Morocco, Pg 1

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{ first draft, Jan, 2015 } final edit, April 27, 2025

These are our passport photos, certainly not good examples of photos that flatter. They always make you look like criminals.
I hate that they do that; these ones look just like ‘wanted posters’.

But on the upside it’s so cool to be able to look back and…

remember

It was 1975, we were about five or six years into the hippie-ish phase of our lives.
Up to this point as young adults we led a normal conventional family life,
nothing really out of the ordinary, just the regular day to day routines.
But of course there are always a few exceptions, like going to concerts once in a while, smoking a few joints and catching a nice buzz. That was about the most out of the ordinary thing that we did.
It wasn’t a boring life but it did leave something to be desired.

We had never done anything that would have been thought of as wild, crazy, or overly exciting.
We had never taken the time or even had a real inclination to step outside the box of our normal everyday life.

That was all about to change; but only for a short period.
And that change would be big time, absolutely big time.

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We couldn’t have stepped any further out of the box than going to Morocco. This was a trip that we never thought in our wildest dreams we would ever take, nor was it ever a consideration at any time in our lives.
But anyhow, here we are, about to take a huge step into the excitement of the unknown; and little did we know just how far out and exciting the unknown was really going to be.
I’ll do my best to give an accurate account of the events of our trip.

my having no real writing experience means; you’ll encounter more than just the occasional improper use of punctuation, as well as grammatical errors

Fortunately, Eve kept a journal that she updated almost daily, capturing many of the finer details of what we did and where we went, what we saw; and also some of the shit we found ourselves in at times.
I was grateful to have the journal to work from.
I do have a good memory of so many of the events, but there are times when it never hurts to get a bit of help from a memory jump start.

While reading through the pages of the journal, what seemed like thousands of details large and small started popping into my head, many of which I hadn’t thought about in forty plus years.
It was an incredible return to a yesteryear moment for me.
I was so thrilled by the prospect of writing the story that I was finding it hard to contain my excitement.

With so many memories of the Morocco trip dominating my thoughts at the moment, they’ve suddenly given rise to a somewhat different feel about the trip, for me.

Having Eve’s journal to work from, plus the re-kindling of my own memories being brought forward to the here and now; it was like a doorway into a period of wild and crazy excitement from an earlier time in our lives.
It was if a re-awaking had occurred.
So now our trip was no longer just a trip to Morocco, not at all, it has now become something so much more.

My remembrance has now elevated the trip to what I see as
“an incredibly exciting Moroccan Adventure”.
This is how I feel about it now, so from this time and forever after I’ll always think about it in just that way.
My new found overview of how I feel about our adventure is the perspective the story will be written from.

But due to the nature of some of the events Eve purposely omitted logging a few of them, simply because she didn’t want our kids to get their hands on the journal and read about some of the things we did. They were only ten eleven and twelve years old and we both felt they weren’t old enough to know about some of the activities we engaged in.

Well they’re not little kids any more, they’re men well into their fifties, old enough to know what Mum & Dad did during their Moroccan adventure.

This is the first time the story of our adventure has been told in full detail. I’ve thought for a number of years that I would love to tell the story in print but just never took the time, and a typewriter wasn’t going to work for me either; no spellcheck, and of course I would never do it without getting Eve’s approval first, given that this story is about her also.
However, time marched on and the computer age changed everything, now we have built in spellcheck…
I asked if she would be okay with my publishing the story on the website, she was perfectly fine with that.
She said to ‘tell it just like it happened Joe’, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Unfortunately Eve only got to read the first draft of the story, but even in its rough state, she liked it and told me so. She looked forward to reading the final draft, she was excited about it.
However, she passed before the final draft was completed. Even though she didn’t get the chance to read it, I was pleased in knowing she liked and approved of how I put the story together

Most of the pages have photos of places were we had been and things we’ve seen. Although the quality of our shots wasn’t very good {taken with a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye piece of shit camera} and of course we should have taken more pictures; so here’s what I’ve done to supplement in a few places.
I’ve download some photos of places where we had been, but old ones when I could find them, and posted them with our photos included in the mix.

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Now, before I tell the story, I just want to say that in no way is it intended to brag or boast about anything, nor is it about glamorizing or glorifying any of our activities, or to legitimize any particular behavior.
The intent is to tell the story of our adventure, just the way it happened.

