Summing Up With Jackie Gleason

Toward the end of the book (Day 38), we were grateful to have the guy who looked like Jackie Gleason pick us up. It was a strategic pickup; not only regarding geography, but his conversation was on point.  He treated us with dignity, as equals.  He gave us respect and plenty of talk time to air out our minds.  He looked at our souls and not our dirty outward appearance.  He was a building contractor and amateur philosopher who said, “When you know the road, I guess you know almost everything a person needs to know.” Since we were nearing the end, relatively speaking (Omaha, Nebraska—but only one ride away from the ride that would get us to New Jersey), it gave us the chance to analyze all the changes we had gone through, to verbalize how much we had crammed into our travels, and to wax on about the knowledge it instilled into us. It’s one of my favorite parts of the book. It almost approaches “wisdom.” It sums up what I’d been wanting to say all book, that I was grateful for having the chance to take a venture of this magnitude. “What is hitchhiking in one sentence?” he asked each of us.  I answered, “It’s putting your life on a public thoroughfare and advancing your position through direct eye contact.” Otto answered, “It’s travelin’ on somebody else’s trust.” Every moment of that ride was filled with conversation like that.

The Accolades From Francis & Others

It sure was good hearing big-time accolades from people as we trekked across the country.  Most of these were actual utterances.  On Day 2, Francis (the guy who let us sleep in his backyard) hears us describe our previous hitchhiking trips, together and separately, and concludes, “Now you’re out on national tour.  That’s great.  Welcome.  You guys are heroes.” In California, there was Uncle Ralph. He listens to stories about delivering Starla’s baby and eluding the cowboys in Nevada, and says, “For either that or the baby alone, you guys should be on the cover of Life magazine . . . New Jersey to California—by thumb.  We got a couple of celebrities in the house, Betty.  We’d better treat these guys good.” In Southern California, the voice imitator, Jim Sills, who brings Roger to the backlots of Hollywood says (p. 265), “Most guys I pick up aren’t seeking the yin and the yang, like you. But you earned your way out here on your thumb, so you deserve to see this place.” In the laundromat, Joe Namath (or in real life, the guy who looked like Joe Namath), was anxious to shake my hand and said, “Gee, I always wanted to do that. It takes guts to come out here on your thumb.” The only thing I made up was in Utah on p. 85, when the female state trooper says to Roger after he delivers the baby, “The state of Utah is proud of you.  You guys are an inspiration to us mortals, both of you.”

Otto's Wedding Vows

The part where Otto professes his Christianity at the Bible study in Salt Lake City on Day 9 never happened.  Otto in real life was much too shy and introverted (and secure in himself) to stand up and make such a public proclamation, even if that’s what was moving him and were his true feelings.  He and I both sat there on the floor silently as the evalngelist was pleading for someone to come forward and be saved . . . not for me, because I had that signed profession of faith which I scribed a few months earlier and was home in my dresser drawer (that’s true). But this section needed a step-up, so I added in Otto coming forward "in humility"—one of the first things in the manuscript that I embellished. I wanted readers to know exactly what a typical Christian Bible study is like.  I didn’t want this section to be boring to those outside the faith, so that’s why I added the South Korean speaker communicating in broken English. For the pronouncement part at the end, I wanted to spice it up with a little humor, so in my mind, at least, the narrative is supposed to sound like wedding vows.  Otto repeats over and over, “I do,” with slight hesitation and trepidation, knowing this pronouncement is supposed to be good “forever.”

More Shreds About My Father's Willingness

My blog entry from the other day prompted my younger brother, Welles (known as ‘Willis’ in the book), to add more key components in figuring out, “Why did my father let his son hitchhike across America and back when I was still in high school?”  Welles writes, “By the time he was 19, Dad was a soldier, preparing to ship out to war. By age 20, he was overseas in uniform, in the line of enemy fire, giving his life to defend the Allied cause in World War II. If Dad was serving by 19, he figured by 17 you were ready to step into the adult world. He also said to me once that, given his tense relationship with you, he figured allowing you to get away for a summer would help improve relations, by giving you something to do and helping you to grow up. I also go back to Dad the boy scout. He learned a lot of self-sufficiency in the Scouts and figured you could benefit in similar ways on the road.” Thanks, Welles, for helping me to consider this aspect.  I’m grateful to finally getting insight to this puzzling question, which up until now has never been discussed or answered within my family.

Roger's Instant Poetry

As you surmise, I’ve thrown everything possible into this story. That includes taking a stab at poetry. It’s well hidden, but nevertheless it’s present. I guess it’s an attempt to show that Roger wants to be a creative dude. On the way out, he hears Otto recite a few simple things, like “Free is me,” and “It don’t mean a thing / If it ain’t got that swing” (apologies to Duke Ellington). Starting in San Francisco, Roger has a go at it as well. He blurts out, “Virgin mirth, glorious youth, sweet as nectar,” almost out of nowhere, to which Otto replies, “My pack’s too heavy to listen, Roger.” He also toys with what he calls “remixed Shakespeare.” On Day 14, after Otto jokingly calls Roger “a bleary-eyed bastard,” Roger comes back with, “You spleeny, dizzy-eyed wagtail.” That was gotten from a joke sheet that made the rounds a long time ago with fellow employees at Verizon, called “Make Up Your Own Shakespearian Insult,” which I’d been dying to use for years in a constructive way (thanks, Ed Rosado).  But does this impress Otto?  Hell no.  At the height of their argument in Southern California, Otto adds on the mustard and screams, “And your poetry sucks, Roger.” That doesn’t stop the phrases from coming out, however.  When the guys pull out of the Grand Canyon, Roger tells Otto, “I need sleep, sleep, sleep; deep, deep, deep; now, now, now.”  At the end of the book Otto tries one more time, “Sea to shining sea is me / Coast to coast / that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

My Father Answers, "Why Did I Let Him Go?"

Throughout the book it’s obvious Roger was a headstrong 17 year-old.  He probably would’ve defied orders by his parents to stop him from going on the trip. However, we never hear my father’s side of it. Ever since the book was published, my father, William E. Lobb, has been forced to open his mouth about several issues the book raises. “Why did I let my son take this trip?” is at the top of the list. For the first time ever, he answers, “My parents (Harrison and Sydna Lobb) always let me go to the Jersey shore for nights on end whenever I wanted. They were trusting when my brother, Jean, and I went down for a week-long trip when I was still in high school, I guess during spring break. We’d camp out in our sleeping bags, or in the car, living mostly in the sand dunes, just off the ocean. We had no money, but what fun. We disappeared for days. It was the greatest time of my life. My parents didn’t seem to mind. So when it came time for your trip, I decided it would be good for you.”

Dreams Projecting the Future

One of the things I’ve always believed is that dreams project the future.  I try to demonstrate that starting when the guys are in Nevada.  That's with Randy and his wife, the couple who eventually dump them in Elko for smelling so bad (or something like that).  During this ride, Roger falls asleep and has a dream about smearing a car’s windows with paint.  It’s an unusual vision . . . nothing that I’d ever witnessed in real life. Move forward 38 pages, though, to when the hippie solider from Fort Ord, the guy “looking for a way to go AWOL,” picks them up along the California coast. What kind of a car is he driving? A station wagon, "with all the windows painted black, except for the windshield." Exactly matching the dream. I guess that was his privacy statement. For purposes of the book, it shows how Roger’s dream from several days previous became reality. It projected the future. I don’t make a big deal out of it; I just put it out there and move forward. But it’s one of those things added for the sake of my own general life view.

Getting the Beach Boys Right

I tried my darnest to get the Beach Boys right at the end of Day 17.  This was a moment when are conditions were surreal—cold, windy night; standing on sandy ground a few feet away from the Pacific Ocean, being rescued for the night by a group of five surfers standing around a bonfire.  I had to turn them into the Beach Boys. It was already like walking inside of a dream . . . I just kept the dream going. 'Dennis Wilson' was the gregarious one, 'Mike Love' the realist, 'Carl Wilson' the fanciful, 'Alan Jardine' the worker bee, and leader 'Brian Wilson' standing around silently, directing the show, approving the action, but not saying a word. That was the situation as I remember it. They really lent us a pup tent, which was essential on a night like that. An illustrated book I used to own called Rock Dreams by illustrator Giy Peellaert and writer Nik Cohn depicted the Beach Boys in this type of setting: at the beach in the rain, standing around in bare feet, Dennis Wilson pumping up a flat tire, the other guys with a piece of wet cardboard over their heads, with the word ‘GREED’ etched across an old jalopy.  So it also seemed here.

The Female Game Changer

My friend Robert Linz, author of a cross-country bicycling book called Godspeed—Riding Out the Recession, pointed out that the voluptuous brunette described on Day 10, who anxiously wanted to pick me up, “would’ve changed the course of your life had you taken that ride.” So true. That was the day after Otto and I had gone to the Bible study in Salt Lake City and had our morals refreshed. The next morning, after Otto trotted off to get his canteen filled, this 30-year old gorgeous woman, with “bountiful curves barely covered by a denim sunsuit,” stopped along the ramp. She offered a ride to San Diego. Only thing, she was in a MG and had room for only me.  Not that we needed company; this would have been a honey hole. Otto was nowhere to be seen.  I turned her down, very reluctantly. That was fulcrum on which my life turned. Had I taken that ride, I may never have returned to New Jersey.  My friendship with Otto would have been destroyed.  There never would have been a book because the cross-country hitchhiking trip would have been nullified if not obliterated. That scene happened exactly as described. She had “cherry lips and bright teeth, and looked like an Alberto Vargas illustration from Playboy.” Forty years hasn’t dimmed my memory.

