The Hitch-hikers Guide... To Not Hitch-hiking (Part II)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitchhiker%27s_gesture.jpg

When last we met, I had just arrived in Tacoma, WA. I spent 3 weeks hanging out with my father; he was pretty cool, as father's go. I was so obviously a carbon copy of the man, and like I said in Part I, it was....well it was interesting at its worst, and that's all I'm going to say on the matter. When it came time to say adios, I trekked out to the interstate and headed due south, towards my native state of California. My reasons for going, of course, were to see what my home was like, now that I was grown. I sure wasn't into women when I was 8 (obviously, this had changed big time), but we had made a trip back when I was 15, and I made the natural discovery that there were tons of scantily clad women in Los Angeles, and the better portion of them were GORGEOUS. My cousins, who were 10-12 yrs. old when I had first met them, had moved there, and my last set of foster parents (whom I had been with for nearly four years) had just moved there as well, so it wasn't like I didn't know anyone there.
I somehow got wind of a well-known Highway that hugged the coast all the way south (101), so I made a beeline for that.  I was quickly tiring of the Interstate anyway (it was quite boring; you never really got to see much of anything but concrete), and, if you don't remember, it was illegal to be on the interstate anyway.  NOTE:  Again, it was really quite hard to not get sidetracked here, the story of my childhood was quite involved, as well as extremely variegated, and would take volumes to write about.  I'm just not going there, for any reason...yet.  Just a simple fact alone relating to that part of my life, I was in as many schools as I was in grades.  That alone should serve as a good enough reason to refrain.

I got quite a ways in no time flat, per usual, and then crossed the line into a county I had no idea was quite infamous.  That county was none other than Humboldt county, and I was oblivious to the fact that it was well-known for many an acre of the strongest Marijuana and Sensimilla grown anyplace in California.  Naturally, as is my fortune, I was picked up as I neared this county by a dealer of this very Sensimilla, and was, within minutes offered some.  I hesitated only briefly (I had smoked pot the better portion of my high school years already, so I was no "green" thumb), when the man said that it was so good that I'd be in the back seat before I got two hits in, then dove into it.  One thing I barely remember is that he wasn't joking either, not even a smidge.  Higher than the proverbial kite, he dropped me off sometime later, proffering as a parting gift, a "quarter" of it.  If I remember right (and believe you me, that time was a little blurry), that quarter lasted me for almost 3 weeks.

I arrived in Lost Angeles, got a job, and lived there for almost a month and a half.  It was just turning into the summertime there, and the weather was a sunny/smoggy 70-80 degrees the entire time I was there, give or take a degree.  I spent most of that time in Artesia, an upper middle-class neighborhood.  The beach was merely a bus-ride away, and I spent a lot of my free time there, remembering how much I had enjoyed it as a kid.

When I chose to pack up the duffel and once again take on the highway, I got a ride just outside of Los Angeles, going East towards Arizona.  I remember jumping into a well-air conditioned Lincoln Towncar, out of an 80 degree day.  When I exited the car, just after Palm Springs, it felt as if someone had just turned on a blowtorch.  It was well over 100 degrees in the shade, and I was hardly prepared to face it.  I was, of course, broke, so I couldn't afford to be buying anything to drink, and quickly located what was to become my emergency water bottle, in a ditch:  an empty 32 oz. Budweiser bottle.  I had already been duly warned NOT to drink what could only be identified as "river sludge" out of the very nasty Arizona river...but a lot of walking in the hot middle of the day sun soon convinced me that if I didn't, I wouldn't have survived the walk.  Fortunately for me, a very wealthy local picked me up, took me to his home and practically threw me into his backyard pool.  When I finished indulging in that, he told me to take a shower, then filled a gallon jug with nothing but ice, and gave it to me for the upcoming trip.  He dropped me under an overpass, and told me to nurse the jug.  It was 120 degrees, even under the bridge, and I think I went through the jug in about 30-45 minutes.  I remember I got a few short rides from there through Phoenix and somehow survived to get into Santa Fe, NM.  Just south of Santa Fe, as it got very dark, I chose to take up with what was probably the dumbest ride I could have accepted.  A smart person would have seen the 24 empty cans of beer in a flat in the back window of the car, that, by the way, was filled with 5 very drunk people, and said "Uh-UH."  But not me.  No sir.  Not only did I get in, I even bragged my ignorance by letting them put my duffel bag in the trunk!  (Naturally, since there were already 5 people in the car, a sixth one would definitely have put an end to the idea of a duffel bag going in with me, so I went along with it.)