I hope as you read the story you find things that make you smile, maybe laugh a bit, maybe even be a little shocked or surprised.
Enjoy the read.

Extreme Language Alert

The story begins

The Plan.
A mid week evening in late January 1975. It’s a bitter cold night, but it was about to get a little warmer. A few of our friends, Mel, Aileen, and maybe Al, came over to the house for a visit.
They had something exciting they wanted to tell us.
Aileen had brought a bottle of home made strawberry wine she scooped from her fathers stash; I remember it being pretty good wine.

We were just hanging out listening to some tunes and chatting. We rolled a few joints and drank some wine and talked about Mel and Aileen’s decision to take – an exciting wild and crazy trip somewhere.

It didn’t take long to finish off the wine so we decided to go to the bar and have a few more drinks and continue celebrating the news of their upcoming trip.
We smoked another joint, grabbed our coats and its off to the bar to continue talking about how excited they were about tripping out somewhere.

We had a couple of drinks and now we’re catching a pretty good buzz. We’re all kicking around a few ideas as to where they might go.
The destinations they talked about were Mexico, Jamaica, and Florida, typically the most common winter vacation spots for most Canadian’s at that time, but I think Mel had the idea of somewhere more exotic.

Mel wouldn’t limit himself to just the trendy vacation spots, or trendy anything for that matter.
He would at times step outside the current stream and take a chance on something different, take a bit of a risk; a quality which I thought was a good thing [in moderation of course]. It made him an exciting and fun person to have as a friend.
A free thinking off the wall kinda guy.
…and because we got high together many many timez over a four or five year period, we knew each other quite well.

I remember that he didn’t hate any of the current choices, but he certainly wasn’t thrilled about any of them either.
And just by fact that he displayed so little enthusiasm I was pretty sure the destination was not going to be any of those three choices.
I knew Mel very well and I’m sure he would prefer to go somewhere that would offer much more than just the standard fare of a typical vacation. I’m pretty sure that thrills and excitement would have been the order of the day for him, just because that’s the kind of guy he is.
Mel was motivated by thrills and excitement.

After giving a little more thought to a destination they decided on Morocco. As soon as they said Morocco my interest totally spiked.
I said, “Morocco would be such an incredibly far out place to go, man.
I’m envious”.
Marrakesh Express was one of my favorite – Crosby Stills & Nash songs at that time,

After several minutes of chit chat about Morocco, Mel says, “hey, why just be envious, why don’t you guys come to Morocco with us”.
I was surprised by the invitation, I thought he was just pissing around with me.
He said “no man, I’m serious, why don’t you and Eve come to Morocco with us, it’ll be a fucking blast”

Generally I’m not an overly spontaneous person; but that’s okay, right?
And for the most part I like to do things based on a plan that I’ve put together; that’s also a good idea, right?
So get this…
…although I was okay on the lack of spontaneity thing, {but that’s not a bad thing} as well as being right on the plan idea; because that’s just how I do things.
I was once told that I was so fucking anal that I probably planned my spontaneity; I was so pissed off by that statement, simply because…

…wouldn’t you know it, this would turn out to be one of those times when the
temptation would be much too powerful for me to resist, and spontaneity would rule this day for me.
In the time it takes to snap your fingers I was totally into it, but Eve, not so much; actually, not at all. She said we could never do it because, then she began stating some reasons why, to which I gave work around solutions to each of them.

I didn’t want Eve to feel that I was putting her in a position to do something she really didn’t want to do, but simply put, Eve was not an adventurous person, hell no, not in the least.
About some things, yes; but not about this this kind of adventure.

But for me, given how I’ve uncharacteristically and quickly reacted to the idea of going to Morocco in such a positive way, I’ve obviously reached a point in my life where I was ready some adventure and wanted her to be part of the experience.