The Two New Hitchhikers

Let me deviate from talking about my book so I can jot down another entry pertaining to real-life happenings in the world of hitchhiking.  To help commemorate my book signing on Nov. 30, I've seen not just one but TWO hitchhikers on the road in the past two days! This is remarkable because it’s been years since I’ve seen any sort of thumbing activity. We didn’t pick up either guy and let me explain why. The first was as we made our way from church to the book signing. We passed a young man on the I-78 entrance ramp in Bloomsbury, NJ. He was tall and formidable, with a large backpack (no sign), standing openly in the correct manner; obviously an earnest long-distance traveler. With Andrea in the back, alas, we had no room for him. The second guy was on PA-378 south of Bethlehem, during a freezing rain. He was walking with traffic, definitely soliciting, arm held out, with money waving from his fingers. We couldn’t see his face, plus he was wearing a hoodie—so no pickup. I’d never seen a hitchhiker display money like that. As I reflected, it seemed like those are the two modes of thumbing: People who are purposefully on the road as an intentional way to reach a destination—meaning they WANT to hitchhike; and those who would never be out there except as a necessity, someone who has swallowed their pride and dignity and has no other options. The first maintains boldness in movement through the generosity of the hitchhiking network . . . the second is out there because there’s simply no other way to get there.

Ken's Book First Signing

My book signing at Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA, last Sunday, November 30, 2014 (about six miles from where I live), was more than just a rookie author sitting behind a table with big, publisher-supplied We Picked Up posters on either side of a pile of books.  It was more than talking about hitchhiking to both the indoctrinated and curious newbies who would never have thought of such a thing.  It was a culmination, a peak moment for me to be savored, a celebration of a life achievement. I proudly scribbled down my name on 17 books I (an interesting number considering the numerology in the book). Many people came out to support me. I give the biggest thanks to my younger brother, Welles.  He acted like a mini-MC, pulling people toward the table, saying, “This book will grab you from the first page and you won’t want to put it down. I’ve read it twice and there’s still more to get out of it.”  He articulated for me what would have been hard to do myself.  He made the book sound like a golden nugget under the Christmas tree, mentioning prominently that its exciting pages contain the full range of emotion that hitchhikers go through: the waiting, the frustration, the fear, the exhilaration, the freedom, the camaraderie, the loneliness, the spontaneity, the joy, the knocks. My wife, Wonza, beamed from afar, but also did her share of mingling with the shoppers on a busy black weekend day.  Chris Calvano sat with me for quite a long time as well. I appreciate his support—the only book he’s read from cover to cover in quite a long time. Those are the types of readers I had hoped to attract with this book. Something to get this country reading again. Overall it was a beautiful afternoon, exhausting when it was over, but fulfilling.

Want to Go Fast? Keep To the Right

‘Gerard zee Hairdresser’ from Day 25 gave us advice I still use everyday, pertaining to freeway driving. As he powered us south on I-5 though the southern San Joaquim Valley near Bakersfield, I report on page 223 that he fancied himself as “zee fastest safe driver on zee road.”  He stayed close to 100 m.p.h., mostly by staying in the righthand lane. “People are so busy passing,” he told us. “They leave zee slow lane wide open. That is my secret. Stay to zee right. That way you stay invisible to zee CHIPs.” He added, “Never give zee CHIPs a reason to stop you. Drive an American car with nothing fancy. Keep your papers up to date. I love when some fellow rolls out ahead of me. I do not challenge, do not get mad.  But I laugh when he gets a ticket—not me.” For those of us who like to zip down the highway, that is a feat worth remembering—both then and now.

Meeting Another Yankees Fan

A good contrast between now and then is on Day 8 when Roger comes across another person—in deep Wyoming—wearing a New York Yankees hat like himself. Roger is pleasantly astounded. He has a right to be. It was a big deal back then. That’s before the days of mass marketing, before the time of sports teams transcending their traditional, regional drawing areas. Even something as ubiquitous today as a Yankees cap (you see the classic interlocking ‘NY’ logo in every corner of the country, even the world today), was rare. It prompts an immediate kinship between Roger and the driver. They talk Yankees.  Would that happen today? Hah. If you start a conversation about the Yankees out of the blue with a total stranger, say at an airport, just because of the hat, you’ll at least get a strange stare with the question behind it, “What does this guy want?”  It would lead to suspicion.  Not in 1971.  Seeing another person wearing your sports cap was cause for bonding, especially if that team was America’s baseball team, the damn Yankees.

The Big Stuff

All right, now I will reveal what stuff is made up. There are more “big’s” than “small’s.”  I’ve already said I added a day at Hearst Castle.  That never happened on the original trip, but my wife and I had a great time there in about 1998.  My mind quickly deduced that the experience needed to find its way into the book. Backtracking into Hollywood (Day 31) never happened, either. But it DID happen to me on a second solo hitchhiking trip I took to California in 1975. Again, I inserted it later—seeing the need for its presence. Spending a day unloading furniture (pages 225-227) also happened to me by myself long after the trip, in Michigan, during a summer vacation from college. The biggest thing that never happened (drum roll) was the side trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (starting at page 300 and extending into all of Day 34). This includes the entire relationship with 'Gwen.' The character is based on a cute waitress I once worked with in the 1980’s, named Gwen, from Manville, N.J. with whom I had an acquaintanceship, nothing more. The whole part at the Grand Canyon is just my imagination running wild . . . maybe fulfilling a decades-old fantasy about Gwen. You know how Milt pulls down Gwen’s pants in the van on page 302 for Roger’s viewing pleasure, and he lays mute in the back of the truck enjoying Gwen’s bare butt? That happened to me on yet another solo hitchhiking venture in Minnesota in 1973. It was with a group of traveling hippies. Right next to me in the back of a van, in the middle of the night, a girl’s pants were taken down. I silently soaked it up.

Small Changes

Here are some of the other small changes I made, in no particular order:  That sleazeball hitchhiker snake Matt’s (Day 37) real name was Rick, but I didn’t want people to confuse him with Rick Nelson. I never played beach volleyball with a 50-member church youth group as described on page 259. We started the trip on Monday, June 28, not Sunday, June 27, because I added a day at Hearst Castle but still wanted the numbers to add up 7-17-71 when I got struck by lightning (a true story). Bill’s ride in the camper across Wyoming, therefore, was not actually July 4 but July 5.  When Otto and I crossed the border into California on Day 11, I never made the suggestion to go to Lake Tahoe Village.  Neither of us were familiar with the lake at all; therefore the opportunity blew by us without even realizing it. I added it in later only because I’ve since been to Lake Tahoe and loved it, and figured readers would want to see the place at least mentioned. There are many small things like that, but honestly it’s too tough to remember them all. I’m just glad I had the sense to call this a novel and not a memoir.

That's Infotainment!

I laughingly call my novel 'infotainment,' I think.  That’s its sub-level category. According to Wikipedia, infotainment is information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content. It's done in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers.  I guess that’s what I’m shooting for, a combination of the two (doubling the pleasure?). I tried to cram plenty of factual events in my novel, spanning the world of politics, communication, geography, education, sports, music, the atmosphere of the 1970’s, and so on. The lives of the main characters and the people they meet are largely as you read about them. In that way, it’s journalism. It's a blog, a diary, a true-to-life rendition of the facts. But it’s also entertainment. It has to grab attention, and therefore be embellished in certain spots. I tried to include as much “color” in the events and characters as possible. I tried to make Roger and Otto’s lives “stranger than fiction”—even when it turned reality on its ear. Meeting Joe Namath in a laundromat (page 271-272)? Nah, never happened. But the story seemed to call for it at that spot. The spiteful cowboy getting his foot caught in an animal trap (page 108-109)? It’s all true except for that animal trap . . . the whole “get out of town by sunrise” story needed a mini-climax, so I gave it one. Hanging overnight on a boat in a marina (Day 18)? That happened to me, but not on this trip, and not with Otto.  My sister and I had two friends named Harry and Mary who lived on a boat on the Jersey Shore about 20 years after I took the trip. That story comes from there.

No Same Meal, No Same Car

Two other things I worked on—since I had about forty years to think about it—was to make sure the guys never eat the same meal twice, nor does the same model of car pick up the guys more than once. I didn’t want Roger and Otto always stopping at McDonald’s for a Big Mac. Maybe Otto would have been content doing that, but Roger followed the decree, “We try to go alternative.” This is not gourmet food we’re talking about; it's American standard fast-food: burgers, fries, potato chips, sandwiches, sides, omelets, sausage, BBQ chicken. But still I mixed it up. I remember Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novel, The Garden of Eden, never repeated the same food twice. So doing that in my book was a personal quest. Same thing as with the vehicles that pick the guys up. All different makes, models, and years. I pulled out as many styles from 1971 that I could:  AMC Ambassador, Dodge Colt, ’63 Porsche, Ford Econoline, GMC Sierra pickup, International Scout, a former Wonder Bread truck, etc. Of course models earlier than that were used as well. Why be boring? It helps keep rides and characters distinct from one another. It’s one of those embedded things that readers may not notice, but it gives every character in the book, no matter how minor, their own space to shine.

