Hitchhiking Home from Alberta: Day Three
Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
I woke to the roar of a truck engine as it shifted and stuttered through its lower gears. I had a moment of confusion, didn’t know exactly where I was, but then remembered. I popped my head out from under my sleeping bag and recognized the interior of the station wagon I’d been riding in for almost a day. It was already morning. We weren’t moving. I saw the back of the head of the man who’d picked me up when I was hitchhiking in Idaho the afternoon before. He was sitting behind the steering wheel. He was awake, too. When I sat up, he turned and looked at me, greeted me with a big smile.
“A truck stop, just into Kansas,” he said. “I got sleepy and pulled off. I poked you, but I couldn’t even get you to grunt, so I took a nap. It’s your turn to drive.”
He’d picked me up when I was desperate for a ride, stranded in the southeast corner of Idaho. He stopped for me because I reminded him of his son, Dave, who’d died in a car accident five years before. I was uneasy about that for a little while, but I was headed for the east coast; he was headed for Salina, Kansas. He treated me like his son, I accepted him as my temporary surrogate father. Our lives, serendipitously, had become intertwined as we traveled together for the nearly a thousand miles. Soon that relationship would end. We would part and, as it was with nearly every person I rode with during my years of hitchhiking, I would never see him again. He would, perhaps be etched into my memory, but he would never again be real, as he was that early Kansas morning.
We cleaned up in the restroom, got a few snacks at the truck stop and were soon on our way. We had trouble starting the car again. I knew that, one of these times, it would be dead, for good. I made him promise to get the carburetor looked at when he was in Salina. He said he would, but I wondered.
It was late morning when we topped the mile long gradual hill and descended toward his exit. The road was lined with a couple dozen hitchhikers. I was still driving and pulled over. The look he gave me sent a pang through my heart. He was losing another son. I had sincere feeling for the man, but there was nothing about it to do. I got out and said “goodbye;” forever goodbye. May your life go on as mine will.
From my spot along the road with all the other hitchhikers, I watched him pull on down to the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp. The car died again. I watched him get out, and open the hood. I thought about going down to help him. I even started to walk that way, but changed my mind. He was just a man who gave me a ride, now. I was absorbed in a new reality. I still had well over a thousand miles to go. I felt a little guilty as I watched him walk down the road toward the gas station. He never looked back up the hill at me. If he had, I would have joined him.
I was concerned, assumed I’d be stuck there for quite some time. The competition for rides was heavy. I hadn’t seen so many hitchhikers lined up since Pittsburgh. A guy who was a few dozen yards up the hill, walked back toward me, making me nervous. He was rough and mean looking. I couldn’t see goodness in his eyes. He pointed his finger at me and said in an intimidating tone, “We have a deal, understand? If I get a ride, I’ll make them stop and pick you up. If you get a ride first, make sure they take me, too. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” I said.
But, when, surprisingly, a few minutes later a car singled me out of the long line of people with their thumbs out, I quick hopped in and didn’t say a word. I saw the guy I “had a deal” with trotting toward us as we pulled away. I worried about him for the rest of the day. Though it was unlikely, there was always a chance that we would meet again somewhere along the highway. There is no way I wanted him as a traveling partner, though.
I made slower progress than I’d hoped. It was late afternoon before I found myself in the western suburbs of Kansas City. A couple of young guys picked me up. They were ‘country boys’ about my age. They were interested in talking to an Easterner. “Are you a hippy?” one asked. In order to satisfy them, I said that I was and elaborated on my life. They could only take me to the other side of the city, in Missouri, but I never turned down a ride. The only problem was, they were bar hopping their way there.
We pulled off at the first exit and followed a circuitous route across the city, stopping at several pubs they knew. They only had one or two drinks at each place. They never got what I thought was seriously drunk, just louder and more rambunctious. As we drove they played a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album way too loud, and sang along to every other song. I couldn’t get the tunes out of my head for days and immediately bought the record when I got home. I would have better liked to be traveling at a mile a minute down the highway, but they were a guaranteed ride. Besides, I hadn’t ‘gotten high’ since Picture Butte, so I, in moderation, joined in the fun. I was their new, hippy friend.
It was well after dark when they dropped me off along interstate 70 east of Kansas City. I was a little bit inebriated and getting pretty sleepy. I seldom stayed at an exit when I could walk. There was less competition for rides if I was hiking along the side of the road. I liked to believe a driver would see hitchhikers at the exit, think about it, and then pick me up when they saw someone further along. I believed they might think I at least was showing some initiative by walking, and had some place I needed to be. It also made me feel better. The idea that, if I didn’t get a ride, I’d eventually walk back to Pennsylvania was ridiculous, but it gave me purpose and confidence.
Finally, when I was about ready to call it quits and find someplace to sleep along the road a trucker stopped for me. It was only the second, and last, time I got a ride in a truck. The driver looked as rough as I felt. He obviously wanted a rider to help keep him awake. He’d picked up the wrong guy. I didn’t last but a few minutes before I pretty much passed out, scrunched up on the passenger seat in his cab, somewhere along the Interstate in the middle of Missouri.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)This is interesting, but what a place to stop, and you've made me suspicious of the truck driver...great story.It was the end of day three- thanks for reading and commenting
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