Category Archives: Hitchhiking

On The Road #1, a regret

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

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.

Cops while hitchhiking #4

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This is the fourth of four stories about my dealing with police while hitchhiking from 1968 to 1971. 

For the story of my third encounter with the police, which happened in the day before this one, see Cops while hitchhiking #3 

When I lit out hitchhiking from Princeton, New Jersey, toward New England in the spring of 1969 my objective was to avoid traffic. It seemed best to head to the north and pass well out of reach of the biggest traffic snarl of all: New York City.

So it was I found myself heading toward my fourth encounter between an Officer of the Law and a rumpled highway hippie.

Checking out a map I noticed a large green area well above the city, marked as the Catskill Mountains. Vague references to the Catskills swam somewhere in my memory but the real attraction on the map was the lack of towns in this large area. Plus, there was one very little black line jagging through it. I checked and sure enough, that little black line was the smallest road this map bothered to indicate. Tiny letters labeled it Frost Valley.

It was April, I was cold, and one would think an area called Frost Valley would sound better in the heat of summer. But I could not resist that little black line on a map.

FV road #1I loved it as soon as I stepped onto the Frost Valley road. What was a little black line on the map was simply a little black line on the ground. There were no painted lines. Whenever a tree was in the way or a rock outcropping got close the road just narrowed itself around them. In the West this would have been an unimproved dirt road, but New York is more populated than Idaho and here the road was coated with what I learned was called grader mix—a process where gravel is piled down the middle of the road, thick tar is mixed into with a road grader pushing the combination back and forth across the road, and the mixture is then flattened across the road and rolled into a macadam surface.

FV road #2It was heaven—spring hardwood trees and shrubs, just leafing out, crowding up to and pushing over the road. Ferns coating the ground under the canopy of the forest. Small waterfalls splashing down an occasional steep hillside beside the road. A clear mountain brook gurgling and babbling beside it all.

It was all new to me, being from the dry pine forests of the West.

Also new to me were the Private Property — No Trespassing signs. Idaho is 60% owned by We the People of the United States. I was not familiar with every fourth tree having a paper warning sign on it. What was this having to stay on the narrow strip of land between Private Property signs and the edge of the roadway? But stay there I did! Far be it from me to attract the dangerous, hippie-hatin’ cops.

Wintoon lodgeI was several miles into the Frost Valley road and the light was starting to fade when a large Suburban filled with kids passed by. A minute later I came upon a wide spot in the valley with several buildings set back from the road, a mown field separating us.

A spunky kid must have gotten out of the Suburban and just made it across the mown field, where I saw him drop his books and jump on a jalopy that was little more than a motorized frame. He drove the contraption right to me.

He could not have been more enthused to meet a real genuine hitch hiker. I couldn’t help but really like this sparkle-eyed smiling bundle of enthusiasm.

The kid mentioned his dad might need some help with spring cleaning and I decided perhaps I’d go back a hundred yards or so and find a place to sleep. A place where the tree holding the Private Property sign was far enough off the road so I could wedge myself between trespassing and sleeping in the road.

The next morning I heard the Suburban pass, a load of kids headed to class. I rustled myself and brushed my teeth in the water running beside the road. I finished off my last half a can of beans. My toothbrush was tucked in my pocket and I was just getting the rope cinched around my sleeping bag, all dallying enough so the kid’s dad might have a chance to come find me.

Then I heard the Suburban headed back up the valley. I looked up as it slowed to a stop. In the right hand front window I saw the sign, CONSTABLE.

The dangerous cop got out with a grin on his face. His son had told him about me and he’d been glad to see me camping beside the road that morning. And sure enough he could use some help since the hired hand from the last several years had moved away.

Would sleeping in the den, eating with the family, and a buck fifty an hour be OK for a few weeks of spring cleaning?

I spent the summer.

Cops while hitchhiking #3

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This is the third of four stories about my dealing with police while hitchhiking from 1968 to 1971. For the story of my second encounter with the police, which happened in Las Vegas, see Cops while hitchhiking #2 

One hundred miles north of New York City, State Highway 52 spent twenty-five miles winding its way from the Delaware River to the town of Liberty, New York. They were beautiful miles, neat farms tucked into hardwood forests on a casual, small, two-lane country road. Just what my hitchhiking soul was looking to travel.

