Sunny: The Hippie Chick

By Dawn Natelle

Reviewed and Edited by Eric

Chapter 06 -- Standin' on the turnpike, thumb out to hitchhike

The next morning saw us at the bus stop before dawn. Ben had it all planned out. We took the bus to the intercity bus station downtown, and all paid a couple dollars each for the bus to San Rafael, a town on Highway 101, which ran right into Eureka to the north.

We walked to the outskirts of San Rafael, just before the speed limit increased, making it easier to snag a ride. Sunny stood on the shoulder of the road while Ben and I stood off to the side, hopefully not to be noticeable until a car slowed for Sunny. Ben stood with his hood up facing away from the cars in case of someone not wanting to pick up a black person.

Three cars slowed down for Sunny, but the first two sped up when they saw the two of us approaching. The third hesitated until Sunny had the door open, and then let us into the back seats. That ride lasted about 10 minutes, and about a half hour later another one took us 40 miles up 101. After a short wait we lucked out. A young salesman stopped, and said he was going all the way to Eureka to visit some clients in that town. He was even staying at the same motel as us.

Sunny pulled out her guitar and asked the man for requests. He turned out to be into country music, and Sunny surprised me by singing Patsy Cline’s I Fall to Pieces. Then she sang some of the more country Elvis songs, and finally started adding in some of her lighter Peter, Paul, and Mary repertoire. The miles rolled by for the salesman and us as we listened to her sweet voice. Four hours later we rolled into Eureka before noon. The hotel check in was not until afternoon, so we walked over to my parents’ house.

As we got near, I saw my father in the driveway, surrounded by parts from the family sedan. “Hi Dad,” I said to the legs sticking out from under the car. “This is Sunny and Ben. Want some help?”

“Did you suddenly learn auto mechanics at college?” my dad said as he wheeled out to face me. He stared at Sunny for an uncomfortable time. She was that pretty.

“No. But my roommate, Ben, is really good with that stuff. He can probably help you.”

I left Ben asking my Dad what was wrong, and headed into the house, leading Sunny to the Kitchen where my oldest sister was sitting at the table with Mom. She lived in town, while the other sisters had moved away. Norma’s husband Grant was a loan officer at the local bank and would be working today and a half day tomorrow, but Norma was a housewife, so she had brought her four kids over early to ‘help’ Mom get ready.

Mom practically attacked me with a hug. I had always thought Mom hugs were the best, but lately I had to admit I preferred Sunny hugs. “This is your girlfriend?” Norma said in amazement as she scoped out Sunny. “We were all wondering if she was real or an imaginary girlfriend like the imaginary friend you had when you were younger.”

“That was when I was three, maybe four,” I retorted. “I got real friends when I started school in Kindergarten.”

“She’s very pretty,” Mom said. Both Sunny and I said thanks at the same time. Just then Melanie came into the room. She was 14, and the oldest of my nieces and nephews, and she also stared at Sunny. “I want my hair like that, Mom,” she announced. Melanie had a Jackie Kennedy style cut like so many girls of the early 60s did.

“Well, your hair is nice,” Sunny told her. “It is getting a bit long for that style, but if you let it grow you might have it as long as mine in four or five years.”

“Five years!” Melanie said. “That’s forever. Did yours take that long to grow?”

“Yep. Almost five years. You could have long hair like this by the time you graduate High School.”

“I’m going to show Sunny the house,” I announced.

“Are you sure you are staying at the motel?” Mom whined.

“Yep. We haven’t checked in yet, but we are booked in a room there.”

“You could stay in your old room,” she begged.

“I could, but what about Sunny?”

She froze at that. “She could stay with one of the girls.”

“The girls that are all married?”

“Well. Maybe with the kids in the den. I’m sure we have a spare sleeping bag.”

“The motel has a bed for us and that’s what we are using.”

“Are you doing anything in the kitchen I can help with?” Sunny said, tactfully changing the subject.

“We will be starting pies in a couple hours,” Norma said. “Tomorrow will be the busy day. The turkey will be in the oven on Christmas morning, so we will have to do the ham tomorrow, along with the potatoes and all the sides. Mom is the general of logistics and we are the soldiers.”

“Well, I’ll help too,” Sunny said, gaining a huge smile from Mom. She felt that it was the place of the womenfolk to cater to the men and children and was glad Sunny wasn’t afraid of a little work.

I showed Sunny the house, and finally we got to the den where Norma’s three little kids were watching cartoons on TV and Melanie was looking bored. Until Sunny pulled out her guitar.

“You play guitar?” the young girl said. “I would like to learn that. Did it take five years to learn?”

“No, although I have been playing for a couple years. But if you can take lessons you should be able to play well in a few months. A few weeks and it will stop sounding like a cat being strangled.”