All 50 States Mentioned

A cool thing I was able to accomplish, in my mind at least, was to mention all fifty states in the book.  This happened in a very natural way, but also with a little fudging and conniving where needed. I write on page 6, “Adding to our roll call of states was major.” So we were going all out to collect states. The travel route itself gave me 19 new states to talk about, I think, but that was a far cry from 50. So during the editing and rewriting process, I kept a sheet of paper handy and started adding more state names when logical or convenient:  “The sun slanted west over the Pacific, with Hawaii an incredible 3,000 miles away.” “I met up with a couple of guys who hitchhiked down from Washington and Oregon the day before.” “Places like New Mexico and Oklahoma have hardly been settled yet.” “We ran into a guy with a sheepdog who was on his way to Alaska.” “Eric and Jake were headed back to their home in Rhode Island.”  etc.  That sentence about Eric and Jake was definitely not where those two guys were from (I don't remember where anymore), but I needed to get Rhode Island in there somewhere, so . . . That’s part of the magic of writing a novel rather than a memoir. You can switch around things like that, to make it fit the point you’re trying to make.

Not The Ultimate 1960's Book

All throughout its writing history, there were many times I wished I could’ve taken this trip two years earlier, say in 1969, so I’d be able to call it, tongue-in-cheek or not, “the ultimate 1960’s story.”  After all, there are so many hippie ideals and characteristics from the 60’s brought to the forefront: long hair, rebellion, freaks, alternative lifestyles, life in the moment, free love, mind-bending drugs, cool music, promoting peace, gentleness, optimism, etc. But the book takes place in 1971, so calling it a 60’s tome was always out.  The truth was, we were too young to appreciate the 1960’s. We missed everything. Nor did we have the life experience to put the 60’s into perspective. On page 182, Trish (several years older) asks the guys with envy, “Did you go to Woodstock?  That’s around where you live, isn’t it?” Otto says, “I know people who went,” but couldn’t include himself. He would only have been fifteen in 1969, and his parents were too square and protective. Roger adds, “There was no direct way to hitchhike.” That’s another roundabout admission that events like Woodstock in 1969 were simply out of reach. Another reason I can’t call this a 60’s book: Things were already changing quite a bit by 1971. New laws made it tougher to hitchhike; corporations were merging into mega-companies (Esso became Exxon in 1972); protesting against the war in Vietnam was being squashed by President Nixon’s paranoia, and inflation and increases in interest rates was rampant.  Life had changed ever so slowly but definitively. My book is not about the 1960’s.

Upcoming Book Signing

I am excited about my upcoming book signing to be held at the Moravian Book Shop, 428 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA, on Sunday, November 30, 2014, between 1-3 p.m.  I’ve sent out almost fifty postcard invitations to family, local friends, business acquaintances, church members, and Facebook friends who may want to support me. I’m going to have a backpack as a prop, and hang two large, 18″ x 24″ laminated We Picked Up posters that my publishing company, Balboa Press sent me, on either side of the signing table. An important component will be the presence of my brother, Welles, a book enthusiast. He will act as a type of informal MC to get shoppers excited, and he’ll also participate in a few short readings we have planned, to read the voice of Otto George. I also sent an invitation to the real-life Otto George, though I’ve got no expectations that he’ll show up.  Just like I say on page 123, it’s like we are latter-day Paul McCartney and John Lennon, working separately-but-together on The White Album. It still seems true today. He is a brilliant personality, but doesn’t seem to want anything to do with this project or me.

California Border Threatened

As we finally reached the California border on Day 11, the thrill of crossing the state line was accentuated by some of the most magnificent scenery I’ve ever seen.  This was heading uphill into the Sierra Nevada mountains and Donner Pass region. I remember a speckled forest filled with western white pine, Red fir, and aspens.  There were natural streams and wildlife everywhere. The air was fragrant beyond description.  It was chock-full of nature. As I say on page 122, heavy snow came up almost to the interstate, and this was July 7!  Sadly, this spectacular entrance into California no longer seems to hold true.  About 15 years ago my wife and I drove the same route, I-80 westbound, trying to approximate the trip by auto. I was shocked by what I saw at the Nevada-California state line.  The mountainous land west of the border had been stripped of its trees. It looked naked and forlorn—orphaned and sickly. Perhaps insects got into the wood, or more likely humans. The once-expansive beautiful highlands and lush glens were obliterated to make way for people and their relentless busywork. The whole eco-system looked broken down and dysfunctional. Wildlife surely had been chased away. The region was stripped of its pride and natural wonder. Shame on us.

The Post Office Motto

The United States Post Office has no official creed or motto.  However, inscribed in marble on the front of the main New York City branch are the words: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That’s where Roger and Otto (or I should say Ken and Ray, originally) picked up their motto for the trip, found on page 3: “Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night is going to prevent these two thumbs from acing this trip!” We actually referred to that statement several times during the course of our travels, reminding one another that we had to stay tough; that “team” had to be kept ahead of individual; that we needed to stay united if we wanted to finish the trip. Starting out as a unit was no problem; we were tight as sardines. As nerves started to fray several weeks in, that ideal got pushed to the limit. Roger accuses Otto of being selfish and looking out for only himself. But of course Roger acts that way, too. Roger seems to forfeit his personal safety during the Duffy fiasco for sake of “team,” and is slighted and disillusioned when Otto doesn’t do the same in Southern California when he has a flirtation with Kelly Cooper and wants to take a side trip to Whittier. By the time we hit the words “we picked up” on 297, all is patched up.

Getting Stoned

What would a “coming of age” novel from the 1970’s be if there weren’t some kind of drug use?  So it is with my book.  Marijuana makes itself known at three junctures.  Roger’s reaction shows a steady, though sometimes reluctant, learning curve.  As the stoner dudes in western Iowa pull out a joint and Roger knows he’s confronted with a decision, he at first says no—reminiscing about his lone, mostly negative drug experience with hash two years before at the high school, behind the football bleachers. But since hippie freakazoid Otto also refuses, throwing off the genteel balance in the car, Roger accepts. That restores the energy. He claims he feels nothing afterward, but images dancing in his head about music, Amy, and “the number of revolutions it takes a wheel to go 3,000 miles” defy his conclusion.  In Colorado with the Indian girls, having a pow-wow in the middle of an open field, he is more interested in corralling Alvah for a roll in the hay than smoking pot with a genuine peace pipe. Finally, on the way back home in California (pages 280-282), with newfound friends Detroit and Paul McCartney, Roger partakes in a “proper” stoner experience, being fully integrated with the other dudes, during which he senses being connected to “Eternal Source Energy.” These experiences are a far cry from the heroin use described by William S. Burroughs in novels like Junky and Naked Lunch.  There’s no cocaine use nor pills. Drugs are around, but Roger sets his limit with a few tokes of weed.

Amy Weisburg

When I wrote the first draft years ago, there were two or three "girlfriends" strewn about the narrative, almost haphazardly.  None of them were strongly connected to me—in real life, nor the book. My creative writing teacher, John Livecchi, said, “Ken, why don’t you and your friend just have one girlfriend apiece, and stick with that? Otherwise, it’s too confusing.” That’s how Amy Weisburg was born, and the others dropped.  That’s her real first name; her last name was G________ . She was the daughter of a chiropractor who worked across the street from the high school in Flemington. No composite—my Amy is that Amy. She and I never had a midnight date nestled down next to Raritan River, “necking and munching on cheese doodles,” as it says on page 7, but our handful of dates were strong enough, and sexually charged enough, to make her a real possibility for the future. The fact that she turns down Roger in Epilogue 1 testifies that we weren’t really THAT close, but maybe Roger built her up in his mind in his usual over-confident way. (Amy G. and I had a spurt years later, but that’s another story). When I worked at a factory outlet store in 1979, selling dishware, I worked with a sweet Flemington girl named Amy Weisburg.  I told her, “I’m going to honor you by using your name in my book as the character’s girlfriend,” to which she agreed. So even though there’s a real-life Amy Weisburg, it’s the other Amy who’s in the book.

Getting Naked

How could the “California Experience” be complete if there wasn’t a section on getting naked and communing with nature in the altogether?  That’s why I took my time describing the diverse action at Big Sur on pages 167-171.  It happened upland at the Big Sur Gorge, fed by the clean, rushing Big Sur River. What you read is exactly how it went down.  My intent was to show society “as it should be,” in total freedom, with no one being bothered or upset should someone decide to drop his or her drawers.  Indeed, it was a playground paradise!  Though there were plenty of tasty sights (if I say so myself), the point I am trying to make with all this comes when Otto and Roger are heading out of the park. Roger spots the beautiful Polynesian girl back at her own campsite, “stirring goulash in a pot with a stick.”  She is still topless, going about her cooking just as calm as can be.  As the guys pass her, Roger and the woman nod to one another, with serious direct eye contact. Roger tells Otto, “You’re seeing society as it should be, friend.  Freedom heightens the jocular.  That’s our basic formulation for the 1970’s and beyond.”  Otto agrees.  That calls for an “Amen,” with no reason to alter my opinion today!

