Good Runaway Stories?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any good runaway stories? Ones that you participated in or that you saw others participate in when at CEDU?

I have one really good one. A few kids at NWA ran away one time but did a pretty damn good job of getting away. They had stashed a bunch of cash away for the right time. We were allowed like a dollar a week or something like that for candy and shit at the "Student Store" Well, you could have taken the cash as well as spent it at the store. So like 5 kids saved up their money for a while and ran away. They followed the train tracks away from the school until they got to a small town (I think it was Elvira or something). They ended up stealing a car that was running outside of a store and drove all the way to Seattle. I couldn't believe it either. But they did. Apparently they cut their hair and drove all that way. They used the money they saved up for gas and shit and actually made it all the way there. What got them caught was that one of the girls, who I actually still talk to, called her parents to let them know she was ok. I guess she told them where she was and they sent excorts after them. I talked to this girl not long ago and she confirmed the whole thing. I guess they got charged with grand theft auto, but didn't have to serve jail time because CEDU was just like jail.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

I calmly but hurriedly went to my dorm and grabbed my essentials that were already stowed behind some hanging shirts in the closets. They weren?t really closets. AILBOI, they weren?t really essentials either. Since these clothes bays had no doors, I had always been impressed with how so many guys could keep room without all the clutter. I took my rucksack and a journal, changed into some clothes that were already too hot, knowing I could well be spending at least one night in the elements. I didn?t know what to do except that I had decided that if I was really going to split it was gonna be the real thing. Not just some excuse to come back and get punished like the others I had seen. I had made my decision. It was over. No one I knew from home - including my parents- ever would have put up with this kind of shit. I knew if I didn?t want to get caught on the road by someone who would either report me or take me back; I had better get to an area where there were different roads. That?s where I could ultimately find a ride from someone that didn?t have to do with the place. I knew we were way, way out in the middle of nowhere and I knew I would stick out as an ?escapee?, so I thought best to just get lost in the woods. I was prepared to hike for as long as it took to get away from there. All my fantasies, prayers really were in motion. Please, let me just get away! As I look back on it, that trot to Murkwood II and down to the farm were the only times I had really been alone in a while. Something had clicked in me when I calmly got up and walked out of Caroline?s rap. My confidence was coming back. Choice was mine and I know that feels good.
   Instead of taking the road out of RMA past the farm going to Bonners Ferry, I went the opposite way. I don?t know anything about it, where it would lead me, why it beckoned to me, but I think it was just the obvious choice. Every one who split always just tried to get to Bonner?s Ferry, either walking or running the 8 miles as fast as possible. Most all the time we saw them again within twelve hours, or heard they were in Jail refusing to come back to the program. All my time dodging police cars when I was out drinking beer the two years before had prepared me for that kind of stealth. But I knew that I could gain some time just by going where no one would have expected. Plus, they truly did underestimate my youthful self-reliance and resolve that I was right in fleeing such ?unfairness?. When I left Caroline?s rap and left the campus I was committed. From the very beginning it felt right and I didn?t regret it.
There was an old logging road that went the opposite way of BF. I took that dusty road and put speed in my ankles, calves, shins and feet. I was off. Spring in my step, knowing I?d be thirsty any minute but knowing it was imperative that I master as much distance as possible as quickly as possible. If I could be out of the range of what was deemed likely for me to be in by sunset, I would be homefree in the early morning to find a ride. Forget anything but distance. I had walked a few hundred yards only, maybe two miles when the first car passed. I was still pretty pissed and didn?t bother to get off the road. Besides, the car was going in the direction of BF and the school. It was a toss up, but the sure thing was that they weren?t coming FROM the school. It was a blue nova, and there were two dirty children staring out the back. I?m cool.
   I had gone a couple of miles but I could still turn around and see the far stretches of what I knew to be the school, my recon missions had served a purpose more than just wish places that I could visit for like thirty seconds. I would pray. I had never done so before but I used to have really in depth fantasies on how to get rescued and what would happen when I finally was. They didn?t end until I was fully immersed in the program somewhat later.