The smaller kids giggled at the imagery, and Sunny sat down and started to play Puff the Magic Dragon for them. The cartoons were forgotten and Sunny sang several more songs as they gathered around. Then Sunny handed the guitar to Melanie and taught her a few basic chords. There were no cat-strangling sounds, and the teen girl was ecstatic at what she could do. She looked up and saw her mother standing at the doorway, a grin from one side of her face to the other.

“Look Momma,” she beamed. “I can play Sunny’s guitar.”

“Well, I just came down to look for Sunny. She wanted to help with the pies.”

Sunny stood up, and Melanie tried to hand her the guitar. “No. You keep playing. Just don’t let the little kids mess with it. Put it in the case when you are done.”

As they walked back to the kitchen, Norma spoke: “It looks like we need to get a new gift for Mel for Christmas. I wonder if I can borrow you tomorrow to go look for a guitar for her? Where do they sell them?”

“Well, they have cheap ones in Woolworth’s for $20 or so, but if she sticks with it, she’d need a better instrument in a couple months. The best places for good value are pawn shops. That’s where I got mine, for $100. You could probably get a good first guitar there for half that. It would last for the first couple of years. Maybe in a few Christmases you can get her a better one if she is still into it.”

“We have one pawn shop in Eureka,” Norma said. “I’ll call and see how late they are open tomorrow. Mom will have lotsa help when my sisters and aunts all get here. I’m sure we can sneak away for an hour.”

Sunny made three pies that afternoon, a chocolate, a pumpkin, and a lemon meringue. Norma made the apple pie, and Mom made a peach pie, both of which required more time (and less cooking skill) only slicing fruit and braiding a top crust. At the end of the afternoon there was a rush of little feet into the kitchen as the aromas from the baking spread into the den. Melanie carefully handed Sunny the guitar case.

Ben and Dad came in shortly thereafter. It was hunger, not aromas that brought them in.

“This lad is a wonder with a toolbox,” Dad proclaimed. “He got the old Studebaker running like it did from the showroom.”

“The timing was just a bit off,” Ben said. “Some new plugs and a bit of other work was all it needed.”

Ben had an uncle who worked for the Army in the motor pool during the war. When Japan surrendered, army surplus Jeeps were being practically given away. While working jeeps were initially selling for $100 or so, ones that didn’t run were sold for as little as $20 and his uncle bought dozens of them and fixed them up and sold them for as much as $200 each. That was the start of his little garage and he moved into fixing up jeeps for those who had bought one and worn it out. He also moved into fixing sedans and station wagons for the post-war automotive boom. His initial clientele for this had mainly been other colored people at first, but as time went by word went out the cars fixed by Henry stayed fixed and were a better value than other repair jobs, bringing in a bigger customer base.

Ben had started working for Henry when he was 10, more as a way for the man to give money to Ben’s divorced mother than anything else. It was only $2 a week at first, when the boy simply cleaned cars and tidied up the shop, but in a few years the boy was doing simple mechanical things: changing tires and wheeling the cars in and out of the garage. Eventually his pay was up to $20 a week and his mother started insisting he save half of it for college. Ben did one better than that, buying up a few old cars his uncle felt weren’t worth saving, getting them running and selling them for a hundred dollars or two.

The dinner was simple. A small roast, broiled potatoes and carrots, but it was home-cooked, and everyone complimented Mom on her efforts, even if Sunny and Norma had a hand in the meal. Sunny’s chocolate silk pie was dessert and everyone loved it, especially the chocolate-loving children.

After the dishes were done by Sunny and me (to my mother’s astonishment). Norma had phoned and found out that the pawn shop was opening at 7 and closing at noon on Christmas Eve, so she planned to pick us up at the motel before 7 and we would all spend the rest of the day at Mom’s.

It had been a late dinner, and Melanie had begged Sunny for another guitar lesson before we left. Dad wanted to try out his retuned car with the mechanic on hand, so we got Ben and headed to the motel at about 10.

We slept, with Ben on a cot the motel owners had supplied free of charge. Unlike the prior owners these were eager to get business from anyone with money, no matter what race. They had also proudly shown that they were listed in The Negro Travelers’ Green Book guide from a couple years before.

We woke up a bit after 6, and all had done our washroom duties and dressed nicely. Today Sunny and Ben would meet the rest of the family, so we wanted to look spiffy. Norma picked us up at 6:50 and drove us to the pawn shop, which had a rather meager collections of guitars for sale. Three were beginner models, and not any better than the ones from Woolworth’s, although a bit cheaper. The other two included a high-end model that would be suitable for a professional musician, and a middling model, which Sunny decided was appropriate for Melanie, although overpriced. It was priced at $150, which it might have been worth in a music store after being completely refitted and cleaned. But this was not. Sunny played it for a few minutes and it held its tune. She made an offer of $60 for it, probably what the pawn shop had paid for it.

