I made plans on where to go before my leave expired. No I wasn't heading to Canada, that came later. A friend, Tony, offered me a floor to sleep on in Hartford and I took it. Another friend suggested that his brother, who ran a small gas station/repair shop in Vernon, might be willing to hire me under the table. I was set.
I figured that as long as I stayed out of Coventry and maybe Manchester I'd be okay. It worked for about a month and a half, from mid-May until the end of June.
My mom lived on Coventry Lake and her next door neighbor was a part-time Coventry cop. His son-in-law was a full-time cop. One day, must have been in late June, my brother Hotch was on the association raft (long gone due to legal issues) when the son-in-law swam out. He mentioned to Hotch that "they" knew where I was and that they were planning on arresting me soon. Hotch let me know. Now whether it was true or not I knew I had to get out of Dodge and quick.
I pulled together all the money I could, mostly donations from friends and family. My friend Bud connected me with the Unitarian Church and they gave me a contact in Toronto that would help.
It was only by chance that I left Connecticut with my friend Tony and Hotch at the start of the July 4th weekend. I packed some clothes, tools, and my LPs and headed north on I-91 towards Montreal. Shortly after clearing Canadian Customs (who seemed okay that we were "on vacation") the first song that came on the radio was, "I"m Free" by The Who. Honest. (The next song I remember was Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in French.)
We made Montreal around 5 or 6 pm, pulled into a parking lot where the attendant said something like, "Five dollar, want to buy some hash?"
The next day we drove to Toronto.
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