I was thirsty, it wasn?t unexpected but I was on the lookout now. I knew that houses were appearing less and less frequently, not that there was ever very much around to begin with, and that I had to find a faucet or a sprinkler was on my mind. Also, I was getting concerned that Raps were out, and I know that time was running out for free getaway. They were already looking, surely, but once they drove up and down Rte. 1 to Bonner?s Ferry a few times, they?d be thinking about light as much as me. I was going to have to take to the woods within an hour and I was already hedging off to the side so I could jump out of view. I was just inspecting the house I was coming alongside of on my left when I heard the van coming from behind me. I was still concealed from view by the previous curve. I ducked off ten or so yards and squatted down. The car was going slow, and it was killing me that I wouldn?t get a look at it until it was right in front of me. If I wanted it bad enough I could have changed locations but if it WERE someone from RMA, I certainly wouldn?t want to risk relocating since it meant exposing myself to possible detection. I stayed put. It was taking so long. What was it? I could have covered a few hundred yards by now; the car was approaching from about a mile away. I had to piss so badly. It was getting louder but so fucking slow. Come on! Finally, it got close enough that I was sure it was going to pass. I hunkered all the way down onto my belly, rump up, eyes up peering through the decomposing lumps of dead branches and leaves in front of me. There was a stump nearby and I really should have been there. The car was a van. Red. Writing on the side marked it as Rocky Mountain Academy. I knew it. Whew, I was glad I?d hidden. It was rolling at about five miles an hour and I could see smoke, and smell the gas burning as it passed my by. I little bit of piss almost came out from the relief of knowing I hadn?t been detected. I stood, yanking down my jeans and let fly. I thought. I listened. I looked around and zipped up. There was a deer trail that ambled parallel to the road. I quietly walked until the van?s engine was stronger and I could see it. I stopped and thought some more.
The house that I had seen and would have passed ten minutes ago was still a hundred yards away. It was red with white shudders. The RMA van was still ambling on and had passed the house by. There was a turn ahead and I was praying that it would get out of sight.  I moved until I was across from the house. I had to get off of the deer path and walk towards the road. The house was abandoned; running water was unlikely. I waited until the van finally ambled out of view swinging widely. I didn?t really know that it was gone, but I dashed across the street and went next to the house anyway. I looked for a faucet and I found one to the rear. A hose had been cultivating a garden. It wasn?t in very good shape but I took a green tomato and soaked myself to the bone with cold water. I felt lucky. I drank a lot of water and jammed the ?mato in my mouth. It was terrible, but it gave me something to do besides smoke. I had only the couple of ?chokes? leftover from the week. I quickly poked around in a little shed looking for a bike. There wasn?t one. So I turned back onto the road and started walking. I was quickening my pace.  
Every time a car passed I ducked into the wilderness on either side of the road. The sun was starting to set and I didn?t know where the hell I was. I just knew that I didn?t want to wind up in Bonner?s Ferry. It would be too easy to pick me out as a runaway RMA student with my haircut and clothing. I wandered along the road. As dusk approached I stopped being quite as paranoid because I was now a ways from the campus. Not too far, but far enough?what?s this? An intersection was ahead with a steep hill to the right. Down the steep hill, about two hundred yards away from me was a light colored truck with a ladder rack and writing along the side. I started to jog knowing I could intercept it at the bottom of the hill that connected with the road I was on. Another car was approaching from behind me but I paid it no mind, covering as much distance to close the gap in time.
The car did turn out to be harmless and the crème colored pickup and it did stop at the bottom of the hill signaling left. I was in business. I was going to need a ride from this person. I trotted up and made eye contact with the driver. He had a beard and a baseball hat with a picture of a deer head. I resisted any urge to wave him on and signaled with my thumb that I was going his direction. The window unrolled.
?Need a ride?? Asked the stranger.
?Yes sir, I sure do.?
He waved me in and began to reassign position to the things on the seat where my butt would go. I crossed in front and circled until I got to the passenger side door. Something was funny. There was a giant board angled so that one end was sticking out the passenger window a few feet and the other end went out the back window all the way to the back of the bed some eight feet behind the driver seat.  
It was perfect! Because wherever he was taking me, I would be invisible to anyone we passed since I would have to accommodate the giant board. I got in, braced myself so my shoulders and head were about parallel with the dash and wedged myself in under the obstacle. We were off.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

