Good day everyone, I have some questions below that I'm hoping people might be able to answer, I'm just trying to get an idea of Farren's possible movements and duration he was in SF:
1) How long did it take to open a bank account in 1980? And what did you need to open one? Could you literally just walk in and set one up and it was immediate?
2)Did you get a bank card or just a paying in book? Would Farren have had a check book?
Assuming Farren spent time travelling before reaching SF he would have needed money, so either a bank account or cash so:
1) If Farren had a Well's Fargo account elsewhere, could he use any branch in the US or did you need to set up a new account for different branches (not sure if banks were as interconnected as they are now)
2)If he took cash, any ideas on how much he'd need at that time for a few months travelling- would it have been normal and even safe to keep so much cash on your person? And why did he leave some at home with his mother?
There's no record/mention of Farren having been in any states except Oregon and California yet apparently he went East. Would/Could there be a paper trail elsewhere? We know there isn't any unclaimed property as
@Mfleish already spent a weekend checking.
Is there a way to deduce that he just went right to SF in late Aug/Sept 79 and if so:
3)Why did he fib to his family about where he was until April?
4)If he'd been in SF for over 6 months why is there so little record and memory of him...only 10 years later when RC searched no one, except possibly CH, remembered him. So maybe he hadn't been there long ..so where had he been??
Does anyone have any ideas for research how we could locate where he'd been previously.
According to his family's account he boarded a greyhound bus headed East. It occurs to me that "east" might not actually be the East coast at all.
5)If you were an 18 yr old guy in 1980 wanting to see the world, where East of John Day would you likely end up? What nearby cities are East?
And finally for anyone who knows anything about Greyhound Buses or can research:
6)If you bought a ticket to somewhere, let's say SF, does the bus travel directly, non-stop to that place or do you need to keep changing onto another bus to reach your destination? Do they travel 24 hours non stop or might you need to stay overnight in a motel?
Thus I'm wondering -
7) Is it possible that he did board a bus going east originally but then had to change somewhere to get on a bus going to SF? If so, where?
The most direct route to SF would seem to be via Portland, but that may not be the way the Greyhound Buses travelled from John Day.
8) And finally, is it possible to find any info on the Greyhound Bus schedules and routes passing in or close to John Day in 1980? Particularly soon after 26th August?
I'm wondering if Farren got quite a bit of money for his 18th birthday and decided to travel with it. But that his mother didn't want him to travel and so wouldn't let him have his gift from her. That might be a explanation of her behaviour. JMO.
If anyone can offer any answers to these questions, please do.
But it has huge amounts of advertising so it must have had a large readership.I can’t work out if it is gossip rag with occasional useful social and political commentary, or a source of social and political commentary on the issues facing the San Francisco queer community with a lot of gossip and hookup content. Maybe it was a student publication idk.
