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3 Comments

  1. Dan Coleman
    May 10, 2020 @ 4:49 pm

    Brings it all back, Jack. Hitchhiking, or “thumbing,” as it was called by some, was part of the culture back then. My thumb went more miles than my imagination, in fact, just like yours, I presume. Difference is, most of us, including I, didn’t start out with a vehicle to wreck before doing it. Started out walking and finished that way, with rides in between, if lucky. I thumbed across the South in the late ’50s when I was 14 and 15, spent days or weeks in a couple jails without bathing or brushing my teeth, dodged freaks, slept on the ground under leaves to stay warm and failed at it, met hobos who had more time on the road and rails than I did in the world. That was wanderlust. The local thumbing was to get somewhere more intelligent. But I never had the good fortune to have an attractive girl as a travel partner. Kerouac played at the vagabond role with a specific goal before he started out, and had a specific place to return when finished, as did many. Not all thumbers were lucky that way. I like your experience better than my own; it’s more humane and normal.

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  2. Jack Rochester
    May 10, 2020 @ 10:23 pm

    Wow, Dan, you have some real-life experiences that would be pretty interesting in your writing! Take a walk on the wild side, for sure. Whew! GEEZ! I mean it. Yes, my hitching was pretty mundane by comparison. I met this girl in an artist supplies store. I was just done my four years in the Air Force. She and I married and we had my only child together as the last line implies. I have one more story to tell about hitchhiking, another lifegame-changer.

    Please, work those experiences into some fiction. You write well. I still remember your first FC story about fishing. So keep writing, and don’t stop!

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  3. Philip Gabbard
    May 11, 2020 @ 6:38 pm

    Fantastic story Jack. Just fantastic!

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