American Hippie

Back in the early 70s I caught a sundown ride out of Albuquerque going, supposedly, all the way to St. Louis. It was a guy from ABQ who had talked with an old high school flame from STL and decided baby this is it, hang on 'cause I'm comin'. The deal was we would trade off driving until we got there. This is what people did before Facebook: They actually did crazy things like drive a thousand miles to see someone. Serious people still do it.

We got started on the 8-hour trip toot sweet, and I was sleeping soundly when the tempo abruptly changed, an abrupt slow-down. We came to rest under the harsh lights of a gas station, and I blinked my eyes open. "Where are we, man?" I said. The guy said, "I guess we're in Shamrock, Texas." When I looked at him he said, "Aw, I decided not to go all the way to St. Louis. I'm headed back to Albuquerque." I barely had time to get out of the car before he peeled off with his tail between his legs. So much for love.

I guessed that was O.K. since I was at a Skelly truck stop and you could usually get a ride with a trucker. So I just headed for the parking lot to look for anyone going to his rig. I was lucky because I saw a guy walking toward the trucks right away and I hollered at him, "Hey, man.You going east?" He turned around and I saw the Skelly patch on his jacket. "No, I ain't going EAST," he said in a nasty way, "But YOU are! Get the hell outta town or I'm calling the sheriff."

Oh, I high-tailed it out to I-40, but it was a bad night for hitchhiking, and I ended up spending some lonely hours out there. Not many cars. It was real early in the wee hours and DARK. Long about dawn a pickup truck slowed down and I got a ride. Hell of a nice guy who could take me just a few miles to the state line, where he had a bar. Apparently they start drinking early in Texas.

As tired as I was, I wanted to get going as soon as I could, so I walked from the bar to a big WELCOME TO OKLAHOMA sign, but there still wasn't much traffic, and I sat down on my duffel bag right at the base of the sign. Then I stretched out to catch a few winks.

Again an abrupt awakening - this time it was a bunch of voices jabbering away in some foreign language - Japanese or Chinese for all I knew. It was all Oriental to me. My only thought was that here was a ride. I struggled to my feet as the tourists surrounding me - or whoever they were - fluttered away like a flock of crows. One of the crows held a movie camera. As I said, "Hey, how about a RIDE??" the whole crew got into their car like a bunch of clowns and they peeled out with me hollerin' and the camera man with his camera going all the while. I figured somewhere I would be on somebody's home movie: "American hippie."