Otto's Nature

I tried my best to describe Otto’s character throughout not only by talking about his ideas and moods and philosphy a lot (it seems like he was Roger’s hero when they started out) but by a technique I stumbled upon—coupling his ‘O’ name with a lot of other ‘O’ adjectives.  For instance, right on page 1 Roger describes his friend as “Otto the Outermost.”  When he’s mysterious, like at the Mississippi River when he cuts his toe, he turns into “Otto the Opaque.”  He switches to “Otto the Open-Minded” when the two marijuana guys pick up the guys in western Iowa, but then reverts back to “Otto the Ox” for his unwillingness to budge his position when Alvah the Indian girl invites three extra guys on their trip to Montana (a possibility which never comes to be).  So there’s positive alongside the negative. In all, I’ve got at least sixteen “Otto the ________ ” places throughout the book.  Hopefully they help to form a complete picture, mostly in a playful, though thoughtful way.

Roger's Stat Sheet

When you write a novel based on your own experiences, it’s tough to write about the character of “you” without sounding like a pompous ass or total idiot.  I fought over this in my mind constantly during the edits of the manuscript.  How much to put in; how much to leave out?  I got criticized by one early reader who said he couldn’t form a picture of Roger because there were few too details given about his background. That’s why I eventually developed a type of stat sheet for Roger, found on page 2, so that readers will know his height (5’10”) and weight (150); his eye color (olive); his cultural/spiritual background (WASP); and what he’s like in school (a content ‘B’ student who concentrates more on extracurricular activities like student council than hard-core academics).  Family stuff is filled in by the time the guys get to Colorado—showing he feels more affection for his siblings than his parents. The back ‘n forth with Trish on page 182 provides even more:  he’s an Aquarius, favorite color is green, favorite number is 4, and his favorite kid’s toy is Slinky. Aunt Betty provides ancestry details on Day 20:  Roger is equal parts English, Welsh, Irish, and Flemish.  Beyond that, let the actions of the character fill in the rest.  That’s Roger Jonathan Winans, a.k.a. Kenneth Lobb at age seventeen.

"We Are Respectable Gentlemen"

One of the main points I wanted to drive home about the story is these two characters are decent, likable, and responsible souls; and that the action of hitchhiking itself is a nonthreatening, entertaining, and even honorable form of transportation.  It really bugged me when I did a Google search on the term “we picked up,” (prior to this website being pasted up), and the first entry to pop up was, “I got picked up by a weirdo.”  How wrong and twisted the world is to promote an idea like that, to perpetuate the evil myth of hitchhiking.  I don’t care what year we’re talking about. Travel into the 1970’s, at least, always turned up one or two teams of hitchhikers along the highway.  It was accepted. Sure, it wasn’t for everyone.  Maybe it took guts to get out on the road, and it was bold to some extent. But it hardly seemed dangerous.  Early on, Roger yells at a passing Mercedes Benz, “Girl, you have no idea how respectable we are.  She lost her chance to participate in the great undertaking.” In Colorado he yells to another car, “We’re not going to assault you, people!  Take a chance, take a chance.” Detroit sums up my philosophy on page 280, “It’s bull that hitchhiking is dangerous.  I’ve never met friendlier people.  What driver you know ain’t offered to give the shirt off his back, with directions, tips, food, or even a place to stay? I’ve got no patience for anyone who tells me I’m crazy for hitchhiking.” That is exactly what I would say—when I was 17.

From Roger to Rodney to Raj

Roger gets a couple of new names at several points, both prompted by the presence of girls. On Day 28 and 29, with Cindy Latourette acting frisky at the beach, Roger rechristens himself as ‘Rodney.’ Why?  “To counterbalance Cindy’s heavy interest in motorcycles and drag racing.”  Perhaps that sounds like a non sequitur; why would ‘Rodney’ sound like a gearhead name any more than Mario or Jimmy or Mike?  Maybe because of the use of connecting rods in automobiles, say, from the crankshaft to the piston?  I dunno. Anyway I’ve known a heckofalota guys into cars whose name is Rod.  Otto altered his name to ‘Omar’ for that stint as well. As for ‘Raj,’ that is what Gwen calls Roger at the Grand Canyon on Day 34.  He’s taken by surprise by it but steps into the role wholeheartedly. Raj is Sanskrit which apparently comes from the same root as Roger in English, German, and French. For Gwen, however, who gives him the name, it’s a term of endearment. She is Buddhist. Raj would seem to be more of a Hindu name than Buddhist, but Gwen names him ‘Raj’ to set him apart for herself, to make their union special. It’s just exotic enough to gain Roger’s full attention.

Abbie Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was an American activist who co-founded the Youth International Party (Yippies) and was allegedly behind the plot to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Presidential Convention. He was heavily involved in protesting the Vietnam War, with women’s rights, and civil rights.  He enters the life of the book in a big way on Day 8, when the Indian girl Natasha introduces Steal This Book to Roger and Otto.  From there, almost everything with the guys is Abbie, Abbie, Abbie.  We were obsessed (and entertained) with his countless tips on how to rip off meals, phone calls, housing, transportation, etc. We talked about his skills almost every idle moment at the height of this mania. We were intrigued that a book could be rejected by 30 publishers and still make it to the light of day. His advice came in handy on a couple of occasions, like stowing away overnight in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and making free phone calls back home to our girlfriends. Mostly it was tepid stuff, but everything he said to do worked. Sooner or later the idea struck, “This guy is immoral, unethical, and just plain nasty!”  Roger is rather relieved when the book disappears . . . after all, that’s the title. He reasons, “That book has no other fate.”  Years later, I bought a copy at a used book store in New York for $20 (cover price 95 cents) and still have it on my shelf, yellowing pages and all.

Was Fetching a Pail of Water Going Too Far?

One of the most iconic, recognizable lines in all of literature is from the children’s nursery rhyme, “Jack and Jill.” We all know the boy and girl went up the hill . . . to fetch a pail of water. That was written about 1765, according to Wikipedia. Turn to my book, Day 16.  On page 161 Roger is trying to make inroads with the cute teenager Laura Gwynne at the Big Sur campground. He’s looking for a chance to talk to her without any family around, to ask for a date. “She started down the footpath, bucket in hand, to fetch a pail of water.” Now, I’m not apologizing for borrowing that line. Nor am I inferring this is plagiarism, please. But was it appropriate for me, the author, to lift such a well-known phrase and drop it into my story? I don’t exactly lose sleep at night over this, but I keep wondering if keeping it in the final version was it too cutesy and lightweight and pompous . . . or is it a savvy rendering? Does the way I use it breathe new life into the Jack and Jill connection? I must say, the words slid right into place from the start and never budged once over the years—enduring many rewrites and re-edits. It’s like a modern, updated use of that line, so I say it stays. I’m actually paying homage to the original.

Was Otto a Hippie?

At first glance, the answer to the question is absolutely yes.  Otto has the long blonde hair streaming down below his shoulders.  He’s got the laid-back attitude, the liberal mind-set, and a come-what-may approach.  He’s the freak who the straight-laced cowboys can’t stand on Day 9.  He’s the one who suggests “time off” during a trip, when seemingly all time is “off.” He’s got tales from his far-out drug infused friends, he’s got casual sex with his girlfriend, and he’s vocal against the Vietnam War.  Yet still, there’s something wrong with this picture that makes one question how much of a hippie was Otto.  He is stubborn, stern, and unapologetic—hardly qualities of someone from the mellow Love Generation.  Instead of waving flowers in the name of peace, he wants to wage war, throwing around his weight (or at least his height) when he perceives he’s been wronged.  He’s cock-sure of so many things and won’t budge.  Even Roger declares on page 66, “Once his mind was set, Otto the Ox was tough to budge.” So who knows who wins in the hippie category, Roger or Otto.  Roger seems to grow into it as the story rolls along, while Otto seems to back out of it.  Comments welcome on this one.

Was Roger a Hippie?

Was Roger a hippie? Not if you ask me. He was too boxed in by his middle-class upbringing for that; too innocent, too sheltered, too unexposed. I guess this is part of his charm; why people might identify with him as Mr. Whitebread. He had no opinion or even much knowledge about the Vietnam War while scads of people were vocally putting it down. Remember, he hadn’t been anywhere of note in seventeen years, and wasn’t a reader. He was fresh out of the can, kind of pure and unadulterated. His hair was on the short side. He wasn’t allowed to wear bell-bottomed trousers. It stands to reason that if Roger’s parents let him go on the trip, they should have been ultra-liberal, mind-expansion adventurers.  They weren’t. They were conservative, vote-for-Eisenhower, we-don’t-mix ‘n mingle people. It sounds like a contradiction, though it’s obvious Roger picks up some chomps as the trip progresses, while the parents keep their heads in the sand. I think it’s true when Roger explains on page 26, “It was easy for me to take up and go, because I would have gone whether my parents gave me permission or not.” I think my sheer audacity put my parents in a mood of resignation and hoping for the best.

