In the Seventies, my family lived 3 miles down a pine forest-lined road. Before I could drive, hitchhiking was a way of life. At first it was just local stuff. I would get picked up by friends and neighbors.
After I could drive, my lot was not much better. My first few cars were unreliable to say the least. I still Thumbed more than I drove...
Two quick tales...
My parents, after I moved out, moved to NJ. I stayed behind in Mass. ( I was in love, don't you know. Of course, her and broke up about two months afterwards...LOL). The next summer, Mom and Dad rented a place on the beach on Long Beach Island in Jersey. The car I was driving was not up for the road trip. I thumbed down with out incident. I spent the week there and thumbed back to Mass. On the way out of New York into Connecticut I was picked up by a guy in a Sanford & Son pick-up truck. He seemed "cool" but excessively stoned. After a few miles he reached under the seat and pulled out a cigar box of heroin packets and offered me one to snort. That was not my thing. I refused and waited until the next exit approached and told him that I would get off there. There was a rest area. It took about an hour to catch another ride. About 10 miles down the road , there was a wrecker and blue lights. The Sanford & Son pick-up was kissing a tree down at the bottom of a hill some 50 feet off the road.
A Second....
After my freshman year at UMass Amherst (Zoo-Mass), I ,being a freshly minted Deadhead with tickets to 3 shows in three different states and again with a car that was not road-trip worthy, decided to hitch to the first show. I wound up spending nearly three months on the road hitching or catching rides with Deadheads going to the next show in the next town. Of course, my favorite memories were of catching rides with "Twirl Girls". For non-Deadheads those are the stereotypical peasant-dress-wearing female Deadheads who spent the entire show spinning and twirling in a serpentine-like dance. Those segment of the summer have a whole extra set of memories.......
The Dead circled back to Springfield Mass towards the end of the run. Having seen 24 shows that Summer. I left the Circus and went home to Marlboro...........
