Exiting Bohemia

Bohemia.   At some time we all search for that place.  A land of endless sunshine, endless passion, endless gratification, where the pleasure flows like a relentless river.  Where groups of like minded people welcome you into the inner circle.  A place where you are accepted just as you are with no pretense and no reservation.

I found my Bohemia nestled underneath the long Spanish moss draped limbs of a forest of live oak trees, just off highway 35, in the small Texas town of Bay City.  Here, where the air is scented with the sweet smell of tropical vegetation, ocean air, and human sweat, in a weathered white clapboard building tucked between a bakery thrift store and an old-fashioned barbershop.  Here, at the end of a long and turbulent road, my spirit came to rest. 

If you make the 70-mile trip down from Houston, past the dark green water of the Gulf of Mexico, through the miles of endless green and smoke belching oil refineries, keep a sharp look out.  Outside is a sign, but it wont catch your eye.  Just a tattered little marker hung precariously from a rusted lamppost, with a simple message, “Rooms for Rent”.

Hotel, boarding house, flop house, dive, a dozen names could describe it and they would all be right.  For some it was a starting point.  For some it was merely a pit stop.  For others, it was the end of the line.  It would mostly have to do with your perspective I guess.  From my perspective, I spent the most emotionally charged, physically stimulating months of my life here, drifting through the cosmos with other fellow Travelers following the whims of destiny.

Join me, let us walk together down the dim brown halls.  Be a fellow Traveler through the maze of sex, booze, love, lust, loyalty and betrayal.  See for yourself why this wretched wooden structure became my safe haven to hide from and extinguish the exploding Molotov cocktail that had become my life.  Welcome, my friend, welcome to my Bohemia.