This account from my hitchhiking days includes a reference to encountering the scary Las Vegas police. For that story see Cops while hitchhiking #2

Shortly after my encounter with the scary Las Vegas police I got a ride with a trucker pulling an empty flatbed trailer. It wasn’t long before his destination pulled him off U S Highway 95 and I found myself with the sun setting in a very small desert town. There was one intersection, a convenience store, and a spattering of homes.

The prospects of getting a ride looked rather bleak.

I walked across the intersection, looked back to see the truck turn and pull away, and then noticed a lone sedan pulling through the intersection in a most hesitant way. Two guys about my age checked me out as they drove past. They pulled over and stopped.

It turns out they were on an adventure of their own. On their road trip they had given a guy a ride who had ripped them off. They had no money and were trying to get back to Oregon.

I did have eight bucks or so, enough for a tank of gas in an American sedan back in 1968. We filled up and headed north toward Boise. They were very cool, fun, good looking guys.

It got good and dark before the first driver suggested his buddy drive for a while.

A tank of gas was less than eight bucks back then and seat belts were an option most cars did not have. As the first driver laid across the back seat his buddy grinned and observed, “I know what you’re going to be doing back there.” The first driver admitted he had not given up driving because he was tired. Rather, he was horny.

Talk about an opportunity dropped in my lap! I opened up to them that I was gay and loved to give guys blow jobs. They didn’t freak out about it. Just then the Beetles’ new hit came on the radio, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road . . . 

Now, I know, dear reader—I must be the only guy (and we can probably include you gals here, too) who looses his cool when sex comes knocking on my window of opportunity.

I’m still convinced we could have done it in the road all the way to Boise. But my tendency to find excuses and make conversation and keep myself avoiding what I really want kicked in. I babbled and babbled, lost in my own assumptions of other’s being uptight about enjoying sex when, really, it is I who gets upset and mindless when opportunities present themselves.

Yes, I do forgive myself for being human and I tell myself I probably share this frustration with most of humanity. But darn it. When am I going to stop and pay attention instead of go in automatic find-an-excuse-not-to mode?

My greatest regrets are not for the mistakes I’ve committed, my friends. They are for opportunities I turned my back on.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road, indeed.