After a bit of haggling, to the amusement of Norma, she settled at a price of $100, which gave the shop a decent profit while getting Melanie a good first guitar at a price they could afford.

The next stop was at the grocery store for some supplies that Mom had requested we pick up, and then finally to the house.

“What can I do?” Sunny asked Mom, while Norma scurried off to her room to wrap her last present.

“Do you peel potatoes?” Mom replied. “No one else likes doing that and we need a pile of potatoes for mashing.”

“Sure,” Sunny replied. “I can do that.” Her eyes opened when Mom handed her a five-pound bag of Idahos, and several pots. She started right in on them.

“It’s wrapped,” Norma said when she came down to the kitchen. Problem is the wrapping doesn’t do a thing to hide what it is, so I left it upstairs under the bed. I want it to be a surprise on Christmas morning.” She started working on the ham that would be first into the oven, with Mom cleaning up the big turkey that would follow it.

“Hi Sunny,” Melanie said with a smile when she popped into the kitchen. “Any chance of another lesson? I wish I had a guitar to practice on when you are away.”

“Well, you could borrow my guitar. I set it on the sofa. Or if you want to help me here, I’ll get through them quicker and we can have some practice and a sing-along.”

“I’ll help you,” Melanie said, and Norma’s eyes widened. Normally her daughter would die rather than help in the kitchen. “What do I need to do?”

Mom got out another paring knife, and Sunny showed the girl how to peel potatoes. Soon after Norma’s other kids noticed that their older sister had disappeared and explored until they found her in the kitchen. They immediately decided that the work must be a game, so they clamored to be allowed to ‘play’ too. At six and eight they were too small to use a knife, so Sunny got two more pots of water and let the older ones wash potatoes. She encouraged them by continually telling them they were doing a good job, even when they didn’t and soon they were doing a better job.

The youngest boy, only four years old, was mostly just playing in the water, splashing it all over, including himself. Norma finally picked him up and took him upstairs to get dry clothes while Sunny and Melanie dried the floor and stressed to the little ones that keeping the water in the pots was part of doing a good job.

An hour later they were done, and Mom congratulated them on doing a good job. The potatoes were put into pots to boil, with Sunny promising to return with her helper in an hour to mash them.

“Oh no,” Mom said. “We only pre-boil them on Christmas Eve. They’ll get the finish boil tomorrow just before we eat so they are hot and creamy.”

With that Sunny took Melanie into Dad’s den where they had a short lesson on the guitar. It only lasted 15 minutes before the group of little ones heard the music and invaded, wanting Sunny to sing. And it was 14, not three of them. My other sisters had arrived, as well as a few of my aunts and uncles and suddenly there was a mass of kids hyper with pre-Christmas.

Sunny took them into the den, and they nestled around her as she took the guitar and started to sing. To her surprise Melanie joined in. She had a lovely voice and while she didn’t have Sunny’s photographic music memory, she remembered the words from Puff the Magic Dragon and Tell It on the Mountain. Her older siblings joined in on the chorus to Puff and soon all the kids were singing, although not necessarily to the song that Sunny was playing. She played for two hours until the Moms appeared, carrying plates of hot dogs. The horde left and while they ate Melanie and Sunny had another short lesson. When the kids reappeared Sunny sent Melanie back to the Den with the guitar to practice while she started to read stories to the little ones.

Soon all the little ones were calling her Aunt Sunny, to her delight, as she read the story books over and over, sometimes repeating the same one time and again. There were tears from some of the smallest when Sunny said she had to go help the Moms with dinner. Finally, Melanie decided it was too noisy to practice anymore, so she volunteered to take over as the designated reader. But before she started, she sang and played Puff the Magic Dragon, the one song she had memorized and Sunny listened and decided she would be a player, hardly making any errors in a song she had just learned, on an instrument she was a beginner with.

Sunny went into the kitchen and started making a macaroni salad in a large enough batch to be one of the sides for the Christmas Eve dinner, leaving most of it for the Christmas Day feast tomorrow. For a while she was working next to Norma.

“You are working wonders with my daughter,” the older woman said. “She adores you and wants to be like you. She’s never offered to help in the kitchen before, and she normally despises her brothers and sisters, yet there she is reading to them. She seems to have grown up by several years over the last few days.”

“She wants to be like me?” Sunny denied. “That can’t be. I’m just a hippie street performer struggling to get by.”

“Well, you have my little brother wrapped around your fingers, too,” Norma said. “And he’s going to be a doctor someday. You’re beautiful, talented, and little kids flock to you.”

“They know I love them,” Sunny said. “I … I can’t have children of my own. My bits down there aren’t right.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Norma said. “But perhaps you can adopt some one day. I’m sure a doctor’s wife would be looked on well by the adoption agencies.”