TWO

   He gave me a ride to near Sandpoint. I had never heard of it before. I then realized this was ?Sandpit?, a town I had heard of. This is where the older students got to spend the night in the hotel when the parents came to visit. He got gas and I stuck my thumb out. This time it was a guy just leaving. He asked if I needed a ride. I told him yes and got it. He took me to his home where he had the basement. He was about eighteen and his name was Rich. I do not remember his last name or the name of his pretty sister. The parents never knew I was in the house. Instead, his sister and I flirted mercilessly and we all laughed and drank Ranier Beer. They were the first people who I told my identity. They urged me to take the name Jason since mine sounded Jewish. They told me that I was in a place called Hayden Lake. There were a lot of people that would hate me. I didn?t really know if I was Jewish since my mother used to take me to church a lot, but I did know instinctively that I should take their advice. We talked about RMA.
And so, I remember explaining to them the school and it?s basic function, at least what I understood it to be. They had heard of it but thought we were all juvenile delinquents. We students were encouraged to believe this when I was at RMA. We deserved to be there because it was better than a lock up. I tried to explain agreements, bans, and profeets over the sound of my clothes spinning in the dryer in the next room. I sensed that they weren?t really getting it. The look on their face was one of incredulous bafflement. The next morning my host went to class while his sister came down with food from breakfast upstairs. I remember hearing the voices of collected parent/daughter communication. I felt a little homesick but mostly ill from the night before and really wanted to brush my teeth. Nope. I had forgotten something after all.
When Rich returned he told me to get ready, he was going to give me a ride to Cour d? Laine. He was going to give me a little money so I could use the phone and he had three packs of smokes. They had tried to understand what I was telling them about RMA the night before but most of it had really been lost on them, I think. I see that the lingo from the program had already been anchored into my regular vocabulary. It was making it hard for me to communicate with someone who hadn?t been part of the program. Any person would already have had a hard time decrypting the messages I was getting out. Also, I now see that it made people uncomfortable talking about themselves the way we were already being made to.

When he dropped me off, my clothes as dry as the day before when I originally put them on, I was hot and dehydrated. I was standing on the highway next to a little grocer/gas station sipping on a coke and counting my change. Rich had given me twenty bucks plus the 3 packs of Marlboros. I stuck my thumb out and jammed the money in my pocket. I was a little concerned with how visible I was standing there. I needed another ride. A really beaten up silver pickup truck pulled over. He hadn?t been at the store. I approached. We eyeballed one another and I got in. This man was dirty and skinny. He had a beard and I could see through it, due to all the patches. Yet, I could see a very honest look in the man?s eye. Integrity shone through his eyes and the prim way his hands clung to the steering wheel. I felt safe even though the truck emitted a raucous noise reminiscent of a helicopter in a small tunnel. It sounded like I was in the engine room of an old ironclad. When I was younger my grandparents had taken me aboard a lot of old ships at at a naval museum. The replica of the Minatour had obviously had an impact on me.  
We were getting further and further away. I was feeling lucky that I kept getting rides and wasn?t bumping into someone from RMA. I kept thinking this would happen. Even when I ran away from summer camp I kept having this feeling that I was going to be found out as a vagabond in one of these sleepy towns. Dennis got to talking about Jesus and then he asked me if I needed a place to stay that night. He said I could help out in the garden and stay for supper and he would get me to the highway where I could thumb a ride to the airport in the morning. He looked at me really strangely when I told him I was expecting an airline ticket at the airport. Truth was I only had just learned the night before where was the airport where my father and I had landed six weeks before.
Dennis pulled the truck into the driveway. I had been imagining myself in the garden weeding among luxurious flowers, but everything was different that I had imagined it. The house was a one-room shack and there was no floor. It was tidy, but more like a shelter on the Appalachian Trail where we would set camp for the night when I was a real camper.  The garden was really just a small slanted area that had a few meager looking stalks of corn and some forlorn looking carrot tops. I milled around in the dirt playing with the youngest child. I was impressed with my work on him; when we were finished I admired the handiwork of smears and thick, globs of mud pasted on his face and neck. The mother was so small I can barely remember anything but the top of her head. Her long brown hair parted in the middle and smelling like a freshly snuffed candle reminded me of nights in the woods with my friend at home, flirting with his sisters. They set a blanket on the floor when we finished our succotash of potatoes, corn, and onions. The meal was the only one I had had that day and since there was no electricity we were all asleep by ten.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

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[Anonymous]

I've written about this before but not on this thread.

I went to CEDU RS when the place was pretty tightly run. I was not a tough girl. I remember being horrified by the whole cultic vibe and obviously fucked up practices that occurred at CEDU.  What really bothered me of course was being so obviously manipulated and seeing that staff members were dishonest with both myself and my families.  I felt like that was very little authentic feeling going on, and after a propheet, I realized I would either have to start lying to get by, because there was no way I was going to make it by being real.

