Imagine that you’re a child of 5 or 6, in a family with two younger siblings, your mom, and your dad. It’s the early 1970s. Your family quits the family home and steady employment in the United States to drive a van across Europe through countries including Morocco, Yugoslavia, Iran and Afghanistan, eventually deep into India. The goal is to be free. Uninhibited. Not square.
Your mom has an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Your dad is paraplegic, the result of contracting polio when he was 13. You encounter gurus, groups with colorful names, and “fast-friends” along the way. You live through some scary moments, and some happy ones.
How’d this work out?
This week on Davisville we talk with Caleb Dardick, the onetime child who lived this trip and wrote about it in his new book, “The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail.” He’ll talk about it on Sunday, Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. in the main Davis library with Rachel Howard, a Davis author who's also part of today's program.
The photo shows Caleb Dardick in India in 1972; photo from Dardick Family Archive