Roger's Top Ten Rock Groups

I guess it’s no surprise, but the list of Roger Winans’ top ten rock bands found on page 24 is exactly the same as my list would have been in 1971:  1.  The Beatles  2.  The Rascals  3. Sly & the Family Stone 4. Three Dog Night 5. Rolling Stones 6. Chicago 7. Beach Boys 8. Blood Sweat & Tears 9. Bob Dylan 10. The Doors. Finding the Beatles in the top slot would be expected; how can you beat that? The biggest surprise is probably The Rascals, since they faded from public consciousness so quickly after their mid-60’s “Good Lovin'” and “People Got to Be Free” heyday. But I still liked them even though the original four weren’t intact anymore—they were a group to call “my own.” Same with Three Dog Night. For a short time, 3DN was the most popular group in America with its three male lead singers. Like it says on page 2, “I liked blue-eyed soul on my stereo and tall brunettes in tight Levis.” Having Sly Stone on the list shows that I like soul. The Beach Boys couldn’t be excluded since they were still actively touring. Then there’s the two horn groups, Chicago, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.  The only solo act is Bob Dylan.  The Rolling Stones come in at a respectable five and The Doors round out the list at number ten. I think it’s a valid compilation. Then again, as the text says, “I crumpled up the sheet and threw it away. After all, the Beatles had broken up.”

Four Bucks a Day Aspect

One of the things I find myself highlighting when I talk about the book is how we were on a scant budget of four dollars a day.  It’s one of those amazing facts that seem so unreal in today’s world of mass inflation and over-protective financial security.  Yet, true.  We carried it in traveler’s cheques. We operated quite well on four dollars a day, and usually stayed well below it. Of course, I needn’t mention prices back then weren’t what they are today.  But the other aspect is we didn’t have a lot of need to spend money.  It wasn’t a sight-seeing tour . . . we were out there to put miles under our belts. We never paid for a motel, of course.  We never paid for a ride (two exceptions were by public bus:  when the guys go from downtown San Francisco to Golden Gate Park; and in Hollywood when Roger pays 85 cents to get himself back to Huntington Beach). There were no souvenirs, no film other than the one roll in my camera, no new clothes, not even payment for a phone call. So money was quite under control, thank you!

The Power Effect (Norman Mailer)

Here are some words from author Norman Mailer that describe the plight of the written word in this high tech-advanced age of the 21st century:  “If you grew up in the 1930’s and 1940’s as I did, you had the feeling that writers were the marrow of the nation, the nutrient.  In the course of my life I’ve seen everything else take over.  The novel now rides in a sidecar. At least in professional sports, the athletes say I’m getting the money because I’m the best in my field.  In literature it’s exactly the opposite.  It’s the mediocrities who make the mega sums.  That was always true to a degree, but it has intensified considerably.  The notion that what you put into a book is going to have a powerful effect is a notion that’s harder and harder to maintain.  Part of the ability to keep writing over the years comes down to living with the expectation of disappointment.  In capitalism you want your business to succeed, and to the degree it does, your energy increases.  With writing, you just want to keep the store going.  You’re not going to do as well this year as last year, probably.  It doesn’t offer as much fun and reward as you thought when you embarked on it.”

The Celebrity Sightings

Throughout the book, as a way to describe various people drifting through, I often wrote “this driver looked like Stevie Wonder,” or that person “had a Bob Dylan beard.”  On the cold, cold, night on Day 17, the guys hook up around a campfire next to the Pacific Ocean, with a quintet who “look like the Beach Boys.”  Later on, of course, is the double section featuring Detroit and Paul McCartney. A friend who read an early manuscript said, “Say Ken, your characters meet a lot of people who look like celebrities . . . just one time, why don’t have you them meet the actual person?”  That’s how the section with Joe Namath came about (Day 32).  Again, as it happened on the trip it was only a person who looked like Namath, but for the book I turned it into him actually being there.  A stretch? Maybe.  Most people accept it as just one more fantastical sequence.  Ironically, just last night (in real life) I had a dream that I WAS friends with Joe Namath.  So who knows, maybe at some point in my life it’ll come true.  For now, “Joe” in the book is an embellishment.

Yelling at Cars

One thing any hitchhiker can tell you is that a cool pastime is yelling at cars.  Out in the open air, you can yell (or sing) or shout anything you want, because the sound drifts off fast and becomes inaudible.  So it’s an excellent tool for blowing off steam and frustration. You give passing cars a piece of your mind, but it won’t come back to haunt you. I used this technique frequently during this trip.  “Come on people, show me some red, white, and blue,” I yell on Day 1.  In Colorado on Day 7, I yell, “Come on Colorado, take a chance!  We’re not going to assault you.”  In Utah two days later, I yell with a high degree of consternation, “Those simple-faced bastards! We could’ve fulfilled them! Why didn’t you stop?  Tell me?  Tell me!”  Otto and I did this all across America (especially me). It really gets across what’s on your mind.

Tight Friends Become Unwound

Prior to the trip, Otto and I never would have dreamed about quarreling or saying a cross word to each other. We were closest of friends, happy and cheerful, operating in a tight world of “we.” We didn’t need to consider differing opinions or asking how the other felt—we were conjoined and totally united as best buddies. That’s the way the trip started out. But it didn’t stay that way. Our first rub came at the Mississippi River, when Roger criticized Otto for swimming in a forbidden area, and Otto paid for it with a bleeding toe. The spat continued in western Iowa, as we squabbled whether or not to backtrack to Sioux City to retrieve Otto’s lost canteen.  I called that our first “official” argument, as he stormed to McDonalds by himself and I stayed behind at the Little Red Barn.  The next outburst happened in Reno, Nevada, over the logistics of crashing a motel pool.  Then San Francisco, then Big Sur, then Hanford.  All adding up tension. By the time we got to Southern California, the friction was prickly. He and I were barely civil to each other, acting jealous or juvenile and/or trying to out-do the other.  Otto getting stood up by a girl (Denise Latourette) on a double date was the last straw.  He exploded and stayed in a snit for about four days. It might be frivolous to our mature sensibilities, but to a 17 year-old kid, he was bruised and I was battered.

The Last Thing I Wrote

The last thing I wrote for this book was the first paragraph. The opening salvo, from Day 1. No lie, it was one of the most troubling, tricky passages I wrote for this book. The beginning words always sounded so dry and flat. That’s even though I start off with the characters already on the road and already with two rides under their belts. Of course the beginning is when you need a big bang, to be at your most witty and poetic, but not to overstate it. I tried a hundred different combinations of words and ideas. I knew it was going to be something about Otto, since that’s how I saw it in my mind, but exactly WHAT was the problem. You want every word to count, but not make it too much of a mouthful. I’m still not happy about the opening three sentences, but there comes a time when you stop tweaking and leave it alone.

The Funniest Part

The funniest story in the book to me, without a doubt, is on the way back when the guys are picked up in the desert in an old white Ford station wagon, courtesy of 'sick Ted’ and his mother—the woman who is “fat as a whale.”  This is from the beginning of Day 33, pages 287-294. They are enroute to Las Vegas, probably to an emergency visit to the doctor. Roger sees cars by the dozen on the side of the highway, disabled, whose radiators couldn’t take such heat in 1971.  He’s glad they’re not one of them.  Before long, they ARE among them.  And Roger and Otto are still feuding like bobcats.  Ted tries three times to let the car cool down at a service station, but the car finally dies.  Roger and Otto push the heap through the white hot heat, with Otto cursing at him under his breath.  This section is highly entertaining every time I read it.  This section, with Ted and his fat mother, has had the least bit of editing over the years.  I barely touched it.  The story came out virtually intact, and I thought best to leave a good thing alone.

The Amount of Cursing?

One person who read the book—a baby-boomer of about sixty who seems normal in all ways—said by way of making an opening comment about my writing, “I struggled coming to terms with all the four-letter words.”  Come again? I purposely kept the amount of bad language to a minimum. If anything, I thought I'd be ostracized for being a goodie-goodie rather than a scoundrel who loads up on curse words. I declare innocence on this one. Roger, for one, almost never swears. He says “shit” for the first time on page 65 and I don’t think he ever utters the ‘f’ word.  Otto is more verbose, especially as tension heats up in Southern California, and says some pretty incredible things, like penis head, twat plug, and kiss my anus. But I forgive that, too. If there’s any bad language, it’s with the drivers who picked us up. Archie the drunk swears a lot, but that adds to his colorful character, right?  The cowboys in Nevada who ordered us out of town by sunrise swore because they were mad.  But just to say swear words are used indiscriminately . . . no way. I saved them for the truly explicit situations.