After about ten minutes of a lot of shouting and drinking, I finally said "You know what?  I really should get out here, I have a friend that just lives right over there...".  I was pointing, hilariously enough, at a solitary pair of outhouse-sized "restrooms" that served as a marker to a wimpy little town named Wagon Wheel, which, probably, consisted of a dude ranch, a convenience store and a family of 12, all living in the same house.  Not that I could actually see to determine any of that.  It was 11 o'clock at night and there were no lights, stars or moon to shine enough illumination to even see where the road was.

As I got out of the car and managed to exhale, the driver got out to open the trunk for me...then, when I had my back turned and there was no shot at me making it back to the back door, he turned and jumped back into the car and drove off with everything I called mine at the time, including several sets of brand new clothes and personal items.  Add to that, I was in the middle of literally nowhere New Mexico, in the middle of the night, with no cell phone and not 50 cents in my pocket.  As I walked south, there was maybe 1 car for every 15 minutes that went by, and, of course, no one stopped.  I was screwed.  As I got further away from the outhouses, I suddenly felt utterly alone.  Every car that zoomed by me made me more desperate just to get ANYWHERE and FAST.

After about 5 cars went by without even slowing (this was in about an hour's time), I had an idea.  If I couldn't get them to stop for "conscious" me, maybe I could get them to detour for "wounded" me.  I promptly laid down on the side of the road...and waited.  Before long, a car zoomed past, then stopped and backed up as I watched, with one eye slightly open.  Next thing you know, a semi pulled off the road, then before long, there was two or three more cars stacked up next to me.  After that, the highway patrol came along, at which time I figured it would be a great time to "come to" long enough to relate my tale of a car full of drunken idiots, who had whacked me over the head and stolen all of my things.  Then came an ambulance, and I got a free ride to a hospital in Las Vegas, NM.  They didn't find a bump on my head, but they thought it might be a good idea if I stayed with them for a few days until I was sure I was OK.  A cute nurse, who had been pretty much taking care of me that few days, decided I wasn't going back out there with nothing, and decided I was going home with her, and she wasn't going to take no for an answer.  Who was I to deny her?

Even though she had inferred that I was able to stay as long as I wanted, and even after my little "experience", the road and I had gotten to know each other pretty well, and it began calling my name again.  I thanked my benefactor and bid my adieus.  Off I ran again, and this time, ended up in what I call "the terrible twos"...better known as the two states I hate the most, Texas and Oklahoma, in that order.

Denton TX, a town boasting approximately 50,000 inhabitants became a very temporary haven for me.  It was a college town that sprawled over a slab of some of the driest land I have ever stepped on.  I couldn't believe it, but most of the town was dirt road...they had only paved a few more used thoroughfares.  Another thing I came across, for the first time, were bars that you couldn't drink in without being a member, and you had to bring your own bottle.  That was different.  Needless to say, I didn't drink a lot there.  It rained once while I was there, and not long after that, I experienced a plague in Denton containing some of the largest blood-sucking mosquitoes I had ever laid eyes on.  I high-tailed it out of there and never looked back.  I had no love for Texas whatsoever, that was evident.

I made my way North through Amarillo, then weaved my way up to Oklahoma City.  I was picked up by a man who wanted me to come home with him and "the wife", and stay for a spell.  The wife was gorgeous, and he made it known to me, in private, that if I stayed the night, she would be my reward.  Then when I was about to bed down for the night, he proceeded to make it known that he wanted to be my reward too.  It wasn't long before I decided to vacate that little arrangement as well.

