Chapter Two
Freedom and Lies Along the Road
A Moment Like No Other
Walking.
And then…
Sitting, watching, waiting. Not waiting.
Taking in, all that is on this road.
And beyond.
And then…
Walking again.
This is much different from the travel bug I got (and still have) from my European adventure while in high school. This is my first experience with true hitchhiking.
Oh, I’ve hitched a few rides before; the kind people do to go from one part of their neighborhood to another. Of course, I don’t have much experience with that either though. I’m only nineteen but as a farm kid, I’m used to having my own car already. As a farm kid, I’ve been driving since I was twelve when Dad put me behind the wheel of our beat up old Farmall H Tractor. I’ve had my own car since I was fifteen.
Now I’m nineteen years old and truly on the road for the first time. My first time on the road… For real and without a car, hitchhiking alone. No one to answer to, no one to wait for, and no one expecting me… Well, I told Fred to expect me and my excited young mind is hoping he is. My excited young mind is expecting he is. My excited and creative young mind has made up a story that has put me on this road.
It’s the kind of story any nineteen year old with some talent and a little stage experience would gladly glom onto, with gusto. I’m going to get myself to Norfolk and hook up with my pal, the cool Fred Berdine and join his cool rock band. I’m going to be a roadie or do anything else they want me to do so I can go on the rock and roll road with them and perhaps get to eventually sing back up. Then…
Then who knows what kind of coolness I might be in for? Of course there will always be… girls!
Walking on this road (on US 64 just north of Enid, Oklahoma) in true hitchhiking mode, my excited young mind has all kinds of ideas like this. I have all kinds of ideas about my destination and a story that drives me towards it.
Sitting on this road (on my battered old suitcase my Dad gave me a million years ago) my truly free, hitchhiking young self has all kinds of time. I feel the excitement of anticipation, but I’m also feeling the true freedom that this road is a destination in itself. This road is it’s own story somehow.
Walking some more, I don’t really care if someone stops to give me a ride or not. I’m fine just walking. Feeling the true freedom of this unique and unfettered travel, this true hitchhiking. I’ve felt nothing like it before today. It’s a weekday today, early in the afternoon so there aren’t many cars anyway.
I stick out my thumb, nonchalantly. Not expecting anything. A car speeds by without notice. No matter. I keep walking. The walking becomes rhythmic, almost hypnotic. I start humming to myself as the whooshing sound of the car’s tires rolling on the road change pitch and fade into the distance. Hmmm… Perhaps I start making up a song… I have no idea now. In this, the next moment. I’m so free… my thoughts, this road and me.
It’s a moment like no other. A moment I will never have again. Nor do I wish to. Perhaps I should even be grateful to the “great George Heaton” for his part in getting me here.
Perhaps… ?
Nah…. George was an asshole and the only thing I have to be glad about when it comers to him is that I’ll never again have to deal with his shit.
EVER!
Sitting on my suitcase, the suitcase George had tossed out of that motel in Enid just half a day ago (yet half a lifetime now it seemed)… I hardly notice the beat up old ford pickup truck pass by that is now slowing down to a stop.
A ride? Cool!
Now I’m really on my way.
