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Title: How We Were: The Years of Hitchhiking: Recollectons of the Social Cryogenian
Source:
Lew Rockwell
URL Source: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/09 ... tons-of-the-social-cryogenian/
Published: Sep 7, 2018
Author: Fred Reed
Post Date: 2018-09-07 07:47:12 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1336
Comments: 17
The big roads were safe then, or we thought they were. Many of us, the more adventurous, poured onto the highways, just going, moving, looking. We were devotees of the long-haul thumb, crossing and recrossing the continent, dropping into Mexico, whatever. A camaraderie held. There were rules. On an onramp it was first come first served, no butting in line and anybody with his thumb out was taken as a friend, or at least friendly. “Hey, man, got any shit?” was a common question. This meant grass, pot, ganja, herb, and good manners was to share. A theme of the age was that “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.” This makes more sense than might seem today. It was wild to be alone in the sun and clarity of the southwestern deserts, trucks howling by, a blast of wind and shining of tires, and it was just you and the whole desert stretching in sand and cactus to the horizon. You might end up sleeping in an arroyo and if there was a gas station in sight there might be a bottle of Triple Jack. The song that caught the era was Born to be Wild, Steppenwolf, and at my local biker bar in Mexico it still produces an electric shiver and a sadness for things gone. Someone once said, “The symphony ain’t been wrote that matches the lope of a Harley, potatopotatopotato.” Could be. There were black holes that you could hitch into but not out of, where despite traffic or the lack of it you could spend days without getting a ride. One was in Canada–I swear it was called Wa Wa or something like that–that had a buddy of mine and I contemplating homesteading. On an obscure onramp in California someone had carved into the post of a stop sign, “Day 13. We killed John yesterday and ate him.” Once in Berkeley, on Telegraph Road, Hill, Avenue, or whatever it is, a friend, a depressive Irishman, was in a phone booth calling back East. The connection was bad. “Plattsburgh. No, Platts–no, P as in psilocybin….” She understood him. Such were the times. One afternoon after crossing the continent from DC my ride dropped me on on the Riverside exit in California. I was looking for my friend Jimmy Auld, who later killed himself by swimming out into the Rappahannock River at two a.m. in mid-January. But that’s another story. The day was sunny and I felt good after a long haul and in the distance I heard Carmina Burana. That would be Jimmy. He was a music freak and had a Fisher tube-amp that he managed to carry with him everywhere. So I reached the house on the main vein through town and there in the living room was Jimmy sitting on one of maybe five pink porcelain toilets, connected to nothing. Just there, in a sort of ring. I asked him why toilets. “I stole them,” he said, clearly thinking this a reasonable explanation. It seemed he had worked in a hardware store. “Oh,” I said. “But why toilets?” “They watched everything else.” It made as much sense as anything else in those years. It was an age of hunting and gathering. One thing we all noticed on the road: The less a car cost, the more likely it was to pick you up. Caddies? Forset it. Thing was, people in old cars had probably been down on their luck. They knew what it was. So they pulled over. A crumbling ten-year-old pickup covered in Bondo and pop-rivets would usually stop. Another thing we noticed was that in the South people were friendlier and more charitable. As you went from DC south, there was a sort of social thermocline at Fredericksburg, a sharp increase in warmth and courtesy. . You could feel that you somehow belonged in Fredericksburg. In the north, you were always just passing through, and usually under suspicion. I once got dropped off in Boone, North Carolina, almost dead broke. Mountains loomed green and gorgeous and the towns thereabouts had the feel on having been there since at least the Civil War. I went into a local eatery, Dixie Lee’s of something with Dixie in its name I think, to spend my last buck on a coke. The owner could sort of see what was going on and she gave me a burger on the house and offered to let me wash dishes until I found something better. A construction worker, hearing this, put me up on his floor if I needed it. I did. A lot of kids, late teens, early twenties, were in Brownian motions then, drifting from coast to coast, city to city. Since we seldom had anywhere to stay while in transit, we learned to forage for accomodation. One insight was that if you go ten feet off