The 1972 Odyssey of Poundso and Baddso: From Lawrence Kansas to Eugene Oregon Back

This is a factual account of a trip taken in 1972 with my good British friend Baddso (pseudonym) to Eugene and back. I, the narrator, appear as Poundso. The Olympic trials were being held that year in Eugene, and Barry was a long distance runner. Myself, I was merely going for the sake of going—in accordance with Baudelaire’s old ideal of the “The Voyage”: Partir por partir. The book is comparable to Kerouac’s On the Road, I suppose, though I have deliberately not read that book or his other novels in many years. My book tells the story of Baddso and Poundso hitch-hiking and riding freight trains from Lawrence to Eugene and back. I concentrate on the physical details of the journey, places and people, the latter including both genders and the usual ethnicities. It was a difficult journey, and the book tries to recapture that difficulty in its prose style. It was also highly dangerous, so add menace from the police to the mix. What I’ve written is a palimpsest in which over the base of our 1972 odyssey I have pasted thoughts from 2025. I call my craft “The Spirit of St. Louis,” and though Lindbergh flew solo I have a passenger --Baddso-- onboard. As such, he has a lot to say.