I made my way back west again...though I'm hard-pressed to remember why; I took I-40 West, and ended up in yet another hole in the ground:  Sayre, OK. It was in the middle of the temporary oil boom they enjoyed in Oklahoma, and there were jobs a plenty.  I discovered too that there were scorpions a-plenty as well; I think I killed 3 or better during my life there.  I took on a job delivering oil in a bobcat to the oil lubester tanks at the drilling sites that dotted the Oklahoma landscape at the time.  The "boom" ended not long after that, and as quickly as thousands of people had swarmed into Oklahoma, they deserted it.  Needless to say, I lost that job, and headed back towards Oklahoma City.

It was almost the beginning of the fall season, and I found out that the State Fair was running around that time.  Even though I didn't have a lot of experience working for the fair, I thought maybe this would be a good place to get some work.  I applied, and got a job working the double Ferris wheel.  It was really easy work, and it paid very well.  Then I found out why.  Working this ride meant you had to tear it down and put it up, when those times came along.  Being stuck for it, I did as I was told.  It was no fun for a guy with height issues, I'll have you know.  I continued on though, because I was intrigued with the spot we were to occupy next, the tour's final resting place:  Birmingham, AL.  I hadn't ever been to the official South, and was excited that we were going there.  After we got there and set up the ride, the fair began.  In Oklahoma City, it had surprised me how few people attended the fair.  The fairgrounds in Birmingham, on the other hand, was simply bursting at the seams.  I don't think I've ever had such a good time.  It was ten days of heaven for me, I met and went out with a different girl every day of the fair.  It was a literal buffet of Southern belles.  A woman with a southern accent would become a real weakness for me.  As I progressed through the days, I somehow managed to eek out a promise to each one, swearing they would be the one getting all of my attention at the end of the fair.

On the last day, we were overcome by almost double the crowd, if that was even remotely possible.  Worse yet, the line to our ride was easily the longest, stretching for what seemed like miles, and it never let up until the end of the fair.  In that line, spread out evenly, thank God, on the ride, and standing close by, was every woman that I had been with that week, all waiting for me to give them an indication as to when I would be done.  The world's greatest poker dealer would have been envious of my shuffling skills that night.  As they exited the ride, I gave each one a different hour they were to "come back and get me."  This got them away from my ride for a while, as well as gave me a chance to think about which one I would leave with.  The time came, and I chose to stay with a gal who lived close by the grounds.  After a number of weeks, I ducked out (much to her dismay of course), promising to return as soon as I could.  I never did.  I went back to that city long after that, around 1999.  I couldn't believe it was the same town.  Destroyed quite obviously by the effects of crack, it didn't take me long to make my way through it as quickly as I could, and never returned.

It was almost 8 months after I had left that I made it back to Iowa, in the middle of a dead nasty winter, on the coldest day of that year.  1982 had been one of the most memorable and absolutely FUN years of my life, and many a time I wished that it was still that way, so I could do it again, even now.  My decision to not wait til I was 70 and too old to enjoy my retirement was an excellent one, and played a giant part in carving out who I am today.  If it's at all possible to still hug the highways and see the U.S., I highly recommend it.  If nothing else, it builds character.  Take my advice, there's no better view of the United States than from the side of the pavement.  A person misses way too much just "passing through" in their vehicles.  :D

Intro to Mr. Worldly - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide...To Not Hitch-Hiking - Part I

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8213449/Hitchhiker-with-tall-tales-swindles-money-out-of-French-motorists.html

Good afternoon! My name is Christopher Bruce, and I'm a guy who's been around the block. One or 2000 times anyway. I was born in Long Beach, California, and I guess you could say I was born a Navy brat. Well, only if you do so insistently. You see, I was sort of an unexpected child. I could easily bore you with the details (which, by the way, are juicy as heck), but that's not what this blog is about. Someday, if I get enough interest, or if I get more than one wild hair, I may just start a blog about my very unusual life. It took an a lot of interesting events to become the person I am today, believe that. It's really a wonder I haven't had one mental breakdown after another, but somehow or another, I managed to always pull myself up by my bootstraps. Sort of.