the sidewalks even in a crowded city, and lie down in tall grass, you no longer exist. In Waverly, New Jersey, hoping for a train south, I spend several nights in a clump of bushes not a yard from a sidewalk and maybe fifty feet from a Puerto Rican bar. Nobody Noticed. One summer night in one year or another a friend and I–it was Jimmy Auld–had climbed into the Pot Yards–the Potomac Yards in Virginia just outside of DC–planning to hop a freight to New York. I say climbed: The yards were protected by one of those nine-feet-high chain-link fences with the Y-l’shaped out-leading barbed wire. Why these are thought to provide security, I don’t know. A wiry stripling jumps as high as he can and grables the fence. The gaps provide a toe-hold. He then tests the outleaning Y-piece to be sure it will hold his weight, very carefully throws a leg over, and the other, leaving him inside the Y, and reverses the process down the other side. This might take thirty seconds. The only sounds were the diesel yowl and the shuddering clangsbangbang of couples hitting each other. Anyway, we hid under some bushies at the edge of the yards and watched the yard mules making a train to head North, where we wanted to go. The yard crews didn’t really care if you hopped trains, but it was better not to make them decide. We heard but couldn’t see someone approaching. It was an old black guy–both “old” and “black” were obvious from his voice–with a couple of gallon jugs of water. We said hey, what’s up, nice night. Once it is clear that no one is threatening anyone, people in such circumstance feel pretty much at home with each other, or close enough. It turned out that he had nowhere to live and was staying in a shelter of some sort that he had put together out of sight and had to go for drinking water. A hell of a way to end your life. Then as now America was killing large numbers of people in foreign countries and then, as now, I wondered why they couldn’t give this old fellow a few C-rations. He gave us some hints as to which trains stopped where. We said goodbye and he walked slowly away with his water. I don’t think his joints worked too well. The diesels were still howling as mournfully as ever. There was then in Austin a sort of outdoor beenhall called the Armadillo World Headquarters where various bands played, such as the Greezy Wheels. Austin was where corn-fed blond guys and gals met Haight Ashbury and engaged in joyous syncretism. The presence of the University of Texas did nothing to inhibit this. The result was a rich country-music scene fueled by forbidden substances. At places with names like the Soap Creek Saloon, with girls danced on the tables for the sheer fun of it while a beer-drinking contest raged about them A deeply conservative Texas was properly horrified. At the Dillo, as it was called, as in Alice’s Restaurant, you could get anything you wanted. The freaks would holler, “Waiter, LSD,” and it would come in mugs. Lone Star Draft Today the roads are empty. I’m glad they weren’t when they weren’t.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Dope better get you through times of no money since dope is the reason you have none.
The "p" in psilocybin is silent. That's like saying "p" as in psychiatry. What an idiot.
You mean "stealing" to get by because you didn't have a job, you lazy fuck.
Geesh man - have you always been a grumbling curmudgeon? Some of us still fondly remember those days - when it was still a free country.
If a wall is massive enough and well guarded enough to keep them out, it is also massive enough and well guarded enough to keep you in.
"Free" being the operative word to these lazy vagabonds.
True dat. I recall hitching...though not to that extent. More locally. And it was a cool thing; The peeps that I was picked up by were ALL peace and love. And yes...occasionally some party-material was shared/exchanged as a matter of "brotherhood" you could say. Different times. Special times.
I guess your life was uber-structured in your late teens and early 20s?? Did you attend military school by chance? Or been brought up by a military family? Not criticizing it; Just trying to see were you're coming from.
Same here - never had a bad experience. Picked up quite a few myself. Farthest I ever hitched was from Florida to Ohio - in the winter.
If a wall is massive enough and well guarded enough to keep them out, it is also massive enough and well guarded enough to keep you in.
Hey, nice! Florida to Ohio?? (thought it might be the opposite) Yeah... We experience that tiny window in America where we *could* hitch a ride AND pick up hitchers...with relative safety. Body language of hitchers was pretty easy to discern, wasn't it? Man...we were blessed to have lived in those time. Sticking out a thumb...took what? Five minutes Ten at most?