The 'O' Words

Do you like the way I associate all those ‘O’ words with Otto?  Hopefully that helps describe him and the situation, but equally as important, gives insight to our sense of humor.  As a writer, it was fun to toy with.  On page 1 he’s Otto the Outermost, to let the reader know he is the cream of the crust, and far out there as well.  A real gem. It doesn't stay that way.  He gets called Otto the Onlooker, Otto the Oscillator, and Our Otto. Halfway in, as things begin to sour, I call him Otto the Ox to show his inflexibility and Otto's Obtinance.  Unfortunately that turns into Otto the Opaque.  By the end of the story he’s back to Otto the Optimist, so all is good.  I need to collect all the times I reference the ‘O’ word . . . must be 20 times or so. All in good fun.

Riding With a Trucker

Every time I read the book, I am amazed all over again how our first BIG ride came via a tractor-trailer (ride #3).  For all the hitchhiking I did prior to that, which was fairly considerable but local, that would have been the furthest thing from my mind.  Tractor-trailer drivers seemed to be in a category all their own:  tough, mean, hard, uncompromising.  Not amenable to thumbing. The impression I always had was they didn’t bother with hitchhikers—they were too focused on getting their products to their destination. Or else their company had a “no hitchhikers” policy; or else they couldn't care less.  So to see this giant 18-wheeler stopped along the side of busy Route 22 for us . . . what a rush.  I've heard of some hitchhikers of the time soliticting at truck stops, and hop from truck stop to truck stop, but remember—I had never even HEARD of a truck stop when we started out.  Thank you, Tom Pavallow wherever you are.  He got us 500 miles further west. That’s his real name, by the way.  Never had a reason to change it.

40 Years Hard Labor

There’s no denying that since the trip took place in 1971, and this is 2014, the manuscript was a 40-year labor of love, give or take a few years.  I started this with my original diary and assorted recollections. The earliest manuscripts sprang from there.  I first started sending the book to publishers in the late 1970’s, perhaps six or seven years out, and the rejections poured in.  I almost caught on with Penguin Viking in 1983 . . . it was read by three different editors. But in the end, “I regret to tell you, Mr. Lobb . . . blah, blah, blah.”  Somehow, I felt compelled to push the envelope forward. After I finished every new draft I’d always think, “This is the one—now it’s finished.” But after another round of rejections I’d tuck the manuscript away for a few years, to let it season.  When I’d pull it out for inspection with fresh eyes, I’d think, “Now I know why this bundle of trash got rejected, you hack—there is so much more work to be done.”  And I’d go at it some more.  There's something to say for persistance when you don't have the talent. My “official position” is that I’m glad it took so long to get published, because the quality wouldn’t be nearly as high.  Pulp writers like myself use time as our ally.

The Safety Latch

If you read closely, you’ll see Otto and I had one constant rule concerning safety while hitchhiking.  After getting in, we would take a moment to study the door handle mechanism, how it opened, how to get out quickly.  On Day 1 with trucker driver Tom Pavallow, I write, “Out of habit only did I locate the door handle.”  That's because it was standard procedure on EVERY ride, no matter how benign the driver’s personality.  We had to know how to get out of there, if need be.  Alas, on Day 36 we finally got to execute this emergency procedure. We rode into Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the drunk cowboy in street clothes, who got annoyed that we didn’t think much of his companionship at the Frontier Days festival and who says, “You guys is better bullshitters than I am!  Now come on!  I ain’t gonna let you out of this car until you say’s I can buy you a drink.” That was a scary moment. His anger was building fast.  We might’ve exited the car successfully, but you know it was just the beginning of a night of hell.

Duffy's Real Name was Rocky

Here’s an interesting twist:  Duffy’s real name was actually Rocky.  Duffy is the bully from Day 21 who beats the pulp out of Roger after Roger acts too cavalier and over-confident around him and his hoodlum friends.  But how can you use the name ‘Rocky’ with a straight face?  You can’t.  That franchise is owned by Sylvester Stallone.  Didn't want to step on HIS toes. I didn’t want the reference about toughness to be THAT close. Also, Rocky is kind-hearted. Duffy was nasty to the core.  True, “my” Rocky came about five years before the first film about the Italian Stallion was released in 1976. But as soon as Stallone hit it big, I was keen to change the name.  That would be leading the reader too much, being too suggestive.  Duffy is another name from my childhood, so it worked out.  He was a neighborhood bully who used to terrorize us younger kids on his bicycle, riding out of the woody playground with menace and meanness.  So as soon as the Rocky movies started to come out, I was more than happy to change my character’s name to Duffy.

There Weren't Always Chapters

There weren’t always chapters in this book.  It was originally conceived, and executed, as one long unwavering piece without separation, from opening sentence to final epilogue.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly like Jack Kerouac’s endless single scroll for the initial version of On the Road, but close to it.  (No resemblance intended to our common approach.)  It’s just that I thought this travel story, which floats along in a linear way, needed to be presented in its purest form.  My wife was the one who suggested, “You’ve already written it in diary form. Why don’t you split it up into chapters by day?  It’s too much to take your way.”  That seemed reasonable. My manuscript in all its various editions went from a short length of 140 pages to a top-heavy 700 pages, before settling in at under 400 (currently 376). Chapters would make it easier for people to bite off. Slowly I came around to that viewpoint. So I chopped it down.  That made sense because I wanted to highlight the idea that this trip was “40 days and 40 nights,” sort of Biblical in nature. By showing that the trip rounded out into EXACTLY forty days seemed noteworthy . . . something I could highlight. So I divided it into 40 chapters.  Done deal. Maybe it’s even too abstract in its current form, but my chapters are in place.

The Two New Hitchhikers

Let me deviate from talking about my book so I can jot down another entry pertaining to real-life happenings in the world of hitchhiking.  To help commemorate my book signing on Monday, I saw not just one but TWO hitchhikers on the road in the past two days! This is remarkable because it’s been years since I’ve seen any sort of thumbing activity. We didn’t pick up either guy and let me explain why. The first was as we made our way from church to the book signing. We passed a young man on the I-78 entrance ramp in Bloomsbury, NJ. He was tall and formidable, with a large backpack (no sign), standing openly in the correct manner; obviously an earnest long-distance traveler. With Andrea in the back, we had no room for him. The second guy was on PA-378 south of Bethlehem, during a freezing rain. He was walking with traffic, definitely soliciting, arm held out, with money waving from his fingers. We couldn’t see his face, plus he was wearing a hoodie—so no pickup. I’d never seen a hitchhiker displaying money like that. As I reflected, it seemed like those are the two modes of thumbing: People who are purposefully on the road as an intentional way to reach a destination, and those who would never be out there except as a necessity, someone who has swallowed their pride and dignity and has no other options. The first maintains boldness in movement through the generosity of the hitchhiking network . . . the second is out there because there’s simply no other way to get there.

Adding New States

One of the main reasons I was excited to take the trip was to add to my total number of states. To pile 'em up. Funny, I wasn’t so interested in exploring these new lands nor learning what they had to offer, per se. But to build up the number, to increase the amount—now that was incentive! That’s the juvenile in me coming out. When we started out, I had ten states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware; plus the six New England states, the latter obtained on a family camping trip in 1966. But my younger brother also had Maryland, giving him eleven. That irked me, the older sibling, to no end. So burning past him on the ledger board was huge, which we did early on as we sailed through West Virginia and hit Ohio. By trip’s end I still only had 22 states. Not a tremendous amount, but certainly most in my family, and seven more than Otto. Does that make me King?

Ken's Book Signing

My book signing at Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA, last Sunday, November 30, 2014 (about six miles from where I live), was more than just an author sitting behind a table with big, publisher-supplied We Picked Up posters on either side of a pile of books.  It was more than talking about hitchhiking to both the indoctrinated and curious newbies who would never have thought of such a thing.  It was a culmination, a peak moment to be savored, a celebration of a life achievement. I proudly scribbled down my name on 17 books I (an interesting number considering the numerology in the book). Many people came out to support me, and I give the biggest thanks to my younger brother, Welles.  He acted like a mini-MC, pulling people toward the table, saying, "This book will grab you from the first page and you won't want to put it down. I've read it twice and there's still more to get out of it."  He articulated for me what would have been hard to do myself.  He made the book sound like a golden nugget under the Christmas tree, mentioning prominently that its pages contain the full range of emotion that hitchhikers go through: the waiting, the frustration, the fear, the exhilaration, the freedom, the camaraderie, the loneliness, the excitement, the spontaneity, the joy, the wisdom. My wife, Wonza, beamed from afar, but also did her share of mingling with the shoppers on a busy black weekend day.  Chris Calvano sat with me for quite a long time as well, and I appreciate his support—the only book he's read from cover to cover in quite a long time. Those are the types of readers I had hoped to attract with this book. A book to get this country reading again. Overall it was a beautiful afternoon, exhausting when it was over, but fulfilling.

No Truckee, No Santa Cruz

Two towns we had the opportunity to see and didn’t were Truckee and Santa Cruz, both in California.  Truckee, as you perhaps know, lies on the northern end of Lake Tahoe and is a progressive, active mountain town with beautiful vistas, great architecture, and a colorful history.  As Day 11 says, "neither of us had ever heard of  it,” including Lake Tahoe itself, which is true. Nevertheless we had a good chance to stumble upon it . . . except that was during spat #2 with Otto, and we were too busy arguing and being pissy with each other.  I regret bypassing a region which I've since come to love.  We also missed Santa Cruz, a shame and our loss. I’ve since visited there several times, too, and cherish its ideal location high along the Pacific Ocean, and the funky beach stores, and open-minded people and amazing houses that wind through the hills.  But this time (Day 14) the overriding feeling was fatigue.  We spent the night there with muscles and minds aching.  We didn’t appreciate our surroundings and were anxious to get out of town as soon as we could.  Them’s the breaks!