Even though avoiding freeways was an aim of my travels, on this particular day I was trying to make it to Liberty just because it had a freeway passing by. Freeways mean substantial bridges. It was early spring and we can thank rain for the lush green of eastern forests. I was looking forward to a dry spot to sleep.

I walked beside the narrow road without sticking out my thumb, thankful if rides were offered but not soliciting the attention of authorities. Besides, were I was going was exactly where I already was—hitchhiking America’s byways. One is not in a rush when one is already there.

The countryside passed at the pace of a mosey.

A couple of miles before Liberty there was a bluff I’d have to climb. The road bent to the left and became a steep grade, cresting the bluff with a sharp right turn some hundred feet above the valley I was walking. My fear was the grade was probably cut as shallow into the hill as possible to save costs, and my fear was right. As I approached I saw the road narrowed even more.

The steep grade had no room on either side of the road. I could balance on top of the guardrail to the left, stumble over the steep loose dirt on the right, or walk on the road.

A dangerous situation, indeed. The road up the grade was narrow enough so cars had barely enough room to pass one another even without a pedestrian to get around. The grade was long enough so no one would want to stay behind me for the length of it. The grade was short enough so oncoming traffic could appear at the top of the hill with precious little time to stop for a car passing me. And, most dangerous of all, if there was anywhere a cop would stop me for walking on the road, this would be it!

But there was nothing to do. I quickened my pace, stepped into the road, and started scooting to the top.

I hadn’t seen a car in miles and I hadn’t seen a patrol car in three days. So, of course, when I was half way up the hill and in the narrowest part of the road, what should appear at the top of the hill?

You, dear reader, are an excellent guesser.

The officer was alone, rather young, and began slowing as soon as he saw me. He stopped next to me, no room to pull over, set his brake, and started to get out. Even while he was opening the door he began expressing his concern about my walking on the road and especially in this very dangerous spot. I told him I agreed completely, was doing my best to get to past this very dangerous spot, but I had no choice since there were no rides. Along with my words of agreement there was a sincere laugh of admitting he and I could not agree more.

As I remember he asked what I was up to, to which I replied I was out adventuring and a little road through the Catskills was the perfect place to be. By his fourth sentence he asked a question I remember well: “What’s in the box?”paint box

It was a wooden box, exactly the kind painters carry their paints in, and that’s exactly what I told him was in there.

“Oh. Those are my paints.”

He jumped in, “Do  you work in oils or acrylics?”

“Oils.”

He gushed, “How do you get the paints thinned? I’ve just started painting and the paints are too thick when they come out of the tube!”

(This hippie instantly stopped worrying about a big, bad cop hassling hitch hikers!)

I told him about linseed oil and volunteered to show him, waving my box around looking for a place to set it. He motioned to the trunk of his car and I said I didn’t want to scratch it but he indicated that was the last of his worries. So I gently put the box on his car, popped open the lid, and showed him what to look for. cop saw

We both knew we were blocking the road, so he soon thanked me and told me he was sorry—he wished he could give me a ride to Liberty but unfortunately he was heading the other way and had somewhere to get to.

I scooted to the top of the grade, the curious cop being the only vehicle I encountered on the climb.

Cops while hitchhiking #2

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This is the second of four stories about my dealing with police while hitchhiking from 1968 to 1971. 

Oddly enough, it was not until I wrote these first two stories that I realized the two very first encounters I had on the road were with lawmen. 

For the story of my first encounter with a policeman, which happened earlier the same day as this story, see Cops while hitchhiking #1

Advice was abundant when I was about to start hitchhiking—mostly about how bad all cops are to vagrants. But one town’s cops were pointed out to be the worst of the worst. The pit of repression. The hell hole of cops having no place for street people.

This town’s name was Vegas.

Now, perhaps my friends had special warnings about Las Vegas just because they knew my maiden journey was bound to pass through it as I made my way from Twentynine Palms, California, to Boise, Idaho. But their reasoning was persuasive enough—Vegas was about money and spending it. Someone without money was useless. It was the cop’s job to make sure the penniless did not feel welcome.