I was not the runaway type. I was a big chicken. But there was no way for me to survive that place, emotionally.  

The first time I split, I just left walked down the road, tried to find a phone, and got caught by an off duty cop who did NOT want to return me to the school. She thought it was a nut hole. Because I usually stayed out of trouble, I did not get a full time and the rap following was pretty weak. Of course, CEDU told my parents to call me and tell me they would put me in a lock up if I ran away again. (Looking back this was totally ridiculous as I was not a danger to myself or anyone else, or engaged in any criminal activity, ever.  I was a girl who coordinated her outfits for God's sakes!)

After a propheet, I fell into a split contract with someone, but the moment I was asked if I had one, I admitted it.  I am incapable of lying to a direct question.

I decided to split myself anyway.  A parent visit was coming up, and I would ask to go home. If they wouldn't take me, I'd leave the next day.  My Dad was tempted; I could see he thought the place was a little nuts, but my Mom drank the Kool Aid,and the staff coached them well. It was September, so I knew I had to leave soon before it got cold.  I knew the most important thing was to make it to San Diego.  If I got caught prior, I'd be sent back.  

The tricky part was I knew I would not hitchhike. I was too afraid I'd be picked up by some weirdo. But I had a strange feeling I would meet a mother who would help me.

CEDU was in the mountains with a one horse town and derelict camp nearby. There was one road going out so I knew I couldn't go that way.

I layered my clothes, saved the money, hid food, and when everyone left for the big house in the morning, I delayed and left. I took a back way out past the farm and cut through the woods.  At one point, I was chased by dogs, but then I befriended them and they followed me a long while from their home.  When I got to this scary derelict camp, I tried to pass through as unnoticed as possible as these guys looked like the cast of Deliverence. I hiked up to the town from the back and noticed there was a laundromat with both a back door and a big window that you could see out but not in.

Then, I didn't know what the fuck to do. I just knew I had to make it all the way home.  I started to panic, cry, get antsy, contemplate my options, when a mother sat down next to me. I tried to tell a story with as many honest parts as possible but had to lie about why I was stuck there alone and why I needed to get back to my family in San Diego.  I was sincerely upset, so she took me at my word.

She said she was going  to San Diego for a family reunion in one week. So she made me a deal. I could stay at her house in Running Springs for a week,help her take care of her two kids, and then she'd drive me home. She was a single Mom on welfare who worked a job under the table. Free babysitting while she worked was a bonus, a free ride was my bonus.

So that is what happened. I had to lay low, make excuses why I couldn't go the one market in town, babysit, and hang out with the family. Then I went to her family reunion and went to the beach to meet my friend.

When I got home, I had dinner with my parents. My Mom said I couldn't come home, I had to go back. My Dad followed suit, but I knew they wouldn't send me to lock up.

I called my college friend in San Francisco and said I needed a place to live. We decided I would finish my high school degree and work, and clean the house while I lived there gratis. I had just enough money to make it to SF.

The next night, at another family dinner, I told my folks, your problems are solved. I'm leaving to live on Haight Ashbury (I had no idea what that meant, so Sayanara. When my Dad heard the words "Haight Ashbury" he said NFW! and overrode my Mom's attempts to kick me out of the house.

So, I got myself back in school, became your perfect little honor roll student, did volunteer work, lived very healthily... etc. But I lost a sense of connection and felt disassociated from people after CEDU, and had a very dialectical view of life. And of course, other issues were never addressed at CEDU, and I still needed to deal with those. But who cares, right? As long as I looked good on paper.

[Anonymous]

To Blownawaytheidahoway: What ever happened to you? Did the sheriff actually take you back to Bonners or what? Did you go back to RMA? I've never really heard of anyone actually making it home. I have to admit, your stories are incredible. I mean to do what you two did is amazing. You definitally had some balls, and I comend you on that. Thanks for sharing those stories, they were eye openers.

[Anonymous]

Some kid when I was at Ascent bolted, but not before he used a fire extinguisher kind of clear a path. It was some of the funniest moments of my life. This little kid fighting with these massive dudes and scaring them all off with a fire extinguisher. I don't think he actually got very far, maybe the end of the road. But it was still pretty funny.

[Anonymous]

I remember that gabe, that was one hell of a show

[Anonymous]

Blownawaytheidahoway - finish the damn story, willya?

Please?  It was a good one. :smile:

[blownawaytheidahoway]

soon.