Anyway, moving right along.  My parents were divorced when I was four years old, and my father and I had spent some time together from time to time, but I lived with my mother full-time.  When I was eight, my mother tired of life in Los Angeles, and, since she was single (and would remain so until this day), she decided she'd rather move back to where she was from - The late great state of Iowa.  Talk about culture shock.  Even an eight year old boy can readily notice the absurd difference in leaving a city of 5,000,000 and moving to a town of 20.  Note:  You don't really know me as yet (unless you scouted out my profile, in which case, you'd be massively more enlightened), but my style of humor reeks of the likes of Bill Murray, early Tom Hanks, George Carlin and Chevy Chase.  Sarcastic, dry, twisted...you get the idea.  I love to make people laugh, and one of my favorite tricks is extreme exaggeration, so if you don't get something, turn it around, hold it up to a mirror, and if you can take it wrong, don't.  I probably didn't mean it that way.  I tend to be a bit ambiguous.  If I mean it wrong, you'll know it, trust me.

Another thing you may notice is that it's a little easy to distract me, almost as easy as it is for me to distract myself.  I'm slightly ADD (as many affluent and really good authors are), so shiny objects work, as well as quickly and subtly changing the subject.  You can also just point upwards and stare intently in the same direction - that'll probably work too.  If I do get off of the subject, never fear.  After around 10 or so sentences, I'll get back to what the article was about...at some point.  If the number 10 doesn't do the trick, well, it's guaranteed that at SOME point, before the article is finished, I WILL get back to it.  That I promise.

So she loaded up the truck and we moved to Ida Grove (and if you sing that to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, it works!).  I won't even attempt to tell you the 524,655 things that happened in the next 8 years, but trust me when I say it was a real blast.  Note #2:  I've been trying to invent a way to make my words "drip" with sarcasm, so if anyone has any good notes on the subject, I'd sure appreciate them so I can move forward on this.  I just can't put my finger on how to do it.

When I turned 16, I found out just where my father had gone.  He had (very smartly, I'll just say that) disappeared off of the face of the earth about the time I turned 7, and somehow had come to a moral epiphany, and had finally told my mother that he was in Tacoma, Washington; I can only guess that this was to, vicariously through my mother, get that information to us, in case we wanted to make contact.  When I found this out, I made it my personal mission to get there to see him.  This was in 1976, and getting around the country was actually pretty simple.  If you had a thumb and a duffel bag, you didn't need money.  You just waltzed out to your favorite interstate or highway, and let the nice people on the road do all the work for you.  Hitch-hiking was most certainly the favorite option of the lower-middle-class, as well as being a vehicle for a host of non-working Vietnam veterans.  Riding the Greyhound bus ANYWHERE was the best nightmare you could experience for any price between $10-$150, and the chance of Mr. Worldly's mother taking him to see his father, whom she despised, or lending him the money for a plane ticket...well, let's just say I had a better chance of joining the Army at 16, although I had heard of certain recruiters trying that a few times, just to get their commissions and keep their quota numbers at the levels the government had mandated.  So at 17, I gave it my very best go.  I called my father, and told him to not be surprised if I showed up on his doorstep someday, packed....NOTHING, and just high-tailed it out to I-80.

Now, this was actually fairly naive of me to do.  Not only was this was a time when a few hundred children of varying ages had disappeared off of the face of the earth, never to be seen again, but I was a hitch-hiking tenderfoot.  I didn't even know anyone who had actually done it to get pointers from.  By the way, I actually almost was a "Johnny Gosh" myself (in case you're not familiar with the name?  Google it!), when I decided to work at the fair one year.  That's another story, another time.  The Big Man upstairs however seemed to have other plans for me, although I'm still trying to figure out what those plans were. It must have been pretty important, however, because I'm still here...amazingly enough.  I wasn't any Mel Gibson, but I was a handsome kid, and highly desired, unfortunately, by more than just the fairer sex.  Again, these are stories I have no space to relate.  Get me too far off track and this blog could break a few length records.

