Delphi to Myrtle Beach

In the summer of 1976, I hitch-hiked from Delphi, Indiana, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This is the story of the first leg of that journey.

I had recently left a job as a concrete technician with A&H Engineering for the glamorous job of a grain bin erector with the Pride Steel Erection Company, located just outside of my home town of Streator, Illinois. The company erected grain bins in Illinois and adjoining states, and there was a fair amount of traveling involved as well as a great deal of outdoor physical work to be done. It sounded like just the place to be instead of sitting in a stifling hot, noisy inspection room at a nuclear power plant.

My employer - Mr. Pride, as I knew him - picked me up in Streator in a big pickup truck that was hauling a goose-neck trailer full of steel panels, and we headed east out of town on Route 18.

Now, Delphi is a small town (pop. about 3,000) close to the Wabash River in northern Indiana. The town was named for the famous oracular site of Delphi, Greece, and I’d say that if I divined anything at Delphi, it would be that grain bin erection was something that wasn’t quite up my alley.

To start with, I left a day and a half's work on a grain bin and got a series of rides with a born-again Christian who gave me a New Testament that I read during my trip, a young trucker excited about being a trucker and eating Lemon Snap speed, and a young guy in a Volkswagen who was driving across the country with a bag of dope in his glove box. Those rides got me as far as Corbin, KY, the home of Kentucky Fried Chicken, with a memorial to Colonel Sanders to boot (but no KFC outlet). There I camped out with the guy and we played chess on a small board he had. I did well until I'd drunk too much whiskey sour in a can, then I didn't care and I lost the game.

After that we hit the sack in a two-man tent, but I was pretty antzy and I got up to walk over to a gas station, where I stayed up talking and joking with another young guy and his much older partner. . . . yeah yeah yeah. Around 4 a.m. a guy in a hot car came roaring into the gas station and quickly filled his tank. He was excited and told us he was driving across country, then he jumped back in and roared off. When he was gone, the older gentleman turned to me and said, "Nuts - ain't he?" Here's another fragment from the end of the trip (published separately on Quora):

In the summer of 1976, I hitch-hiked from Delphi, Indiana to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was a leisurely trip and it took two days to complete the trip - almost. At the end of the second day, toward the evening, I came to a town that was about fifteen miles from Myrtle Beach. When two local boys in a big muscle car pulled over to pick me up, I figured I’d get to Myrtle Beach that day for sure. I gleefully hopped into the back seat.

These guys were nice enough, cheerful and jolly, though they didn't behave like two of Santa's elves. They were more into the performance of their car, and we went racing through the little town, either running red lights or screeching to a shuddering halt, then peeling out and laying rubber like a drag racer when the lights changed.

By the time we got to the edge of town and were actually stopped for a change, I leaned over the front seat and said, "Fellas, I appreciate the ride, but I've got a bad heart and the doctor told me to avoid excitement."

They were immediately apologetic - "Oh man, sorry about that!" - and they let me out. The short ride *had* gotten my heart a-beating and my pulse a-pounding. That night I checked into a motel and got started on the last small leg of the journey the next morning.