Summer of 73, What a Long Strange Trip...

It all started when we arrived in Heidelberg that cold summer of 1973 not knowing what to expect or when IT was about to start. You see we were all young college kids 18-19-20 years old and most of us were pretty inexperienced in the ways of the worldly travelers. Of course there were some veterans among the assembled but we were all there to take part in a Year-in-Europe program that would change many of our lives in ways we could never have imagined.

They were an odd cast of characters with names like John, Bixby, Sunny, Gross Martha, Gwen, Joanie, Phil, Sandy, Stephen, Randy and Pfc Rick. Strange memories pop into the mind as I recall these names like the image of John with his favorite record album "Europe 72" by the Greatful Dead (actually it was the only record we had). If you mention Stephan Fugate the image of an old VW bus appears. The one that many of us drove all over the German countryside during our time there. We were living the life right out of "Divine Rights Trip" which was first published as a series of articles in the Whole Earth Catalog.
Home was a place called Moore Haus which was a beautiful house on a hillside at Graimbergweg 10 which was near the Castle in Heidleberg.
It has been more than 35 years since that time and I am on a mission to not let the story end just when it got started. This is really just is an attempt to fill in the gap of what happened between then and now. Over the course of the last few years and continuing through today, I have attempted to find out the rest of the story and some of this is really hard work plus, you just can't ever seem to find enough time to follow all the clues.

We were all students at Pepperdine University back when it was at the LA Campus. That was the one they promised they would never close then they opened the beautiful Malibu Campus and the LA Campus became a lost footnote in history. We all signed up for the Year-In Europe program in Heidelberg Germany around the 1972-73 timeframe with some of us coming mid-year and others returning stateside.

In the course of my limited research, I have figured this much out....

Robert "Bobby' Bixby adopted his grandfathers name and now goes by the name of Robert Converse. He was a commercial airlines pilot flying for US Air!! He used to live in Saluda, South Carolina but now is reported to be in Washington state. At the time he was flying a restored P51 called the Huntress III up until he sold it. He still keeps in contact with Kenny Waters, ahem...actually that's Dr. Waters to be correct.

John Baker is still the same old John R. Baker but you need to add Dr. Phil to his name as he earned his doctorate at Hamburg University and for the last 19 years he and his wife have been living large in Moorpark, Ca teaching at the local Community college. He has the top rating on Ratemyprofessor.com and He just recently published a new book you should buy it.

Martha "Gross Martha" Guaglianone as Larry Blaine would call her is alive and well in Long Beach Ca. She her 16 year old son and loving husband made a life in television and on the internet as they/she contributes to a political blog called Bartcop.com.

Sunny Lindsay was last know to be living in Bermuda Dunes and was teaching Art classes for a school in Indio.

Phil Lowe was with the District Attorney's office in San Luis Obispo County

Virginia "Ginny" Curinga is the pastor at the Sierra Arden United Church of Christ in Sacramento, Ca. She was at the forefront of trying to defeat Prop 8 and continues to support efforts to remove this kind of bigotry from the constitution.

Stephen Fugate emigrated to Australia got married and unmarried and supposedly still lives there.

Gwendolyn Moore lives and works in Nashville Tenn as an assistant in the Vanderbuilt school of Medicine. An accomplished recording artist she still likes to sing a song or two when the mood is right. Check out her blog at http://gwenmoore.blogspot.com/



Karen "Kraze" Davis lives and writes in Montana.



Jonie Hawley married Jimmy Hahn then got unmarried and the trail goes cold....

No info on Denise May

Sandy Pearson graduated married Rick Shirley and now lives in the Valley somewhere..

Michael "Randy" Andrade returned to New Mexico and was last seen driving an ambulance except for that postcard someone got from Nepal no one has seen him Hmmmm so much like him.

Pfc. Rick AKA my brother who was stationed near us in Baumholder, Germany spent many a weekend associating with the crew from Pepperdine. Rick is alive and well. He lives and works in the Los Angeles area

If any reader has an updates , please send me a comment and I will post the info just as soon as I can get to it.