It was summer almost half a century ago when I got into that Volkswagen van and began my trip across the country with Peter, a photographer friend. I was officially doing so as a reporter for a small San Francisco news service, having been sent out to tap the mood of the nation in a politically fraught moment. The Vietnam War, with all its domestic protests and disturbances, was just ending. North Vietnamese troops would soon enough enter Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital; the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, was then trapped in an escalating scandal called “Watergate.” And here was the odd thing. I felt trapped, too. In some way, I felt lost. As I put it... Read more
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