Anyhow, while Eve was stating her reasons for thinking we couldn’t go on this adventure, all of us could see that she was struggling with hesitation, mentally searching for reasons to not go.
She’s always been so reluctant to take that final step toward doing anything that may have been just a bit out of the ordinary for her; denying herself the possibility of a great adventure.
C’mon Eve, loosen up a bit and live a little

Based on my own personal experiences dealing with Eve over many years, I knew all she needed was just a little encouragement, so I was going to offer that.
Another drink and a few minutes later she said, “okay, let’s fucking do this”. Wow! I was shocked. Realizing that this could really happen was an absolute mind blower.
But before it could happen many details would have to be taken care of first, and that was going to be a tall order; but I was up for it

For Mel and Aileen the trip was just a matter of time and economics. They weren’t working at the moment so their time was all their own; and Mel being a pretty resourceful guy, he’ll find a means of raising the money.
As for Al, he was on leave from the army, his passport and other paperwork was in order, and with money in his pocket he was also ready to go.
As for me, I was working and needed to figure out a way to get time off of work and still get paid.
Taking an extended period of time off work with no income was not an option for me.

hmmm…..need a plan for the plan.

The idea I came up with was going to be a long shot. I didn’t really know if it would pan out or not but I would pitch it wearing my very best game face.

Within the next day or two I called my Doctor’s office for an appointment, expressing urgency. I got my appointment for that afternoon.
I arrived about forty five minutes before my time slot and took a seat in the waiting room.
As I sat there I began tensing my body, plus squeezing and releasing the arms of the chair, as well as holding my breath on and off for the whole waiting time.
All this stressing drove my blood pressure up, my body was trembling and my lower lip was quivering, reactions that could be interpreted as the look of someone having an anxiety or panic attack. I probably looked like a complete wreck also.

When I got in to see the Doctor, the same one I’ve had for ten years. He knew me quite well and saw there was something visibly wrong.
The nurse took my blood pressure which now was quite high. The Doc asked me to explain, “what in the hell is going on Joe”… With game face on into character I go.

Well Doc. I’m having a serious problem dealing with the path my life has taken these past few months. I’m feeling very frustrated and depressed, I’m also stressed out most of the time. I’m at the point where I feel like I’m losing a grip on my life.
And it all started at my workplace.

The new supervisor and I have had a few clashes and now he seems to have a hate on for me. He’s constantly on my case, and no matter how well I do my job he’s critical of my efforts 100% of the time. This asshole has made my workplace toxic and stressful.
I foolishly allowed this guy to get under my skin, and now the stress issues from work have now begun to create a horrible affect on my home life, which presents a whole new can of issues to deal with.
It’s all become more than I can effectively deal with, and no matter how hard I try to make things better, either at work or at home, nothing seems to work out for the better.
I feel like my life is going down the toilet. I’m feeling so completely overwhelmed by it all.
I need to get away from all this shit for awhile, maybe taking a trip somewhere…. yeah, a trip.
For sure, a trip might be just what I need.
Getting away for awhile just might help me calm down enough to take a better look at what was happening to my life, and hopefully get it back on the right track…

I stated all of these things and more in a matter of what seemed like just a few seconds, and what also seemed like a single breath, I was so completely wound up.

After a brief question and answer period he agreed that given my circumstance I could really use some time off.
He said he would start me off with a six week medical leave using a severe anxiety state as my condition.
He said I would have to agree to a visit with a psychiatrist in order to authorize mental health reasons for time off; which was okay by me, sign me up Doc.

This was a pretty good performance I thought, I pulled it off quite well.
I do however have to give some credit here; my Doctor was a pretty smart guy, a well thought of medical professional, a very analytical person, a man in his mid fifties, but hip, cool and very savvy.

It’s quite possible he may have had me figured out right from the get go, or at least from when I said something about taking a trip. Knowing me as well as he did, he may have figured I just wanted a holiday, which I did of course;
but I still felt I had to make my need for time off come across as convincingly as possible.
Well, I got the time off work and that’s what matters at the moment,
thanks Doc

He filled out some paperwork I had to give to my employer; they were not happy about that. Oh well, I didn’t care whether they were happy or not.
I’m happy, and now had the time off I needed to follow through with the rest of the steps to complete the plan… then trip out, but just for a little while

When I left the Doctor’s office I was met in the parking lot by Mel and Aileen.
We were absolutely thrilled that I got the time off. Now we could move forward and take care of the next step in the plan.

Eve phoned her sister Dorothy and asked if she would be willing to stay at our place and look after the boys so we could take this trip, which she agreed to.
Wonderful I thought; thank you so much Dorothy.
Next would be the money.

We went to the bank and said we wanted to go on a vacation and would like to borrow some money. They were more than happy to lend us whatever we wanted.
They transferred a portion into traveller cheques for us, the rest was deposited into our bank account.
With cheque book in hand its off to the travel agency.
We bought two round trip tickets for a 28 day excursion package from Toronto to Casablanca, $734 for the pair, which included a dinner and breakfast.
They informed us that we would need passports with photos and proof of inoculations. So off to the health unit we go.

