   Well-stocked bar and classy/trendy decor, but indifferent food (limp pickle, watery cole slaw) as far as I was concerned. . . . . . . . or maybe I just didn't have much appetite right then.   Igor seemed to enjoy his gazpacho and fajita wrap; Phelan had a beverage that looked like a large, green, glowing martini. Sympathy and commiseration for our loss from RE and fellow fans, good-byes to A,A,&D, who would go on to NYC but not to Cambridge, and "see you Saturday!" to the guys. We set off to locate a bank and get a cash advance on a credit card.

I'm sure there are many banks in Allentown, but we drove up and down a major business street, passing strip malls, mega-stores, and every other kind of store or service you can imagine before we finally found one.   Imagine my surprise when, after standing in line for 20 minutes, my credit card was turned down, no reason given!   Ack!  This same card worked fine for hotels later in the trip; when we got home, there was a letter from the card company waiting for me, wanting to know if I recognized all this "unusual activity. "   They had refused my out-of-state cash request "for (my) protection against un-authorized charges. "   More like for their protection: I know I'd be liable for only $50 if my card gets lost or stolen.   Note to travellers: if you don't often leave town and charge up a storm, you might want to call your card issuer and let them know your plans, before you hit the road.

I was starting to feel like Ulysses, a plaything for factions of warring gods.   For some reason, although I never carry more than one credit card for purchases (the one I pay off frequently) and leave the others that have nothing but balance transfers on them at home, I had stuck an extra credit card into my bag before our departure from Ohio.   That card went through without a hitch; we had cash for the rest of the trip, but I'd be stuck with an advance at a high interest rate that won't go away until I pay off the low-rate balance first. Ah, well, onward to New England. Run, Harriet, run!

To Be Continued. . . . . . . . . . . .