Hitchhiking

Thought for today: "If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered." Stanley Kuberick

From about the age of 19 to my mid-twenties I did a lot of hitchhiking around this country and they are some of my greatest memories. . I hadn't learned to drive then (that's another story) and when I did I, once, again travelled around the country but it was a different time, the country had changed and I had money!

If I remember correctly my first experience as a hitchhiker was when I got out of the Marines. I went from Hollywood, California to Miami Beach, Florida. The next trip was to New York City and then from NYC back to California. A year later I flew back to NYC (in a plane!!!) and then hitchhiked to Miami Beach and a year after that my last trip, back to New York.

I still exchange letters--snail mail--with a few people I met back in the late 50s to mid 60s on those trips.

Some pictures in my head: Arriving in Vegas with my mustering out pay from the Corps and losing it all in a half hour, a traveling salesman giving me a ride to Baton Rouge and letting me stay in his motel room to get some rest, buying me breakfast (I was never a cheap trick LOL) and slipping me $20 wishing me luck when he left me off at I-10, the couple on the fishing pier letting me work at their bait shop so I could make enough money to eat and sleep and I will always remember the ride from Jacksonville to Miami Beach in the back of a fish truck (with the fish!) which was about 400 miles.

I remember the cold of the desert in Arizona at night and the cacti and sand making pictures of their own. There were the true Louisiana accents from the sweetest people and the waitress who 'honeyed' me during a whole meal. Cutting across Mississippi and feeling like Faulkner, not to forget Alabama where I learned for first time what true Southern hospitality really was. Tasting so many different foods for the first time traveling up the East coast, taking a ferry from one state to another.

Going from NYC to California I went through St. Louis before the arch was even thought of, learned what made the Mid-west the Mid-west. By hitchhiking I saw close to 40 states, each having their own beauty and unique people.

Whether I would do it in today's world I'm not sure or even suggest anyone do it but I had a fantastic time, meet fantastic people and saw fantastic sights.



Who wouldn't give this young, goodlooking hunk a ride. :O)