The Art of Hitchhiking
(Pond of water lilies, from the University of Michigan Herbarium website)
This blog post offers a short metaphysical treatise on hitchhiking. In the sense that these youthful experiences were a part of my education, I continue thinking about where I was then and where I am now on this journey.
A hitchhiker should be adaptable, flexible, open to the possibilities, ready to consider any detour as an escapade or learning experience (admittedly, an attitude easier for white men to pull off). Let me offer one example from my three-month-long summer of 1975 trip.
I was in Salem, Oregon, heading for Goshen, 70 miles south, where Pammie lived, a friend of my friends Kate and Prch. Doris and her dog Kiani stopped to give me a ride. We got high and drove to Albany, 25 miles south on I-5. She was picking up her friend Claudette and then going to Claudette’s log cabin. “Do you want to come along?” Of course, I said yes – my prime directive at that time was to partake in every adventure I could, and these young women seemed to offer one. (At the time, I didn’t realize her cabin was in Gates, 45 miles east, deep in the Oregon woods, but that wouldn’t have mattered.) On the way, Shitrat, her ’63 Volvo, blew a water pump in Lyons, and we – Doris, Kiani, Claudette, and I – drinking beers and laughing about our predicament, hitched to Mill City, where they had friends, one who paid Doris $30 he owed her, another who gave us a lift to Claudette’s cabin, where we ate bagels and drank tequila and got high.
When Claudette ran off to check about a job, Doris and I hung out. Out of respect for the fact that she’d given me a ride and invited me into her world, I left the decision to make the first move, if there was to be one, to her. But before long, Claudette returned and we all hitched back to Salem – three folks and two dogs now – staying warm in the back of a pickup under Army blankets and Oregon stars. Back in Salem we went to a bar where some friends in a band were playing. Doris spent the night with Joe, the lead guitarist, whom she’d been digging and hoping to hook up with. Claudette and I stayed at Doris’s house, Claudette sleeping in the bed and me in my sleeping bag on the floor with the dogs. The next morning I was back at that same entrance ramp in Salem, still hitching south, in wonder at the lovely twists and turns our lives take, somehow wiser by the experience.
* * *
These stories might lead you to believe that hitchhiking was an endless series of exciting and diverse adventures. That’s not entirely true. It often entailed long, boring stretches of time, standing beside an extremely busy or empty highway and waiting for a ride. In those moments good hitchhikers learned the value of patience. They didn’t let themselves be taken over by frustration or envy or anxiety or anger. Like the Chinese poet Han-shan, glad to be “free of the busy world,” they simply waited, or they developed some strategy, such as hiking with their thumb out, to pass the time. They knew that when a car did stop to give them a ride, they would feel all the more grateful for that wondrous generosity.
When stalled, I often stopped paying attention to the road and just looked around, taking in my surroundings. I often sang: “I Ride an Old Paint,” Lowell George’s “Willin’” (Linda’s version), Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” (Janis’s version). Sometimes I made up and sang little snippets of choruses; sometimes I composed poems in my head. This is from my notebook of that summer of ’75 trip…
on I-5 near Roseburg, Oregon
going nowhere, going back east
walk barefoot along blind road
to the South Umpqua River
off highway & down to its banks
along the way having my fill
of blackberries, & invisible
anyway strip down to nothing
splashing, playing hide & seek
with fat wiggly tadpoles
lay on abandoned mattress
drying, relaxing under sunshine
daydreams, read the Diamond Sutra
again searching for … better luck
on the road, focused on no-ride
one will appear in no time
* * *
As I’ve noted elsewhere, hitchhikers sometimes had to deal with unwanted sexual advances. This was why, even at the height of its popularity, solo hitching by women was a risky undertaking. One can find many articles that discuss the complicated calculus of this and offer tips for doing so safely. I will never truly know half of what women had to deal with – still have to deal with – from men, but my own experiences helped me understand that better.
When I was going to school at Ohio University in the fall of ’74, I hitched up to Ohio State one weekend to see Cheryl, Sue, and Owen. As I was getting into Columbus, I was picked up by men seeking physical intimacy – three times in a row! I firmly declined, but in a way that was part apology, both of us embarrassed by the misunderstanding. Many years later, I realized the way I was wearing my bandanna was likely signalling my availability to gay men. A bright red paisley bandanna was part of my gear and garb then. Worn as a neckerchief, it could protect me from sunburn; folded into a right triangle, it could become a headband to corral my long curly hair. Only recently did I happen upon an article that explained another of its purposes.
I supported women hitchers whenever I could. In the summer of ’75 my friend Kelly was looking for a partner to hitch from Ann Arbor to Minneapolis, via Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I was getting ready to head to the West Coast, so this seemed like a good way to start that trip. I knew hitching with someone else would slow me down a bit, but I was glad to have the company. We stayed one night at the University of Michigan Biological Station near Cheboygan, where our friends Joy and Alan were doing fieldwork. The next evening we stopped near Iron River, skinny-dipped in a pond full of sweet-scented water lilies, and were given a bed by a friendly couple, in which we slept chastely, like sister and brother, in the spirit of her original request.
Later that summer, my high school buddy Michael, his girlfriend Abby, and I hitched from San Francisco to Ashland to catch some of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Three people hitchhiking was a big ask, and at one point we were so stalled that Michael and I moved off the roadside so Abby appeared to be alone. No surprise that a car stopped in short order. Maybe the driver was concerned for the safety of this “fragile” woman; maybe he was a sexual predator; maybe he was simply a good guy. In any case, when we stepped from behind bushes to climb in the car with Abby, I felt no guilt about our trickery.
* * *
A hitchhiker should be a masterful glaneur, ready to use what has been cast off by those able to do so. Packaged food past its expiration date, produce with spots, leftovers from the noon pizza buffet. I became a skilled and unapologetic scavenger and dumpster-diver, taking a perverse pleasure in living off the wastefulness of American culture. I have vivid memories of all the produce harvested while traveling: pomegranates from shrubs on the medians in Austin, pecans from an abandoned orchard south of San Antonio, large juicy strawberries from a field beside Lago de Chapala near Guadalajara, sweet crisp Burlat cherries from an orchard in the Rhone Valley south of Lyon, golden pink apricots from the backyard of an abandoned house in Sanary-sur-Mer on the Côte d’Azur. My efforts at gleaning were not limited to food…
The grey serape
that I found in the late fall of 1974
on an Interstate 10 entrance ramp west of Tucson
Left behind by some vagabond
a thick weave of heavyweight wool
a jagged black lightning pattern running its length
Rolled up and strapped to my backpack
it served me well through the rest of that decade
accompanying me as I wandered endless miles of open road
From the Olympic Peninsula to Cape Breton
from wintry Montreal to San Cristobal de las Casas
from the Isle of Skye to the Tuscan hills outside Florence
Handy and versatile for hitchhiking
to keep off the cold or the rain or the snow
or to supplement my sleeping bag on crisp nights under the stars
No, I don’t know what became of it, or those nights, or those stars