We had to have three shots for whatever, they suggested we spread them out over several days, to which we replied, “we’re leaving within the week and didn’t have time to wait”, so they gave us our shots all at once. OUCH!

Next were the passport photos, but I don’t remember where we got them; and they looked terrible.
We had to fill out applications for passports and get signatures on them from a minister or doctor as proof that we were who we said we were.

With all the steps completed, Mel and I took all the paperwork to the passport office in Toronto for processing.

We went to Toronto on the train and decided to, as we came prepared for, have a party day of course. We had a little bite to eat on our way to the passport office,
some of my home made brownies; you know

The passport lady said it would take about an hour and a half to process all four passports. Oh well, the brownies are going to kick in long before we get through this process.
Sure enough, about forty five minutes later the brownies are coming on like gangbusters, and we’re going to be so high.

We’ve been sitting here for about 30 minutes, although it seemed like a hell of a lot longer.
We did what we had to do to suppress the perma-grin and laughter, and the water fountain took care of the extreme dry mouth.
But we’re now being called up to the counter.

Uh Oh, my first thought was; we’ve only been here for an hour so there must a problem with one of the forms, but no, get this, they were just being efficient and the processing was now complete.
Wow, no jerking us around, no unnecessary government bullshit, what an unexpected pleasure that was, and I’m pretty sure it only cost five or ten dollars for each passport as well.
We thanked and paid the lady and out the door we went laughing all the way. This whole deal was working out perfect, we couldn’t be happier.

With the passport business finished we hopped on a bus and headed for the Toronto Science Centre for an afternoon of play.
We had an absolute blast throughout the whole afternoon playing with a number of exhibits, laughing our asses off and expressing our excitement about the trip; we were so pumped, and really high.

I don’t even remember for sure how the hell we got home, probably the train, although it could’ve been the bus, I just wasn’t sure.
To me the means wasn’t important, and I didn’t give a shit.
I only remember having a hell of a great day and we got home safe and sound.

and its all going to be okay now…

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Eve and I spent the next couple of days gathering up all the things that we would need for our trip: sleeping bags, backpack, tent, toiletries and a few clothes.
We weren’t going on some typical bullshit charter vacation at some big fancy hotel with bus trips to all the local tourist traps, no way man, that wasn’t for us.

We’re going to backpack around the country and see what life here is really like, and find our own tourist traps, and of course,

okay now, wait for it, it’s coming…okay, here it comes………………………….. NOW,
take a ride on the Marrakesh Express….this was the major biggie for me man,
the biggest biggie of all.
I could hardly wait to get there.


Having so many wild and exciting thoughts about the trip, I’m now in a completely emotional framework of ‘total excitement overload’.
On the surface I was expressing a reasonably high level of excitement about the trip; of course, because it’s going to be a blast,
but on the inside it was a whole different story, man

On the inside I was exploding with excitement. It was like when a young kid has been given the greatest gift ever, and was so happy he was jumping up and down, flinging his arms about, shouting and screaming out his excitement, that was my level of internal excitement.
But I didn’t think I should publicly express myself in quite that manner, certainly not.
However, privately I may have expressed myself, but can’t remember for sure.
But if I did, I would probably never admit to it anyhow…
wink wink, what do you think? :}

It was now Feb. 6th, departure day. Everything that had to be done was completed in nine days, it was a scramble but we managed it.
Mel, Aileen and Al came over to our place about 1 o’clock; we’re all so excited and pumped too the max.
With all our gear together we’re now ready to ‘Rock the Kasbah’.

Dorothy and Marge, Eve’s sisters, are driving us to Toronto airport.
We loaded all our gear into the station wagon and headed out.
We got to the airport at about 3pm, thanked and said goodbye to Dorothy and Marge.

Went inside to find our departure gate and checked our backpacks in.
Our flight wasn’t leaving until 5:45pm so we had lots of time to kill. We went to a restaurant and had something to eat.
Aileen called her sister [whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten] who lived in Toronto, she came to the airport to hang out for awhile. After a bit she said goodbye and wished us all a safe trip.

It was now go time, time to shit or get off the pot……

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