Plucky Survivors See Europe: 20 Years of Plucky Survivors
Plucky Survivors See Europe starts tomorrow, just a few months shy of the 20th Anniversary of the very first Plucky road trip, and I thought it was worth a look back at how it all started and why I’m still using the plural.
This is long, sorry/not sorry. I promise it’s important and at least a little entertaining.
The story of Plucky Survivors starts a long time ago in a land far, far away. It was 1989 and it was Hollywood, which may not be geographically far, far away depending on where you live, but is quite distant in just about every other way that is important.
I was 22 years old. God. Even typing that makes my head hurt a little. Was I ever really that young? There were pictures that proved it, but I burned most of them. It was the hair. I had a lot of very big 80s hair back then. Little did I know.
I had lived in Los Angeles for about four years and found it transitory at best. Friends were easy to come by but friends that lasted were a bit more elusive. Those who know me will attest to the fact that patience and tolerance are not exactly what you might call my strong suits. This is mentioned because it was those qualities (or whatever the opposite of quality is) that ruined a couple of good friendships that I had cultivated during my early Los Angeles years.
So, at 22 I found myself mostly alone. I had one good friend; a childhood pal that I had known since kindergarten who had moved to LA the year before. But by then he had started dating the guy that he would eventually marry, and I could sense that our lives, while always intertwined, were taking different paths.
Still holding on to my dreams of being a part of that far, far away land in whatever shape or form I could get it, I took what wound up being a soul-crushing job at a small talent agency, got “you can’t fire me I quit”-ted from said job when I called a client an asshole (for good reason), and then found a gig at a bigger agency down the street. It was several steps up on the status ladder but not on the self-respect one.
I was the dispatch manager, which meant that I was in charge of a staff of messengers who delivered the latest blockbuster scripts to the biggest blockbuster stars in the hopes that the two would converge into some blockbuster box office somewhere down the road. I’d like to say that I had some sort of hand in the making of Hollywood magic but the reality is that I just shuffled paperwork around, pointed, and generally allowed these “very important” people to make my life miserable.
Mary Herczog worked upstairs for a casting agent. It was stressful in that particular Hollywood way; her boss was, oh, let’s say demanding and exacting, and leave it at that.
Mary was not one to engage in Hollywood notions of hierarchy but was one who does notice things people put on their bulletin boards. This became important on the day she passed by my desk and actually paid attention, which for most agent assistants was something that was simply not done. Usually, they only noticed the messenger office when we didn’t break the laws of physics and get their package to its destination within moments of the request for delivery.
Mary observed that I had a “Bloom County” comic strip pinned up on my bulletin board. This particular one was a poignant, yet still funny, strip about the untimely death of Gilda Radner. Mary loved Bloom County and that particular strip. From what she could see, no one else in the company had a sense of humor, near as she could tell. So, Mary stopped to talk to me about it.
That’s what life turns on. Not dimes, but pieces of newsprint. On small decisions made with very little, if any, thought at all. Sometimes, Mary and I liked to scare ourselves – the fun kind of scare; the kind you get watching horror movies – by imagining what would have happened if I hadn’t taped up that strip, if she hadn’t noticed it, if we hadn’t talked. It really freaked us out, but then we calmed ourselves down by reminding ourselves that we didn’t have to worry about that, or the guy with the ax who is in the house with you, because it’s only make-believe.
We went out to dinner shortly thereafter, and quickly ascertained several important things: First, we both had the same sense of humor and got along like we had already known each other our whole lives; second, I’m gay and a man; and third, she was straight and a woman. There was nothing to do for it but become best friends for the rest of our lives.
Ultimately, we think the two of us coming together as friends was one of those twists of fate that shouldn’t be looked at too closely. It’s like finding out how the magic trick was done. It just isn’t as interesting when you look at it again. Instead, we said “Abracadbra” and sat forward eagerly as the show began.
Flash forward 17 years and I found myself staring down the barrel of my 40th birthday. I was not handling it with the greatest of ease, which now that I’m on the downhill slope toward 60 seems absolutely adorable.
So, 40 was approaching and I was looking for something to appropriately mark the occasion and travel seemed like it would fit the bill. During frequent e-mails and phone calls, Mary and I talked about possibilities: Greece, which I did on my 30th birthday; Italy because it seemed like something you’re supposed to do; a brief flirtation with Australia until Mary mentioned the 14-hour plane ride. Either the hassle, time commitment, and/or cost of international travel knocked out each suggestion until I finally said jokingly, “Maybe I’ll just go see the biggest ball of twine.”
Mary responded, “Cool. Can I go?”
During that phone call late one night in May of 2006 the two of us talked about all of the great roadside attractions we wanted to see. The offbeat museums, the statues of Elvis in someone’s back yard, and the alligator farms. There were giant concrete statues of animals and people and objects. People did things like buried cars in a cornfield or erected giant metal scraps in a field and called it art. These were the kinds of things you couldn’t see flying over the country. You had to see it by getting on the road – the open highways and byways of America.
Because of its geographical convenience and the fact that Mary owned a house there, New Orleans was chosen as a beginning and ending spot. I spent the next few weeks pouring over websites and guidebooks devoted to road trips and every day found something to call her up about.
“Did you know that there’s a Britney Spears Museum in Kentwood, Louisiana?”
“There’s a place called Dinosaur World in Arkansas with giant concrete statues of dinosaurs.”
“In Alabama there’s a grotto with miniature replicas of famous buildings that was constructed by a hunchback monk.”
Every one of these revelations was met with the kind of glee that is usually reserved for puppies and the occasional birth of a new baby. Mary and I often joked that we shared the same brain and so Britney, concrete dinosaurs, and hunchbacked monks were as appealing to her as they were to me. When we told others of our plans, they looked at us with that look – the one that says, “You guys are crazy and weird.” But to us, it was exactly the kind of thing that we needed to do.
By this time, Mary had been dealing with breast cancer on and off for many years and I had a long list of stuff wrong with me, not the least of which were severe gastric issues that would eventually lead to my own cancer diagnosis. But Mary and I had survived, up to that point, our dramas and tragedies, both physical and mental, and had done it with what we liked to think was an admirable amount of pluck. So, what do plucky survivors do?
They go see America, of course.
We did four 2,000-plus mile road trips over the next four years and then an abbreviated one in 2010 just a few weeks before Mary passed away at 45.
We were best friends. Soul mates, in a way. I am not a believer in the concept of the afterlife, but I do believe people continue on after they have gone through the memories we have of them, the stories of them that we share, and the new adventures we go on because of them. It is no exaggeration to say that I think of her almost every single day and I am confident that this road trip through Europe would not be happening if it wasn’t for her.
So, Mary will be with me on this trip. I expect that there will be many things along the way that I will see and think, “Mary would have loved this.” The David Hasselhoff Museum springs to mind.
And thus, Plucky Survivors, plural.
In the journals we wrote, which you can read on the PluckySurvivors.com site, we started every trip with “Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddd…..we’re off!” and ended them with “See you on the road.”
Yes, you will, my friend. Yes, you will.
Plucky Survivors See Europe starts tomorrow!