The 65% Factor

All in all, inside and out, I’d say the book is 65% true.  That is a fair number.  That accounts for everything:  names that were changed, incidents altered or somehow smoothed over, tinkering with the timeline, adding some things, taking things out.  That’s why I’m careful to say this is a novel and not a memoir.  It’s more important to get across the message of the book rather than to have it serve as a log or chronicle.  The aspect of some tangibles may have been changed, but not the essence.  If anything, the essence is stronger because there is magic involved. I don’t want to give away too much, because that’s my artistic license as an author. But as an example, I’ll tell you the trip started on a Monday rather than a Sunday.  Why?  I needed an extra day on the timeline. Because I inserted that day at Hearst Castle (Day 18).  But totally made up?  Not really. It’s a compilation of visiting Hearst Castle in 2001 with my wife on our own cross-country trip (by car), and an overnight stay on a boat that my sister and I made to friends in South Jersey years ago.  Why move up everything a day on the calendar?  Because I wanted the struck-by-lightning story of July 17, 1971, to stay intact. So everything coming before got bumped up by a day. Make sense?

Getting Struck By Lightning

It’s totally true I got struck by lightning at Yosemite National Park on July 17, 1971 when I was 17 years old.  So it’s also true about the numerology of “7’s” lining up.  That story, from Day 21, unfolded just as you read about it.  The time of day really was 1700 hours military time (5 p.m.).  To be honest, I’m not sure about the number of stairway steps, but it was “about” 17.  My Uncle Ralph has long since passed away; Aunt Betty, too.  But if you can track down Otto, he’ll confirm it for you.  The bolt must have been pretty thin for me not to have suffered any effects, but I sure remember it clearly . . . a long, jagged bolt extending upward from my forehead into the heavens.  It felt like putting my whole head into an electric outlet. There is no way I should have been out there in the first place.  It was a poor choice on everyone’s part, including my own for acting so cavalier.  Ralph, who had been pushing us to see everything, got a reality check . He was scared that his over-zealousness might’ve gotten me killed.  Otto indeed said, "I thought it was curtains, Roger." Ever since then, I have been wary of lightning storms (can you blame me?)  I don’t want to defy the saying, “Lightning never strikes twice.”

Roger Delivers a Baby

The overnight ride through Wyoming with lonesome Bill and the third hitchhiker, Starla (from Day 8), is all true except when we get to the delivery-of-the-baby part in Utah. That is made up. Sorry troops, this author has never delivered a baby. But Roger Winans has! After four or five edits I got the medical procedure down; the rhythm of the words and the emotion of the moment felt right. It seemed to work, so I left it in. This actually came about on a suggestion from my wife. She read the story of Bill’s fascination with Starla, and commented, “Roger can deliver Starla’s baby, don’t you think? That chapter needs a good sendoff.” Yes! I thought. In real life, just as the book states, Starla appeared from out of nowhere. She was six months pregnant (instead of nine), and after she rejected Bill, disappeared on us after the ride was over without a word. From a reading perspective that was too sapping. Delivering the baby gives the story a proper lift. More explosion. It gives the female police officer a chance to say, “You guys are are inspiration to us mortals, both of you.” And it gives Otto a chance to shake his head at Roger and say, “Sons, you got tricks up your sleeve that would baffle Houdini.”

Do I Rag On My Parents Too Much?

People who’ve read the book make the comment, “I can tell you had a distant relationship with your parents growing up.” The comment is legitimate. My real-life dealings with my dad and mom, into my 30’s, were far from warm and fuzzy, or supportive. The family stayed intact over the years, but it was dysfunctional. I was always sore about the lack of “real conversation” by my parents toward us eager kids, as it says on page 75. They were into routine and small-thinking. They never encouraged me about my plans or dreams, nor guided me nor shaped my seeking. They were as conventional as Eisenhower. They weren’t adventurers, nor achievers. They had no idea what I was about. They were plain and harmless as white bread (here I go again with the negative comments). However, Roger’s eyes are opened in Colorado on page 68 when the outdoors natural girl tempers his complaint by saying, “Even so, you responded by becoming a leader. So it all worked out anyway, didn’t it?” From there he eases off. And then there’s the reconciliation at the end of the book when Roger meets his parents along the beach road at the New Jersey Shore (a true story). So there’s hope for this generational situation yet.

The Name Roger Winans

The name Roger Winans, the character based on my experience, was a little more conventional to come by. That is the name of a favorite boyhood friend from Fanwood, New Jersey, going way back. This is my way of remembering him, especially since our family moved when I was ten and I haven’t heard from him since. When we played together at LeGrande Park, or rode our bicycles to the borough limits, I WANTED to be Roger. He was outgoing, bubbling with energy, friendly to all, casually athletic, charming, smart, savvy—an all-around happy soul. That was better than my demeanor:  I tended to be more of an introvert, scared to reveal myself, more moody, more emotional. He’s the one who liked to eat green peppers as a snack (see page 48) which I picked up on and copied all my life. Of course many people today are familiar with the last name because of the Winans Family gospel singers, led by Bebe and CeCe Winans. So we know it’s pronounced Wi’-nans. But I also liked his name for my book because it is kind of nondescript . . . an American Everyman. I’m not sure of the heritage, but Aunt Betty on page 190 says, “You’re equal parts English, Welsh, Irish, and Flemish.”  So we’ll leave it at that.

The Name Otto George

Readers might wonder, “How did you come up with that strange name for your friend, Otto George?”  There was a method to my madness, indeed.  Neither do I think it’s strange at all . . . I like the name and am honoring my friend who took the trip with me.  I started out knowing I needed a palindrome, a backwards-forwards word, because that describes his wide personality.  He’s present/absent; mighty/meek; logical/bizarre; reasonable/ outlandish; intelligent/lacking; funny/scary; hot/cold.  The interchangeable twist could be extended to both first and last names as well, I realized.  His heritage is German-Irish.  Plus you don’t see the name ‘Otto’ in American literature much.  I had a roommate in college named Charlie Otto. I could honor two people at the same time.  All that appealed to me. Even so, I agonized about this name choice for years . . . that is, until I was in New York City one night with a bunch of friends in the 1980's.  As we walked down a street in Greenwich Village, I explained my dilemma to them, ending by blurting out an anguished prayer,  “Lord, am I supposed to keep this name or not?  Show me a sign.  Please.”  Not five minutes later, our group walked past the Bottom Line Cabaret.  The marquee said, “Appearing Tonight:  The Comedy of Otto and George.” Talk about divine intervention!  I learned later about the advertised act—Otto Petersen was a ventriloquist, and George was his puppet. That name was now written in stone. I wouldn't dare change it.

The Title Explained

I guess the first thing you need to know about is the title. Three basic words, we . . . picked . . . up. It’s an actual sentence, noun-verb-predicate, coming on Day 33 when the guys are in North Las Vegas, Nevada, heading back. It’s when the thick air between Roger and Otto finally clears (after several days of brutal mudslinging). Instead of splitting up, they put aside their accumulated fury and continue on—not in seamless unison as when they started out, but as wiser, seasoned independents. I wrote the sentence long before I realized that should be the title. It was kind of always in the text, waiting to be discovered. How many ways those words can be taken! Let me count a few: The boys “pick up” (gather) their courage during their adventure. A wide swath of generous people “pick up” the boys. Roger and Otto “pick up” valuable lessons and wisdom. Readers are encouraged to “pick up” whatever desires in their own lives might lie hidden and unfinished. Society as a whole “picks up” (improves) after being part of the connected network that lifts up what is good and positive. I consider that three-word sentence on page 297 as the “first climax.” The mounting tension between the characters finally breaks. A ray of light breaks through. They regain trust in each other, and their own sanity.

Author's Hitchhiking Bio

Kenneth Lobb was born in 1954 in Plainfield, New Jersey.  At age ten the family moved to rural Hunterdon County, the hamlet of Whitehouse Station.  As a teenager he developed a wanderlust for travel, mostly through a love of maps, riding trains, and hiking trails.

By the time he got to 9th grade, with both parents busy, Ken regularly took to the road with his thumb.  This was the late 1960's, when hitchhiking was still an accepted—though daring—form of transportation.  He hitchhiked mostly to school and back. But with the support of a friend, thumbed to the Jersey Shore, to New York, and throughout Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia.

Eventually the two developed the idea of a grand long-distance venture.  It would last 40 days and 40 nights, going from New Jersey to California and back.  Their budget was four dollars a day.  They set out in late June, 1971, when both of them were 17 years old, on summer vacation between junior and senior year in high school.

We Picked Up is the story of that trip.

