on the road

i've been thinking about the time i've spent on the road lately because a son is truck-driving and spending lonely days and nights out on the road, separated from his family.

i spent a good part of 1974 and 1975 on the road and then spent a lot more time out there too, even after i had my daughter in 1978. in 1974 i hitchhiked 48 states, including alaska but not north dakota or hawaii, and including mexico and guatemala although my main objective was to see the u s a. i also wanted to meet people - talk to them, find out what they did for a living and whether they liked it, discover the difference between, say, living in san francisco and living in new york. i was just curious about a lot of things and i decided to get out and experience it myself. sometimes i jumped trains or even tried to hitchhike an airplane or boat but those were kind of diversions, and, having learned from them, generally i went back to what i knew best, hitchhiking.

i remember the loneliest i ever was was one night on the bluegrass parkway in kentucky, when traffic slowed to a crawl and i couldn't get a ride. there were lots of times when i couldn't get a ride, but for some reason this time stood out. i also disliked sunday mornings in cities, because i was especially disappointed by church traffic. but looking back on it, i kind of wonder if the problem wasn't the gap between my expectation and reality, in other words, i was setting myself up for something i thought would be good and it just wasn't any better than anything else. there were actually lots of times when i was lonely, times when i took my sleeping bag, wandered off into the woods until i was out of sight, laid it out, lit a small candle, got in my sleeping bag, and put my head on my jacket-pillow and nodded right out. i didn't generally have trouble falling asleep, no matter how much truck noise there was. but i was lonely plenty of the time.

i actually made lots of friends, and had wonderful connections with people of all kinds. there were people who were mad at me, and even turned me out on the road, for political views or whatever, but mostly people didn't mind a little alternate viewpoint or unexpected perspective; it was part of the situation. on my part i had to tolerate such things as cigarette smoke or possible drunken driving which was common in those days. the police thought i was a nuisance because they considered it dangerous, and sometimes would harass me just to get me off the road, or even arrest me, which happened a couple of times. a couple of policemen were actually nice and i didn't mind if they checked my ID as i wasn't a fugitive. in the end i got all kinds of reactions and learned from them all. you don't see hitchhiking these days but back in the seventies it was much more common and people knew what i was doing and accepted it, either giving me a ride or not.

i found the cities to be the loneliest. generally when there were a lot of people around or a lot of traffic, it felt lonelier, it felt like it was a cruel cold modern world where everyone was too busy to stop and talk or make a friend. they actually hid behind their windshields and this seemed especially true in california or arizona where the sun would naturally make them want to shrink back and avoid the open fresh air. being out there made me a little ripe as there wasn't a shower every day, but the open air in general was good for my sould and because i am allergic to tobacco i found myself opening car windows, almost impulsively, every chance i got, usually with permission. i hitchhiked in winter too, and couldn't, but controlling the air flow a little made me feel slightly more in control of my experience and now i'm still aware of how, if you just manage the controls a little, you can feel how you want when you are out on the open road. a little bit of management will go a long way and there's a lot you can tolerate, and a lot you don't have to.

to get back to the bluegrass parkway, perhaps it was one of these roads that, because they charge a fee, the locals avoid and that changes the nature of the traffic or just reduces it drastically. the will rogers parkway is like that in oklahoma. you're thinking will rogers, that'll give you something to talk about, but all the good people are on the backroads avoiding the tolls, and you just chose the wrong way to go, and now you're stranded on some exit in the middle of nowhere.

you're probably thinking nobody in their right mind would pick up a hitchhiker after about ten at night, but lo and behold sometimes people did, and everything was fine. more often traffic would thin out and people would rightfully be afraid to stop for someone in the middle of the night. one time a pastor stopped for me at about midnight in iowa and actually offered me a place to stay, but i lived in iowa and was only an hour or two from home, so i turned him down. it impressed me though, a guy who put his money where his mouth was, was willing to take me in and provide for me, as i think a man of the cloth should do. usually at night i'd just take the old sleeping bag and walk off into a copse of trees or some place nobody would be watching. lonely, but it would work just fine. i didn't mind being alone much of the time. when i was with people i asked them all kinds of questions. i figured they wouldn't mind the conversation, though sometimes i figured wrong.

i often wrote in a little journal while i was out there, and documented virtually everything that happened. it so happens that upon my return, i lent the journal to a writer friend, and was never able to get it back; but, the actual process of writing it was most helpful. even if you're saying "i went here" and "i went there" it helps you to review, process what you saw, clarify your own goals and see how you are doing on them, etc. the times i jumped trains i came out realizing that i'd seen some fantastic countryside, with no cars in the way, yet i had not met anyone or talked very much about what it was like to actually live someplace. and i got twice as dirty and did twice as much walking, though i didn't mind those so much. the thing about jumping trains as i look back on it is that i'm lucky i'm still alive; it's a risky practice. are you a hundred percent awake for everything you do? one little mistake jumping a train, and you're dead, not to mention the risk of getting beat up or locked in a boxcar.

i got a number of rides from trucks which i still remember. in general, i think they weren't supposed to pick me up for insurance reasons. but they knew the road better than anyone and were pretty good at spotting when something wasn't as it should be out there on the side of the road. they'd be the one that called in emergencies, or stopped to help someone who really needed it. in general they too considered me a nuisance but generally they were friendly to me and would actually help me if they could. i lived for the times when people were just genuinely friendly and helpful, with a spirit of making places easier or better to travel through. it's a good nation that way in that the vast majority of people out there are good, whether they are actively able to help you or not, and you do get uplifted by this sense of helpfulness that i find very refreshing, cheerful, uplifting. i felt like i'd thrown myself to the mercy of the traveling world and that i found god in every corner. and it was genuine, spiritual experience to put myself out there as far as i could go, to every corner of the country. canada, to some degree, was even better than the u s, and so were mexico and guatemala, but i'd really set out to see the u s a, and wasn't disappointed at all by the friendliness or hospitality of its people. it was wonderful.

i did, however, experience plenty of loneliness. these were times i really wanted to connect with someone in any way, just talk to anyone, and there just was nobody around. on the bluegrass parkway, stars all over the place, beautiful mountains, not a car in sight,anywhere in the valley. another spot was schenectady exit, new york thruway. it was just timing. there were of course times i would have rather been alone, and spent an hour or two chilling out, than done what i did and just get ride after ride until i couldn't see straight anymore.

all through the late seventies and well into the eighties i was out there, partly because i had trouble readjusting and coming back to a workaday routine where i slept in the same bed every night. there were a couple of married women who were coming on to me at various times, and i just didn't know how to deal with it; it was hard to say no but i was deeply uncomfortable breaking up their marriages. so my reaction was to up and leave for a week or two, pick some place to go and just get out and do it. one time i set out to hit north dakota, the one state i'd missed, and because of divergent rides i ended up going around it, going out to banff, coming back through northern montana, and again missing it because of some ride or because somebody i liked traveling with was going south. i'd frequently change my route if there was someone i enjoyed spending time with and i was really eager to just know different perspectives and get the experience of people who had done different things. those times, of being with people i really liked, though will probably never see again, will still stay with me forever as something that made me a wiser, larger, more generous person. one who has actually listened to others' experiences...

i'm not sorry i did it. i'm grateful to still be alive to talk about it. fifty years have passed, and the practice of hitchhiking has virtually disappeared, but it stays in my heart as an era of my life that really opened me up to the different experiences of different kinds of people. and i really saw the country. one of the things people said to me was, "i wish i did what you're doing...." life makes you feel trapped, often and very easily. the road can make you feel free, if only because you can control the internal air of the vehicle, or stay warm on a cold night.