Hey Turak Fans,
I have known Augie since the fall of 1970 when we met in the Student Union at Pitt and became friends right away. There have been many journeys and funny stories together over the years, especially back in the college days. A lot of “laughin’ and jokin”. But I’ll choose one experience that endures to this day as quite an accomplishment… An entertaining one at that…
Way back in August of ’72, Augie and I found ourselves up in Rhode Island, visiting a college buddie of ours, Mike Lind who lived near Providence and whose family had a summer home on a lake west of Pascoag, RI. Augie and I had motored up there with Bud Thomas in his dilapidated VW Beetle which broke down on the way in E. Norwalk, CT off I-95. After getting towed to Mike’s place by Mike in his Dad’s T-bird we preceded to the lake for a week of leisure while Bud was supposedly hunting for a new motor for the Bug. When we realized it was time to go (we likely wore out our welcome) Bud still hadn’t found the engine so it was…later, we gotta go back to our summer jobs in Pittsburgh.
How do we get there?
That’s when we set out hitchhiking from Providence to Pittsburgh, about a 600 mile trek. We made it to Darien, CT the first night. Luckily Augie had a buddy from Hotchkiss who put us up for the night and let us swim in his spring fed in-ground swimming pool. That was cool, literally.
On Day 2 we were ready. But our first ride only got us to the east side on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. The Brooklyn side looking over to Staten Island with all the traffic you would expect of the NYC area. It seemed like we waited there forever (several hours) but all of sudden a friendly hippie with a long pony tail, driving a brown ’60 Oldsmobile pulled over and asked us, “Where are you going?” We said “Pittsburgh, where are you going?” He said “Kansas, get in!” So off we went with this guy heading to school at The University of Kansas in Lawrence. He drove us all the way across Pennsylvania to Mercer and dropped us at I-79. We breezed into Pittsburgh and to Augie’s folks place at 303 Cherrydell by dusk. We cracked a few of Augie’s Dad’s Iroquois beers and drank them sitting on the wall of his driveway congratulating ourselves on how adept we were at “thumbing” across America.
The only part of the story I left out was the vocalizing provided by Turak along the way. A lot of you might not be aware that Augie is a great singer! Boy, did he sing on this trip. The Doors, The Rolling Stones and Savoy Brown. The Grateful Dead. The Band. To name a few. Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” too. But the one I remember the most was “Sweet Virginia” by the Stones. So for the sake of old times I thought Turak might like to belt it out for you. He loved that song. Still does. Give him some encouragement and I know he will sing it for you. Sing it L-O-U-D Augie.
Happy Big 6-0 you Big Dawg. Love ya like a brother!
All the best,
Fred Summa AKA Sooma