It was 80 degrees, and hot, humid and sunny when I left Des Moines, and I spent no more than 10-15 minutes on the road before rides presented themselves, so I progressed very quickly to the very boring state of Nebraska...which I was sure would NEVER end!  I then made it across that to the wilds of Wyoming.  By now I had become elevated a great deal above sea level, and the temperature that night had dipped to near 40.  I had brought no coat.  It never occurred to me that the weather would actually change.  In August?  No way!  Freezing, I continued on.  Somehow, later on, while I slept peacefully in the passenger's seat in a car that belonged to a man I didn't originally see as someone I would want to travel that far with, I made it to the ice age that was the opposite side of the state, only to be greeted by 2 ft. of freshly fallen snow and frigid temperatures, suited only to Eskimos and polar bears.

Needless to say, I haunted the truck stop I ended up at, and took also to knocking on the window of every semi I could find, in order to find a ride to Washington.  After what seemed like a million semis and a week or so, I knocked on the truck window of a real winner named Cameron.  He wasn't going my way either...but related to me that, if things got desperate, I could go the other direction with him, in essence, offering me a ride back from whence I had come.

As much as I abhorred the idea of defeat and running back to Des Moines with my freezing cold coat-less tail tucked between my legs, I finally assented, and got in to head back East.  As we drove and talked, I noticed that, on occasion, he would lift his fist to his mouth and breath in.  I had no idea what he was doing, but he did it an awful lot.  When I took a better look at him, he was rather unkempt, glassy-eyed, and tended to slur his words.  I finally screwed up enough courage to ask him what he was doing, and, without even blinking, he spat it out.  He was a spray paint "huffer", hooked on Toluene, an ingredient found in spray paint cans.  He sprayed it onto a cloth, then, as we drove, (and for all the other minutes he existed, I discovered later) breathed it in whenever he could handle it.  Now I was pretty much in fear of my safety...but I continued to converse with him as normally as I could muster...here I had a ride that was going all the way back to where I had come from, so I gave him a chance to see if he had enough wits along to get the job done, where the end of the story came to its ending with me making it home in one piece.

Surprisingly enough, he was more than lucid enough to drive in a straight line.  I had no idea at all about the dangers of spray paint sniffing, heck, I hadn't even met anyone who had ever done it before.  I decided I would stick with this ride, if for no other reason than the fact that it was a sure thing, and the only ride I'd need to find on my return journey home.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but Cameron, who was from Grand Rapids Michigan, somehow managed to convince me to go all the way to Michigan, where he promised me I would have a place to live and a job in no time.  As I mentioned before, I had no desire whatsoever to re-appear in Des Moines again, in a time span that couldn't have exceeded a week's time, only to present a story of unpreparedness and failure in my bragged about mission.  We stopped at a truck stop, on my urging, to call my father collect to tell him I wasn't going to make it just yet, and why.  We arrived in Grand Rapids soon thereafter.

We'll just skip right on over the events that followed that year, as well as the immediate years that followed.  This is because my days as a hitch-hiker had ended...at least at that time they had.  I had no further desire to put my life on the line until I had a better shot at growing up a little (although "growing up" as most people like to define it, didn't really happen for me until I was in my later 20's).  Let's run ahead then, to my next inspired hitch-hiking attempt, which, by the way, lasted a heck of a lot longer than I ever expected it to.

I was 21, and was feeling my oats with a vengeance.  I had just finished a dance with Uncle Sam and the U.S. Army, and it was time to roam free and see the U.S.  This time I had a fresh duffel bag that I really didn't see me ever having a use for outside of the service.  I packed it to the brim with my clothes, and jammed in a slew of personals to boot.  The menagerie of things I packed, of course, also included 2 coats of varying thickness this round...there was no way that I was going to get caught in the middle of a strange area in 2 feet of snow and sub-degree penguin-friendly temps again without a coat, I'll tell you.  I once again called my father, who, not surprisingly, more or less brushed my information lightly off of his shoulder, with a bit of a verbal "flick" that, not unlike a dog-whistle sound, was so obviously only for me to hear.  He lightly chuckled and said "OK, well, just call me when you arrive, and I'll come and get you."