I had hoped to get a ride through Las Vegas but my ride from the south needed to report to an office near the Strip. I decided it was best to avoid the crowds and cops of that particular slice of humanity so I got out as he turned off U. S. Highway 95.

Highway 95 passed east and north of the Las Vegas Strip on that December afternoon in 1968. At the time it was on the edge of town but still developed enough for sidewalks. I dutifully kept to the walkways, watching the impressive Sands Hotel slowly passing in the distance to the west.

It took a couple of hours, walking past Las Vegas.  My WWII-issue cotton sleeping bag was heavy on the rope over my shoulder. My wooden box of paints was heavy in my hand. A bag with food and a toothbrush flopped around my waist. I wasn’t a snappy hitch hiker but but all was well.

Finally I was rounding the long curve Highway 95 took around the north of the Strip. Another mile or so and I’d be far enough on the edge of town to stick out my thumb.

I was half way through the curve, approaching an intersection, when a Las Vegas Police cruiser slowed to take a look. It turned at the intersection and I watched as it made a U-turn and parked on the side road.

So much for avoiding the Las Vegas cops.

I was just entering the intersection as they stopped, so started walking toward the cruiser. I checked to be sure my Boise for Xmas sign was visible.

Two officers got out. The driver did the talking. “Heading to Boise, huh? Don’t you have enough money to get a bus?” I replied I might have enough to make it from Las Vegas but I’d like to save it for Christmas.

A few other questions and the officers seemed content I was not a threat to the community. They wished me the best and agreed that before long I’d be far enough out of town so the traffic would thin enough for hitch hiking. I thanked them and turned to walk the few steps back to the highway.

Then I heard the driver yell out, “Hey, buddy …” My stomach sank.

Both cops were standing behind the open doors of their cruiser. The driver was swinging his arm as he yelled out, “You can probably use this more than I can.”

It was tumbling in a high arc and I instinctively caught the gigantic Hershey bar. No almonds.

Cops while hitchhiking #1

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Advice was freely given long before I set a date to begin hitch hiking. The words of discouragement ramped up as the date came due. 

You might think the advice was centered on the dangers of unscrupulous motorists, but this was 1968. More than half the advice I heard was to watch out for cops. Cops don’t like hitch hikers. Hitch hikers have no money and nothing to offer and it is the cop’s job to be mean so they keep moving on. Being young and not in the military I’d be a hippie for sure and the cops would just as soon beat up a hippie as go to their kid’s little league game. Amboy Road

With such concerns I set off from Twentynine Palms, California, where I’d fallen in with a military widow. Barbara insisted on driving me to U S Highway 95 and I was glad for the ride over long, straight, and mostly deserted Amboy Road and then old Highway 66. In those 101 miles we may have passed five cars. 

Today Highway 66 is Interstate 40 and I’m thinking the sound of tires on pavement is pretty prevalent where U S 95 takes off to the north. But a few days before Christmas in 1968 it was a sandy spot in the desert with two small paved roads, one running east and west and the other taking off to the north. And that was it. Barbara’s Cadillac grew smaller on the horizon. The wind blew. 

Barbara’s car had been out of sight for some ten minutes before an older gray sedan approached from the east. Low and behold, it slowed and turned north. My Boise for Xmas sign was in the air. I got my very first ride. 

Within five minutes the rather rumpled driver had told me he was a cop. 

A Federal agent, actually. Out on a reconnaissance mission. “Did you notice one of this car’s windshield wipers is missing?” he asked. (Actually, the only thing I had notice was I had a ride!) “It also has no front license plate. And my side mirror is busted. In fact, there are lots of things wrong with this car. I’m out here to see if any of the state or local police find any of these problems. That is, if they even stop me for no front plate or the busted tail light.”

It was the only time I’ve been in a car while looking forward to being pulled over, but I didn’t get a chance to watch this guy in action. We pulling into the south side of Las Vegas with nary a slow-down. As we approached the city he said he had to stop at the local office and report. He apologized, “there are rules about not picking up hitch hikers on duty, so I have to let you out.” I thanked him for the ride and the great chat. 

And that, my friends, was my first run in with a big bad cop. It got me 95 miles and some stories about how easy it is to overlook absent windshield wipers.

The day would not end before my second run in, this time with two big bad coppers.