Thirty Three

2019

When Becca asked me in 1974 why I was taking the trip, I gave her an answer that made sense to me at the time. I said the trip would be an adventure; an opportunity to see the country especially California; and a challenge.  It was all three.

Hitching across the country was an adventure.  I’m not sure I could have supplied the dictionary definition at the time, but I read now that an adventure is defined as “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” Check that box.   

The trip was also an opportunity to see other parts of the country.  I’d never been west of Ohio. California was the home of relatives and a place that had been hyped in music, films and television as charmingly extraordinary.  I visited my cousins, travelled down the coast of California from San Francisco to Los Angeles, watched both the Giants and Dodgers play in their home stadiums, and toured billed attractions.  I did not get to see a whole lot of middle America beyond what I could spot from the highways, but I did meet many middle Americans and the result of our conversations was a more nuanced view of the land.

The trip certainly was a challenge.  I had to be back for a job at the end of June. Could I hike across starting at the end of May and get back in less than four weeks?  If it looked as if I might not make it back in time, I would be forced to take a train or bus east, but the goal was to avoid that. Navigate the country without a vehicle and make it back and forth on my thumb in less than a month.    

So, the excursion proved to be what I told Becca it would be.   

However, now with close to fifty additional laps around the track, I consider the trip differently.     I see it now as all of the following: a microcosm; foolish; and a moral education.  

During those weeks I encountered kind people as well as selfish meanies just as I have in the half century that followed.  My moods during the period fluctuated like a Sine curve.  Some days I felt elated, other times depressed.  Every day required making decisions that had ramifications.  Do I take this ride, sleep in this place, trust this other person?   Do I spend the finite amount of cash I have on an item today, if I have these many other days over which the sum must last?  Is this choice too risky for the potential benefit?   In a little more than three weeks I experienced the same sorts of things I’ve gone through in the decades since.

I consider the trip now to have been foolish and reckless. Even for those times.  I am glad I went.  I chalk the experience up to a proud accomplishment, but it was dumb.  

My mother smoked. She coughed every morning long and loudly.  Regularly, when Dad heard these hacks, he would turn to me and wave a finger. “If I ever catch you with a cigarette, I’ll break every bone in your body.”  That’s what I think I might say to my children if they were to suggest an expedition of this sort.  I am proud I did it but am not proud that I so naively decided to do it.  

More than anything, what I learned from the journey was that when we choose our paths we face moral decisions. The Rand McNally maps do not help with these, but a highway metaphor is apt. There are a number of ways we can travel.  Different routes.  Sometimes we know, we just know that we need to take a bumpy road because it goes in an appropriate direction. We’ll be jostled and uncomfortable and it can be bruising. But our moral compass directs us that way.  

Yet there are smooth roads going the other way.  Highways that in the short term at least are powerfully enticing.  It is easy to make up reasons why the wrong way is the right way.  Then, when we get to the wrong place it is hell to scramble back to where we made the wrong turn. 

I made it out and back in twenty two days. But I missed a turn.

I knew. Or I should have known.