[Three Springs Survivor]

Thats one heck of a stroy man.  I would love to find out what happened.  I have a good story myself but I dont think I could write it out as well as yours.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

FOUR



   I learned how to box. It?s not what you may be thinking though. This wasn?t a foster home with a swarm of smarmy youths all wound up with their testosterone and being pitted against one another by the guardian in charge. The old man and his wife who first took me in told me that they had had other kids from RMA. I spent my days helping them around the house and the nights taking boxing lessons from the kindly gentleman. He would slowly rise from his chair and direct my elbows in telling me to jab, jab, and jab.

He wove his sagging frame in front of me saying Peek-a-boo. He told me to mirror the boxer in black shorts we were watching pummel another guy on the TV screen. We encompassed the whole living room, encircling his wife who also would offer me words of encouragement while she peacefully knitted from her corduroy upholstered Lazyboy. ?Ohh, look at those muscles?. And ?I hope you never have to use those sandbags against anyone?.

    They were both so cool to me. I was upset when after just a few days I had to be moved to another house on the other side of Bonner?s Ferry. Ron came and put me and the few clothes I had now attained and the rest of my articles in the car. We drove to this other house. It was very small and ramshackle. I think I was moved because there had been an arrangement and no matter my amount of sweetalking was going to make it so I could continue my boxing lessons. Distribution of income from my parents had to spread evenly. The new place housed an old lady. Really old. However there was someone even older there too. Her mother. I can?t remember these peoples names either?I?m sure records still exist in the panhandle of Northern Idaho, a record where the names of these helpful people are inscribed with the dates that they took runaways from RMA.

They were so old. I marveled at how it was possible that such an old woman could have a mother still. They both seemed so chaste too; it was hard to imagine how either had been conceived. I didn?t let myself dwell on that particular subject for long. I wasn?t supposed to go out very much so I sat around reading whatever books they had. Most of them were Readers Digest?s about born again Christians. In keeping with the faith they made sure there was always tapes playing. I realize now how I knew and comprehended fully that God was not what these people in the tapes were talking about. I didn?t feel that something evil was living in me.
I remember the one book they had that I even enjoyed was about a young prostitute who at the end joined a cloister. I guess I was horny.

   So I learned my way around Bonner?s Ferry walking to get supplies from the store. They NEVER moved. They were nice, but the mother and grandmother routine was boring and restrictive. I respected Ron?s word not to take me back to RMA so I stayed in line and didn?t take off. I just wanted home and that was what I was waiting for. They liked me because I offered to help them constantly and for the remainder of my time there carried boxes, did volunteer work for their church and even swore off smoking for a day.

After a couple of days I asked Ron about when my parents were coming?the flight ticket I had been promised was under the conditions of a meeting with my parents. What was taking so long? I was unaware that flights flew every day. I thought I was waiting a week for a ticket, and then some more because my parents had decided to fly out BUT it turns out that I was in store for something totally unexpected. My bag got packed for the last time and I said a gallant goodbye to my ancient hosts. They hugged me, shaking from the exertion of rising, and reminded me that Christ died for me. I told them I?d never forget, and keep it in mind. Ron drove me the two hours back to the airport.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

FIVE

   I think the sheriff was directed by the program at SUWS to tell me that I would be meeting my parents in Boise. We got on a small craft that made again the mountains behemoth in comparison. But pretty soon it started to flatten out. It surprised me actually because I had not really yet experienced any of the geology and topography of the area I had just been in. I had never left the campus. I, along with the rest of us who talked about it in short whispers, could clearly see that fierce mountains surrounded RMA?s campus. Splitting without knowing where one was going- through the woods- would have been impossible. Certainly for my ultimate destination, anyhow. Negotiations with my folks were a necessity for my ultimate goal, which was to return east. Clifty even had permafrost on it throughout the year and we could all see that. It?s not that it was an icy craggy peak, though it was a lot of the year, but pockets in the shadow underneath drained slowly from solid tons of compacted snow and ice. It was a constant reminder. There was no town or thing of industrialized civilization anywhere except by road. These roads all winded along rivers and streams curving around the mountains. They led to little sleepy towns I won?t even bother to research like fucking Bonner?s Ferry. Anyway, the plane flew to Boise and Ron sat hunching his big frame careful to keep his firearm concealed even as the steward calmly locked us in and the cabin shrank around me.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

SIX

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[Anonymous]

When were you first at RMA, Blown Away?