Where the Thumb Takes You
The other day at an on-ramp to the Kennedy, I saw a youngish couple waiting for a ride. They had a sign and they had a dog and the sign read, "Texas". I was trying to remember the last time I'd seen a hitchhiker and I couldn't. I used to see them all the time especially out west, especially in California where at on-ramps in Berkeley and Santa Cruz and San Francisco the lines of folks waiting for rides were ten or twelve deep but the rides usually came quick and off we went. The same in Boulder. The same in Eugene.
The first time I hitchhiked any distance was from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale. I was fifteen and I was with a girl a year older. Call her Mary, I think that was her name. We had less than five dollars between us and less than a full pack of cigarettes. We didn't have a whole lot of sense and only a vague idea how to get there but people picked us up one after another (later I learned it's easier with a girl plus they're nice to have around) and two or three days later we found ourselves on a bench by the beach eating from a bag of oranges that someone was kind enough to leave behind.
The trip wasn't an entire success. The girl we'll call Mary neglected to tell me she was on antibiotics and she neglected to read the instructions where it would have told her to stay out of the sun. I still don't understand the chemistry or is it biology that made her puff up after a day in the sun. She didn't look good - she looked like an over-inflated balloon person and this made her cry and it frightened me and we were a long way from home. Plus, our cigarettes had run out.
She called her mother (collect) and her mother and big sister who didn't have much to do and who didn't feel all that favorable about me decided to drive down and retrieve us. I should have stayed behind. They were nice enough but the mom had a plan and I hadn't yet learned how devious and mean people can be. When we got back to Chicago (I say Chicago but really it was a suburb - but who wants to hear about a suburb) the mom made us something to eat - and while this Mary and I were feeling good about eating a nice home cooked meal, mom was calling the police to let them know she knew right where a runaway was sitting and could they come by and pick him up.
While this didn't end our relationship (at the time we wouldn't have used a word like that) but it probably opened up a crack that eventually tore us apart. But what it didn't do was turn me off from hitchhiking. Hitchhiking with other girls and with guys and even alone - but, you know, never once with a dog. That might have been fun. Folks seem to like folks with dogs. Speaks to their character.
The first time I hitchhiked any distance was from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale. I was fifteen and I was with a girl a year older. Call her Mary, I think that was her name. We had less than five dollars between us and less than a full pack of cigarettes. We didn't have a whole lot of sense and only a vague idea how to get there but people picked us up one after another (later I learned it's easier with a girl plus they're nice to have around) and two or three days later we found ourselves on a bench by the beach eating from a bag of oranges that someone was kind enough to leave behind.
The trip wasn't an entire success. The girl we'll call Mary neglected to tell me she was on antibiotics and she neglected to read the instructions where it would have told her to stay out of the sun. I still don't understand the chemistry or is it biology that made her puff up after a day in the sun. She didn't look good - she looked like an over-inflated balloon person and this made her cry and it frightened me and we were a long way from home. Plus, our cigarettes had run out.
She called her mother (collect) and her mother and big sister who didn't have much to do and who didn't feel all that favorable about me decided to drive down and retrieve us. I should have stayed behind. They were nice enough but the mom had a plan and I hadn't yet learned how devious and mean people can be. When we got back to Chicago (I say Chicago but really it was a suburb - but who wants to hear about a suburb) the mom made us something to eat - and while this Mary and I were feeling good about eating a nice home cooked meal, mom was calling the police to let them know she knew right where a runaway was sitting and could they come by and pick him up.
While this didn't end our relationship (at the time we wouldn't have used a word like that) but it probably opened up a crack that eventually tore us apart. But what it didn't do was turn me off from hitchhiking. Hitchhiking with other girls and with guys and even alone - but, you know, never once with a dog. That might have been fun. Folks seem to like folks with dogs. Speaks to their character.
posted by Philip Dean Brown at 7:56 AM
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