12 - I found Becky and Travis - (edited with 2018 photo!)

            

              Bruce and I had a chance encounter in 1978 that I memorialized in my journal:

              In Oregon, headed for Pacific City, saw woman wheeling an auto tire and hitchhiking with a small blond boy. Picked up Becky and Travis, took them to their farm/cabin and changed tire. Rapped, stayed, played with Travis, amazingly articulate 3 year old, very honestly informed about jive. Saw goats, chickens. Got cool pictures. Had herbal tea and homemade bakeless cookies. Helped Becky pick marijuana plants. Would have smoked but she had none dry, having left her stash in a man’s pickup truck. After a few mellow hours, left for Pacific City.

              Here's their "farm/cabin" and the bridge we took to get there:

               I was so intrigued by Becky and Travis that I even wrote their last name in my journal, and that helped me track down Travis, who is now living and working out east. He answered my email, enthusiastic about the photos I sent. In a cool coincidence, his mom happened to be visiting him and we arranged to talk after she landed and settled. 

              Before speaking with Becky and Travis, I got a call from their friend Ellie, who actually brought Travis into this world. From her own blog (elliegunn.com):

              A chance meeting with a pregnant woman in 1975 put Ellie on the "catching" end of a home birth. Even though she had no medical training, her reputation as a trusted midwife in Western Oregon grew. That's just how things happened then. A decade and fifty healthy babies later, Ellie married and had her own baby and settled down for a career with regular hours, massage therapy.

              Yep, that 1975 kid was Travis. Ellie filled in the details for me:

              In 1975 I was content to grow veggies, pick berries for a bit of rent money, and be part of a “hippie commune,” Pudding River Farm near Woodburn. We managed the Salem food co-op as a group by taking turns at the store. I was at my post on a rainy Friday in mid-March when a very pregnant young woman and her partner came in the store for the first time. Becky and I were instantly drawn to each other. The co-op business was slow that day so I made us all a cup of tea while I listened to their story. Becky, who was just 18, told me she was determined to give birth at home, with or without a midwife, but she had not been able to find anyone to help her.

After getting these cool memories from Ellie, I finally spoke with Becky and Travis in an enthusiastic phone call while I was navigating the hills of San Francisco. I pulled over, blocking some guy’s garage (while he and other random cars were pulling in and out), and did my best to take notes.

             Back then, it was clear that Becky was a strong and independent spirit, even as a teenage mother (just look at her wielding that axe):

She restlessly moved around with Travis to different transitionary living situations, such as the “Folly Farm” living community that she lived in with Ellie. She described it as an “unintentional” community to distinguish it from “intentional” ones or “communes.” At Folly Farm, there was a main house, and “apartments” set up in the barn. Residents shared the main farmhouse space and kitchen, had work parties and other gatherings, often trading work for living quarters, etc.

              When Bruce and I encountered Becky and Travis, they were renting that wooden house in the photos. It had utilities but no sewer, and featured a two seater outhouse that a goat once fell into.

              Becky didn’t spend much time with Travis’ dad, but met Jerry at an April Fools’ party in 1979. He and Travis were instantly taken with one another, and the three of them have been together ever since. Jerry did a lot of “entrepreneuring,” making "hooey sticks" and selling them at craft fairs. (These are an interesting novelty gadget - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee-haw_whammy_diddle.)

              Young Travis learned to play the spoons from “Artis the Spoon Man” (http://www.artisthespoonman.net), a Washington State fixture about whom Soundgarden wrote the song “Spoonman.” (Artis is featured prominently in the music video, here:

              Artis' young protege, Travis, would set up at craft fairs with a sign “Travis, Spoon Player Extraordinaire, 25 cents please!” Wisely, he wouldn’t play until they paid. He would also utilize his charm to sell the healing sticks Jerry and Becky made, to help pay for a hotel for the evening.

              When he was just ten years old, Travis even barnstormed with the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He joked that “a sword swallower/fire eater was my chaperone.” Becky laughed, “That was how it was back then, I trusted him and the people he was with.”

              Travis even got a gig in an ad campaign for Friendly’s Ice Cream. He and his fellow spoon players filmed commercials and even planned a European tour. How could TV resist this cutie?

               Becky, Travis and Jerry eventually settled in Sandpoint, in northern Idaho, about 60 miles from the Canadian border. They fell into a great co-op community, and eventually built a house. Becky got a “real job,” first as a florist and then as a phlebotomist, earning benefits and eventually being able to retire. Jerry is ever the entrepreneur, filling spiral notebooks with ideas for a book he is writing.

              Travis went to the University of Idaho, thanks in part to the Friendly’s Ice Cream earnings. However, he got bored with math and science and went back into entertainment, this time on the support end, doing lighting and set design. After tiring of sleeping on buses and getting paid a pittance for a rock and roll tour, he now has a steady gig doing setup for seminars and conferences.

Travis is not a fan of my guitar playing.

              It was so fun talking with Travis and Becky. Their bond and affection for each other is still quite apparent. I was hoping to find their old house today and send photos, based on the careful notes I took in 1978:  “Near Cold Springs Ranch, yellow mailbox, steel fence on W 22, between Dolph and Junction of 18 and 22.” Unfortunately, this description did not help me find it in 2018. Also, well … look at that bridge and house. Do you suspect they are still standing today? And I will suspect that mailbox has been painted over, if it even exists. So, ixnay on finding the house today.

               In the meantime, peace out from Travis.

           Wait -- how about a peace out from Travis in 2018? They even managed a woodpile in the background!

            

Next: The Pacific Ocean, Pacific City, and the Hungry Harbor. Two of the three are still there.