My late teens and early 20s were spent in the 1960's during the height of the Viet Nam war, the military draft, assassinations, the Black panthers, riots, burning cities, drugs and free love, where the only good thing from that era was the music. My life was as structured as I made it to be.
My late teens and early 20s were spent in the 1960's during the height of the Viet Nam war, the military draft, assassinations, the Black panthers, riots, burning cities, drugs and free love, where the only good thing from that era was the music. Yes...but during events-settings NOT unlike MOST of us. And frankly, you've taken the absolute WORST of the era (how the Left describes the 60s) when generally it was America's last Golden Age. My life was as structured as I made it to be. Tells me nothing. Friends, family, church, life philosophy, and certain people usually greatly influence us as we understand the ways of the world. If you can't answer that simple bell, then you're dodging the question for whatever reason.
It should. You suggested I led an "uber-structured" life -- ie., that I was raised with that as my environment. The environment was anything but structured. The environment was messy and chaotic and the only ones who thought it was the "Golden Age" were the hippies who decided to turn on, tune in, and drop out. The rest of us were living in fear of a nuclear war, dying in Viet Nam, or dealing with social upheaval at home.
Eldridge cleaver Soul on ice / soul on fire Too many of These Colin krapperdicks around Love Ps Go see The 3rd world - europe He did Didn'T like iT Too
If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
Originally started in the U.P. where I was going to college - got a ride to Florida from another student off of a ride share bulletin board. Wanted to do some bicycling down south during spring break and catch a game or two at the Tigers spring training facility in Lakeland. Turns out the guy left hung me out to dry with low funds so I was on my own to get back, so I hitched with my ten-speed. Ended up getting a nonstop ride from Georgia to Ithaca NY, then was able to afford a Greyhound to Toledo where I am originally from. Ended up borrowing a car from my sister and boyfriend and drove back up north. Good times - LOL.
If a wall is massive enough and well guarded enough to keep them out, it is also massive enough and well guarded enough to keep you in.
I went to a Catholic Military HS, but even the Christian Brothers weren't as F'd up as whitey.
Just a couple of terms you should be familiar with if you decide to hitchhike: dead head: 1. A tractor without a trailer returning from a drop off. 2. An old geezer who won't stop talking about his favorite band. 3. The part of you dismembered body they find in a ditch. backdoor: 1. The portal by which you should never enter your kind host's vehicle. 2. The portal by which your kind host will inevitably attempt to enter you.
This looks like it's working: This too:
A theme of the age was that “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
“Plattsburgh. No, Platts–no, P as in psilocybin….” She understood him.
#3. To: Deckard (#0)
It was an age of hunting and gathering.
#4. To: misterwhite (#3)
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
In a Cop Culture, the Bill of Rights Doesn’t Amount to Much
#5. To: Deckard (#4)
"... when it was still a free country."
#6. To: Deckard (#4)
Some of us still fondly remember those days - when it was still a free country.
#7. To: misterwhite, Deckard (#3)
#8. To: Liberator (#6)
I recall hitching...though not to that extent. More locally. And it was a cool thing;
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
In a Cop Culture, the Bill of Rights Doesn’t Amount to Much
#9. To: Deckard (#8)
#10. To: Liberator (#7)
I guess your life was uber-structured in your late teens and early 20s??
#11. To: misterwhite (#10)
#12. To: Liberator (#11)
My life was as structured as I made it to be.
Tells me nothing.
#13. To: misterwhite (#12)
boris
#14. To: Liberator (#9)
Florida to Ohio?? (thought it might be the opposite)
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
In a Cop Culture, the Bill of Rights Doesn’t Amount to Much
#15. To: Liberator, Deckard (#7)
Did you attend military school by chance?
#16. To: Deckard (#0)
#17. To: Deckard (#0)
(Edited)
It turned out that he had nowhere to live and was staying in a shelter of some sort that he had put together out of sight and had to go for drinking water. A hell of a way to end your life. Then as now America was killing large numbers of people in foreign countries and then, as now, I wondered why they couldn’t give this old fellow a few C-rations.
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