Editor’s note: Rick McKay, Joe Masonick, and Jack Karolewski, have been annual travel companions for more than 50 years to a variety of sites with many goals.
By Rick McKay
This story is about an enduring friendship, an ongoing quest for adventure and knowledge, and a mutual search for the deeper meanings of life. It is perhaps unique in several ways. The friendship was forged among not two, but three young men. Two others I had the good fortune to meet in college. It is a relationship which has endured for 50 years. Why it has endured for so long is the subject of this article.
Beginnings:
I met Joe Masonick in Fall 1968 at Northern Illinois University. We were both freshmen and were alphabetically-assigned to the seventh floor of the Stevenson South dormitory, on the western edge of campus.
Joe, a slender redheaded young man, introduced himself a bit awkwardly on the morning of our second day at Stevenson South Towers. At our floor meeting the previous night, Joe had put up his name for activities chair in the upcoming floor elections, and when he bumped into me coming out of the bathroom the following morning, he abruptly thrust out his hand and said,, “Hi, I’m Joe Masonick!” I was a bit taken aback, at first and thought he was glad-handing for my support in that evening’s election of floor officers. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
For many young men, struggling to find one’s way from the awkward and uncertain teenage years into manhood can be a struggle. In high school one can get trapped in a certain persona that is difficult to shake. How does one go about breaking free from that typecast and attempt to reinvent oneself? Within the high school context, that is almost impossible. But, with high school in the rearview mirror, the prospect of college offers one a clean slate.
Joe was shy by nature and university life was a chance for a new beginning. But those first few days on one’s own in a new and independent world can be awkward at best. How does one actually go about creating a new identity? Looking back at that first face-to-face with Joe in the hallway, it is clear that Joe wasn’t being a political schmoozer, rather simply attempting to overcome a debilitating shyness by being intentionally outgoing, as awkwardly as that came off to me at the time.
In addition to that, as one achieves independence for the first time, does one hang on to the values learned in childhood or reexamine everything? One of my favorite anecdotes about Joe happened a few weeks into our freshman year. One pent up prohibition from every young man’s home setting is vulgar language. When guys are away from that structure for the first time, that prohibition is lifted. Swearing was rampant among these freshman and sophomore boys, especially in the lounge where everyone gathered for cards, or general goofing around.
One evening amid all the activity and fowl language, Joe walked in, taped a poster on the wall, and walked out. Everyone stopped to see what it was all about. The poster read 10 Reasons Why I Shouldn’t Swear. People looked at the poster, at one another, then suddenly broke out into laughter. Despite it, or maybe because of its naïve innocence, Joe was almost immediately well-liked. He became the activities chair by acclamation.
Awkwardness, insecurity, and other barriers between guys at that age can be overcome through sports. For our motley crew it certainly was true. Joe organized our flag football, basketball, volleyball, and softball teams. By year’s end, relationships between our ragtag group of misfits had developed and flourished.
I was no different than Joe on some counts. I felt trapped in a high school persona I didn’t like, but felt I had no power to change in that setting. College was a chance to redefine myself. I, too, was determined to overcome my shyness and assert myself in an effort to make friends. Freshman year was an incredible learning experience.
Even though Joe and I were both very active on our floor’s intramural sports teams, we didn’t really form a close relationship with one another until the end of the following year.
In the Fall of that school year a new freshman joined the ranks. His name was Jack Karolewski from Chicago’s South Side. Jack was deeply involved in a relationship with a gal he had met and fallen in love with at Summer camp the previous year, where both had served as counselors. Though I bumped into him frequently, I never got to know him well. Jack had little to no time to cultivate relationships with many of the guys on the floor, aside from his roommate. However, by year’s end that would change.
It was in the in Spring 1970, while sitting together in Joe’s corner bedroom, and listening to Paul McCartney’s first solo album, a plan was hatched. Summer was fast approaching and the three of us were searching for an adventure that would be both fun and perhaps earn us some much needed cash at the same time. Others came and went through Joe’s open door as we tossed around ideas. But it was just the three of us when the suggestion of hitch-hiking to Alaska came to the fore.
We intended to sign up and work on the new oil pipeline which, in 1970, was in its beginning stages of construction. Rumors had spread that, though the cost of living was higher in Alaska, the wages were nearly triple offered to Summer workers in the Chicago area. The idea captured our youthful imaginations and we put in motion plans for the journey across America and up the Alcan, or Alaskan-Canadian Highway, to that rugged state in the far north. And so it began!
Continued at thevoice.us/intrepid-interesting-involved-the-trios-first-journey