And so off I trekked, again in the very direction that once had cowed me to the point where I seriously doubted I would ever do such a thing again.  Once again, I have kind of a hard time imagining myself a true hitch-hiker, as real road-weary-type hitch-hikers can brag many a mile of hardcore walking in between destinations.  In the time I spent on the road, I only experienced one time that I ever spent more than 30 minutes out on the road, and I never spent any of that time walking.  Granted, it didn't take me long to discover that, when you came to the edge of a big city anywhere, that you would be condemned, usually, to walk from one end of it to the other.  People in big cities just tend to NOT pick people up.  Most drivers are just going to work, coming home from work, or are out running short errands.  I quickly learned to just shuck the thumb in favor of turning my back on traffic and commit myself to getting some needed exercise.  Of course, people who saw me walking a lot of times picked me up regardless, knowing full well what I was striving to accomplish.  I once spent an entire hour trying to get a ride in Needles, CA, but this was due to the fact that California and Kansas, at that time, were the only two states who had made being directly on the interstate illegal.  Like it is in almost every state these days, you could only solicit a ride on the on-ramp.  This really makes a lot of sense anyway, since people on the freeway were doing 50-80 mph, and people entering the freeway were just getting started, usually going a whole lot slower, and more likely to pull over and pick you up.  The problem was, there was only about a tenth of the traffic available, since people obviously used every on-ramp in the city to get on it.  The police didn't usually didn't "ticket" you, but they sure warned you strongly enough, then drove by a couple of times to show they intended to enforce those warnings.  They threatened arrest and jail time if they caught you doing it, that was inspiration to stay off of it a-plenty.

I made it easily enough to the border of Wyoming, and then I paused for thought.  I was broke, hungry, and badly needed a real shower (a good portion of your time spent using your thumb tends to involve a lot of "stand-up showers", where you use a restroom sink to clean the outside of yourself the best you can and hope to come across a reasonable method of doing the real thing later).  Sure, there had been an offer or two of a "free dinner", and "you want something to drink?", so I wasn't dying by any means, but if I was going to make it all the way with any hope of having a few bucks on me when I got there, I might have to actually do a little work.  Remember, this is 1982 and there were literally about 50% more jobs in the U.S. then there was people to work them.  My best and easiest job, I figured, would be to get a job in a restaurant, where I knew they wouldn't even pause for breath, but would thrust an application at me and say "can you start NOW??"  These of course were also the days where no one really cared who you were or what you might have done in your past as well.  I-9's hadn't even been invented yet, and IDs were considered a formality, not a necessity.  Your social security card definitely didn't matter whatsoever to anyone.  An owner or manager would have laughed heartily at a suggestion from anyone suggesting that they do any kind of a personality or background check, that's for sure, and waiting two to three weeks for the job to call you was pretty much rare to non-existent.  If there was a help wanted sign in the window, you could bet on the fact that, if you presented yourself fairly well at your 5 second interview (which usually consisted of the questions "What's your name, where are you from, have you ever done this before?", then the statement "you're hired!", then finally "Can you start right away?") that you were about to be employed.

After spending about 3 hours in the wonderful budding burg of Pine Bluff, Wyoming (actually it was about 3 weeks, but I like to think it was only 3 hours.  I try my best to forget that little hole and every person in it), I then continued on to the almost forgotten task I had set out to do.  On the border of Tacoma, WA, I called my father, and promptly floored him.  He mumbled a bit, then said he was on the way to pick me up.  What happened next I refuse to relate on the grounds that it might be a bit graphic, mixed with a cup and a half of morally offensive, so I will pass on that story, with no regrets.

To finally reach the end of this rather long blog post, I have concluded that there is no chance this post will ever survive to it's inevitable resting place without a "Part II".