Steve Cottrell: Love is the most powerful magnet of all

Steve Cottrell

As we zigzagged our way through 18 states in two months, we bonded in ways that only those who have had a similar experience could possibility understand.

Former city councilman and longtime Nevada City resident Steve Cottrell ventured on a cross-country odyssey in the summer of 1967 that is about to have its belated conclusion. Here is the story in his words.

Shortly after being (honorably) discharged from the Army in the spring of 1967 and returning to my home in Arcata, I met a young woman who swept me off my feet.

 Susanna was 19. I was 24.

A year later, we were engaged and living in Philadelphia. The odyssey that took us from California to Pennsylvania was the sort of adventure many people would like to embark upon, but few actually do.

In August 1967, we filled our backpacks, rolled up our sleeping bags and hit the road –– thumbs extended. As it turned out, thousands of other young people were crossing the country that summer with thumbs extended, but they were headed west –– many with flowers in their hair. We were headed east –– with love in our hearts.

As we zigzagged our way through 18 states in two months, we bonded in ways that only those who have had a similar experience could possibility understand.

 Believe me, hitchhiking cross-country in the summer is sweaty, exhausting and unglamorous. But when I bought Susanna a $3.98 engagement ring at a truck stop in New Mexico, none of those things mattered.

We slept in corn fields, wheat fields and behind bushes. On one occasion we found an abandoned gas station in the middle of Nebraska for a night’s shelter. On one particularly muggy night we decided to sleep on the banks of the Mississippi River at Muscatine, Iowa, but the mosquitoes seemed the size of robins, so we found an all-night cafe and stayed there until sunrise, drinking coffee and playing hangman.

Fortunately, Susanna had a friend in Chicago and another in upstate New York, and I had a couple Army buddies along the way, so sometimes we actually slept in a bed. And a magical time was spent in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, when her artist uncle –– a gracious 73-year-old gentleman

by the name of Norman Rockwell –– offered us the guest room for a night, then greeted us in the kitchen the next morning with a coffee pot in one hand and toast in the other.

By October we were in Philadelphia, flat broke, but Susanna’s sister was living there and welcomed us into her tiny studio apartment. We slept on her couch, the kitchen floor and even on the roof.

In time, however, we found work, rented our own apartment and began life as a couple in love without a worry in the world. We were settled in Philadelphia, planning for the future.

 But sometimes life doesn’t move forward as planned. Sometimes we do dumb things.

In December 2008, I decided to see if I could find Susanna. And although I assumed that by then she had a different last name –– and I had no idea what that name was, nor if she was married or divorced, nor where she was living –– I found her. In Florida. Amazing tool, that Google, huh?

When we exchanged e-mails on Jan. 4, 2009, it was our first communication since 1968. I was cautious; she was cautious. But after 150 or so e-mails in the first week of being reconnected, I took the next step. A bold step.

 I called her and we talked for the first time in nearly 41 years. The next day we talked some more. And the next night. Soon, it was as if we had last seen each other only a week ago.

But we had to know something, and we were the only two people who could answer the question: Were we still in love with the person or with the memory?

Well, in a few weeks I will be moving to Florida –– and this time I will not make the mistake of letting us ever again separate.

I never thought I would move from Nevada City, but I have come to realize that love is the strongest magnet in the known universe. Oh, how I wish I had possessed such wisdom in 1968