It was early to rise the morning after sleeping in an unknown military barracks somewhere in Connecticut or Rhode Island. The handsome guy who had offered me a bed gave me a ride back across the border to Massachusetts and a highway heading east. I stuck out my thumb.

Massachusetts is a long state, some 250 miles west to east, but I remember nothing about getting through it. No hunger pains. No particularly long waits. No particularly memorable rides (as long as you don’t count the three fast-driving, heavy drinking party jocks who pulled up in a convertible. I didn’t feel safe refusing a ride, so I joined the guy in the back seat, held on, and shut up. Fortunately I was too boring for them to put up with and they soon told me they were turning off the highway. I was glad to say thanks for the ride and once again be alone, terra firma solidly under my feet). 

The only reason I had lit out across Massachusetts was a Patti Page song. In 1957 Patti put Old Cape Cod to vinyl, an act which no broadcast system could resist. Radios treated us to it every hour while every TV variety show had its own black-and-white set of a seaside restaurant to feature their star crooning —

If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air

Quaint little villages here and there

You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod

Patti continued —

If you like the taste of a lobster stew

Served by a window with an ocean view 

You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod

The song put Cape Cod on tourists’ maps.

Twelve years after Patti first sang of quaint villages and salty air, the song was still stuck in my head. I followed it east, to the tip of a long, long state. A tip, it turned out, that was a long, long cape.

One wild ride and being impressed with how long Cape Cod is. Those are my recollections of hitch hiking Massachusetts.

Don’t take my word for Old Cape Cod getting stuck in one’s head. Check it out — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT2ao0rcxoA