By John Carlson—
You don’t see a lot of folks hitchhiking anymore.
That’s a good thing these days, when crime, cruelty and general nuttiness seem to sprout hereabouts like mushrooms on a dank forest floor.
Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, though, lots of people hitchhiked. They came in all ages, but I’d wager most of those hitchhikers were kids, on the road and looking for whatever kids on the road hoped to find. Adventure. Self-enlightenment. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I’d also wager a kid didn’t have to stay on the road long to turn hard, losing his or her innocence while encountering some folks they should never have bumped into.
Me? Yeah, I was on the road three times.
Fortunately, each time it was just for a day. This was not nearly long enough for me to become some callous, obnoxious doofus, though I seem to have managed it anyway.
The first time, my Taylor University buddy Charlie Friddell and I caught a lift down to Indy’s Raceway Park to watch USAC stock cars driven by legends like A.J. Foyt and Lloyd Ruby race its road course. Coming home, Charlie scrawled “Taylor U” on a sign, holding it aloft on the ramp to I-465. The idea was, nice drivers familiar with our school would know serial killers and such were unlikely to be bound for a place where they made you attend chapel three times a week. After ten minutes, a friendly family picked us up and drove us to our dormitory’s front door.
Turned out hitchhiking was a cinch!
The following September came my second hitchhiking experience. Having worked my butt off in a steamy foundry all summer, I spent some of my pay to complete training I’d begun years before on my private pilot’s license. Unable to schedule my FAA check ride before school started, I unlimbered my thumb two weeks later on a Friday afternoon and struck out for my home in Ohio via I-69.
This trip was more in line with traditional hitchhiking. Being hungry. Being thirsty. Having to pee with hundreds of cars – no pun intended – whizzing past. Then there were the carloads of creeps who would yell, laugh and flip you off. Sure I was a Christian, of sorts, but Taylor U or no Taylor U, on a couple such occasions I retracted my hitchhiking thumb to extend a certain middle digit and return the sentiment. In the end, though, I made it safely home. The next day I passed my check ride and took my folks and sister for flights in the funky old Cessna 150 I’d rented.
All seemed right with my world.
Of course, then came Sunday. As the day progressed, it was time to start hitchhiking back to school. Early on I could tell that my Dad agreed, checking his watch with a look that said, “I love you, son, but don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.”
But Mom? She was another matter entirely.
Jutting out my lower lip every chance I got, I kept flashing her the sad puppy look, right up until the moment they drove me to Cleveland Hopkin’s Airport and put me on an airliner bound for Fort Wayne. Returning to Taylor U in luxury, and intimately familiar with my school’s strict no-drinking policy, I downed all the Sloe Gin Fizzes I could guzzle during the forty-minute flight, celebrating a successful weekend.
The following year came my third hitchhiking experience.
This time, however, I really was one of those lost American kids on the road. School seemed so plastic, whatever that meant. Plus my grades sucked and my girlfriend thought I was a loser. Staring down that long road disappearing over the horizon, something inside told me it was time to search for my destiny.
So back to I-69 I went, stuck out my thumb and immediately got a lift from a friendly trucker heading north toward Chicago. Up there, my first stop would be to see my cousin Gary, a high school kid enrolled at Wheaton Academy. Unfortunately, my rides significantly slowed after the trucker. Night had fallen and I was still twenty miles away when, freezing my chalupas off, I called Gary. Luckily for me, even as a kid he displayed the negotiating skills he honed as a highly successful business executive in later years, and soon commandeered a car to pick me up.
That night I lay in a sleeping bag on the floor in his dorm room. With the poignant words of Simon and Garfunkel’s song “America” playing in my head, I stared at the ceiling and wondered about things like life and fate and where I would be the next week, next month, next year. Unfortunately, at the very same time I started thinking about how the next night at Taylor U’s cafeteria, they would be serving meatloaf for supper.
And I really dug meatloaf.
Another thing I thought about was how, unlike the vast majority of poor kids thumbing the highways to find themselves, I knew precisely where a blank check to a bank account with fifty bucks deposited in it could be found.
My wallet.
So after spending the next morning bumming around Wheaton Academy with Gary, he commandeered another car to take me to O’Hare Airport and hop a flight back to Fort Wayne, guzzling more Sloe Gin Fizzes all the way.
Of course, back at Taylor U, it saddened me to realize I was no adventurous Jack Kerouac of “On The Road” fame. Instead, I’d wimped out big time, the secrets of what my wandering life might have held now forever lost to me.
On the other hand, that was some darned fine meatloaf …
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on MuncieJournal.com every Friday.