Not likely, Sunny thought. They would find out about her prior life and she would never be able to adopt. They would declare that she was a man, and two men could never adopt children.

The supper was a light one, with sandwiches and parts of the sides made for the feast. There was a lime Jello with grapes in it, Sunny’s macaroni salad, and a potato salad. The kids ate hot dogs again. It seemed that kids can eat hot dogs seven days a week and never tire of them. That crew just devoured them. Sunny and Melanie sat at the kids table and served the smaller ones. I heard several claim they didn’t want any of the sides until Sunny said she had made her macaroni ‘just for them’ and they then clamored for the dish. A few also liked the Jello with some saying they wanted ‘Just Jello’ and others insisting that they got a lot of the grapes.

After dinner the kids, who ate faster, fled and Sunny and Melanie gathered their plates, and then cleared the adult table as well as the older generations sat back and watched. Norma, in particular, was amazed at her daughter helping out. At home apparently she had to be forced to help out at a meal.

Once the table was cleared, Sunny started filling the sink with water.

“No,” Mom ordered. “You two cleared up. Some of the other girls will do the dishes.”

“Oh, it is alright,” Sunny replied. “Mel and I will get it. I’ll wash and she can dry. She probably knows where everything goes.” Melanie nodded reluctantly.

“No dear,” Mom insisted. “You two can go and calm down the youngsters. You seem to have a talent for that.” Melanie looked relieved, and Sunny finally agreed. Tending toddlers was becoming her favorite chore.

Sunny started off singing Puff again. The kids couldn’t get enough of the song.

“You sing nicer than Melanie,” a six-year-old claimed.

“Yes, but you are going to have Melanie as a sister or cousin forever,” Sunny said. “I’ll only be back here if Mitch invites me. Maybe by next year he will have another girlfriend.”

That statement caused general dismay among the crowd, and a few seconds later I had a delegation of the entire group standing around the chair I was sitting in.

“You has to keep Aunt Sunny,” one of the little girls insisted. “Marry her so she will be our forever aunt and not some other girlfriend.”

“Well Sunny and I are a bit too young to get married yet,” Mitch said. “Although I hope when the time comes, we can become a permanent couple. I’m going to invite Sunny back every year, and if you guys are good for her, I’m sure she will come.”

That response worked, and the small herd crossed the room and settled in around Sunny again. Melanie took the guitar from her, and went looking for a quiet nook to practice in. Sunny read stories over and over for the next two hours. Finally Mom came into the room with a cardboard box, saying “Do you all know what time it is now?”

“Stockings,” was the general response from the smaller set, and Mom started handing out stockings, calling a name and we all came up one at a time to take ours, just like we had done since we adults were little. Near the bottom of the box mine was called, just after my sister Norma. The little ones found places to set theirs on the couches and chairs in the living room and around the Christmas tree. There were six hooks on the mantle and my sisters and I, along with Mom and Dad hung our stockings there.

“Sunny got no stocking,” an alert little one noticed.

“Not this year,” Mom said. “But Santa can put her things into Mitchell’s.” That seemed to end the dilemma. I could see her eyeing the mantle to see where another hook could go next year. I only hoped that it would be needed. Sunny had grown to be such an important part of my life that I couldn’t imagine living without her.

“Now it is time for bed,” my sister Brenda announced. She only had two toddlers, but they were cute ones. There were groans from some, claiming they wanted to stay up late and meet Santa, while others said that Santa wouldn’t come if they weren’t asleep when he came. Sunny got the final word in though.

“If you are all in your sleeping bags in five minutes I will come down to the den and sing you three songs.”

“Puff,” one little girl squealed.

“Puff three times,” a boy suggested.

“Hurry,” Sunny warned. “You only have four minutes left.” That kicked off a stampede to the den.

The adults sat in the living room, until Sunny came back a half hour later. “I think they are all asleep,” she said. “It took five songs though.”

“You sing beautifully my dear,” Mom said. “And the kids love it. Did you write that song about the dragon?”

Sunny laughed. “I wish. It is a tune that Peter, Paul, and Mary sing. It is on their latest album and I have stolen it for my own shows.” That led to her explaining how she performed on Haight street in the city and was now making good money now that she was singing with her guitar instead of just dancing with her tambourine, due to my suggestion.

After Melanie finally agreed to go to bed Mom went to the front closet and brought down her stash of stocking stuffers. Filling them was her personal chore for Christmas, and she would never let anyone else help. The other parents went to their hiding places and brought out toys ‘from Santa” for their little ones. We missed most of that when Dad offered us a ride to the motel. Sunny did get to see Norma come down the stairs with a wrapped present that could only be the guitar.