Ken estimates he hitchhiked about 25,000 miles in the United States between 1967 and 1985.  His experiences helped to form his personality and to understand the soul of America.  He still loves any kind of travel, whether by car, rail, bus, plane, boat, bicycle, or foot.  He takes his annual vacation in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

After a career as a journalist and in the telecommunications industry, Ken became an ordained minister in 2010.  He serves in the Reformed Church in America (RCA) in Annandale, New Jersey.  He believes in the connected soul and advocates spiritual wholeness.  He likes to sing and often joins the choir, and sometimes plays the guitar.

Ken and his wife, Wonza, live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

A Mini-Overview

When seventeen year-old Ken got home from his trip in 1971, it wasn’t long before he realized, “I’ve got to get this down on paper, or else forget what happened.”  The first copy (long since discarded), was 70 pages written in longhand on both sides of the page.  Within a few years, the story, originally called The Other Side of the Nation, was transcribed onto a typewriter.  It eventually ballooned out to 700 pages, and was constantly “under construction.”

“I was not only trying to tell an epic story, a heartfelt coming-of-age adventure that needed to be told, but I was looking for a certain rhythm and flow, almost as if what I was writing was a piece of music,” Ken says.  “It had to contain swells and hushes.  There had to be a mini-climax at the end of each tale.  For half of its existence, the book had no chapters.  It was one long scroll, almost like On the Road by Jack Kerouac.”

Ken tried for decades to get the book published, and met dozens of rejections.  “I got a few interesting bites, but nothing panned out.”  That didn’t stop his determination.  In fact, he says he’s grateful it took so long to get published—“it gave me the time I needed to flesh out the story in all its glory and its pitfalls.  I really wanted to put the reader on the road along with the two characters.  It had to be a thrilling eye-opener, representing all of life's glories and challenges.”

An interesting trivia about the book is that all 50 states are mentioned, and that the characters never eat the same meal twice, nor ride in the same style car twice.

“There is some embellishment and artistic license, but I feel it’s integral to the spirit of the story,” Ken says. “That’s why it’s a novel and not a memoir.  Actually, the trip took place so long ago, I don’t remember what is true and what isn’t.  It’s all meshed together.  So I have to consider what wound up on paper to be the actual trip.”

The character ‘Roger Winans’ is the name of one of Ken’s boyhood friends.  The name ‘Otto George’ was more agonizing to devise.  “I had to have a name that could be switched around, go backwards and forwards, a little unconventional but also German-Irish, to match the unpredictable personality of my friend, who was great in the trenches by the way,” Ken says.  "We brought no tent, only sleeping bags. My friend made me stick to our mantra of not paying for rides, nor paying to sleep."

We Picked Up was published in 2014 by Balboa Press of Bloomington, Indiana.

Welcome to My New Blog!

Welcome. My name is Kenneth Lobb, author of We Picked Up. I am so happy to have you as a visitor to my blog. This project is very special to me, and I hope to share some of that excitement with you here.

I will be using this blog to interact with you about We Picked Up, expanding on some of the topics in it, and blogging on some of the ideas related to the book. This is a great place for you to get to know me. I am looking forward to getting to know you, too. What did you think of We Picked Up? What elated you?  What annoyed you? What questions do you have for me?

I will be returning here frequently with new posts and responses to feedback from you. Until next time, tell me a little bit about yourself so we can get the dialogue going.

Day One (Sunday, June 27, 1971)

“Don’t you like the cops?” Otto George fluttered his eyelashes with a smile, his quirky character uncapped for the world to enjoy. “I thought they were buddies of yours.”

I leaned up toward my goldilocks best friend with a chuckle. “I love them as much as you do, man. I just don’t feel so great hitching in a place overlooking bureau headquarters, that’s all.”

We glanced at each other and laughed some more.

I bobbed in the direction of the state troopers’ barracks across the field down the local road. Otto the Outermost perched above me in road preparedness, packed tight as sardines; thumbs extended over Route 22. Wistful yet confident, his angular figure always brought to mind an erector set.

“Hitchhiker’s best friend, ain’t they?”

“Oh, definitely. Never around when you need them. Always there when you don’t.”

A pack of cars sped past, anchored by a mammoth tractor-trailer generating enough tailwind to knock you down. A junker with an electronics freak wearing headphones passed slowly in its wake. Traffic was so heavy that I didn’t curse him out—much.

“Stop worryin’ about them cops, will you?” Otto instructed. “We’re out here to get a job done. Your right hand has a thumb attached to it. Now use it.”

I presumed my own stance for a new series of vehicles but kept a watchful eye out for those white, cherry-topped hornets outside that building. My partner would never admit it, but all the hiking we’d done prior to this was minor leagues. On this level, we were rookies straight off the farm.

“Come on, people, get us out of here!” I yelled. “We don’t need any early foul-ups. Come on, Americans! Show me some red, white, and blue.”

I stepped down and away from a faulty exhaust system’s swirling soot, coughing. I came up with a stone and flung it into a pole. Truck traffic on this stretch was incredible. They were coming in good spurts east and west. Mayflower. Royal Products. Union Carbine. Branch. White Rose Tea. They’d take your thumb off, no questions asked, if you got too close.

This was just west of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Fifty miles from home and already in strange lands. I bounced on the balls of my feet, wiggled my hips, and extended my fingers. No, I wasn’t polishing my hitchhiking stance; I was playing air piano to the song in my head, the new one by Carole King, “I Feel the Earth Move.” I banged those keys hard. Then I switched to air guitar, switched to “Johnny B. Goode,” and pranced up and down the shoulder in a modified Chuck Berry strut.

“Go, hepcat, go,” Otto said.

My statsheet looked like this: Seventeen years old. Curly dark hair on a big-boned frame. Height: 5'10". Weight: 150. Olive eyes. Often mistaken for Greek or Italian, but just your standard everyday WASP. Hailing from a small town in West Jersey named Whitehouse. Away from home only once before, on a hasty family camping trip to New England in 1966. In school I was a content ‘B’ student, bent more on extracurricular activities than hardcore academia. I was president of the service club. Class representative on student council. A bench-sitter on the football and baseball teams. My favorite action star was Simon Templar in The Saint. My favorite movies were Cat Ballou, A Shot In The Dark, Planet Of the Apes, and The Dirty Dozen. I liked blue-eyed soul on my stereo and tall, long-haired brunettes in tight Levis.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I know I’m young and naiive but I’m going to pick up, or else die trying.”

A Schaefer brewery sat on the other side of the highway. You could smell the hops or whatever it is they used to brew it. Haze bleached the rolling hills and extended halfway to the clouds. I tugged my damp teeshirt. That smoky horizon couldn’t be pollution, not way out here in the Lehigh Valley.

“I don’t know about this place, Otto. Too much congestion. If we go much longer, I think we ought to relocate down. Create some breathing room.”

“Sons,” as he called me, “you ain’t been standin’ here long. How long it’s been, fifteen, twenty minutes? Wait’ll you go five or six hours.”

“God, I hope not.”

Another long series of vehicles passed. I waved to one P-I-E truck, which stood for Pacific Intermountain Express. That’s the kind of ride we wanted. I nudged toward the pavement, daring the drivers to react. Someone, sooner or later, would be willing. Of course many of these trucks, luxury sedans, delivery vans, station wagons, and commercial cars were a poor percentage to “help the cause.” But Otto taught me long ago it pays to solicit everybody. Take our first ride out of Whitehouse, for example: An off-duty taxicab driver.

“Okay, ride number three, where art thou? I’m ready whenever you are, so let’s blow this joint! Come on, Miss Hairdo! Look at all the room!”

“A princess in her daddy’s Benz? Are you kiddin’? She was scared stiff.”

“No reason to feel that way at all. Is there, Otto? We’re respectable citizens. Girl, you have no idea how respectable we are. She lost her chance to participate in the great undertaking.”

Who cares if it was Otto or me who hatched the original idea for “The Trip?” Since last Christmas that’s all it needed to be called. We roughed out a basic concept based on “Forty Days and Forty Nights.” We designed a flexible, 7,500-mile loop. We even had a motto borrowed from the post office: “Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night is going to prevent these two thumbs from acing this trip!”

Call it what you want—sowing our oats, testing the waters, going for the gold, letting it all hang out, whatever. We wanted to do something big, and it had to be now—in this lifetime.

We were more than team; we were one empowered. Born in the same hospital only a few days apart, unacquainted sons of “white flight” parents who both moved from Plainfield to Whitehouse in the mid-60’s. In sixth, we rode the same school bus and were spirited competitors on rival Little League teams. We bonded in seventh and eighth, helped by the same homeroom teacher and many of the same classes. By ninth we rode bicycles on weekends, packing a lunch and ‘talking life’ next to a river lookout or Jersey landmark. By tenth we chewed over girls and teachers; acting as each other’s nerve center and laugh box. This year, as juniors, we hitchhiked to Flemington on Sunday afternoons, competing in tennis.

Between jokes and ideas, we eventually cultivated the specifics of a grand long distance venture.
This was that now. The Trip. It was on. As we speak.

“. . . yeah, and I’m gonna tell you again, sons. We oughta carry a sign that says where we’re goin’. All professional hitchhikers use one. First chance we get. Are you a pro, or are you a pretender?”

We snapped our heads. A tractor-trailer, one we hadn’t even tried to snag, changed gears or something as it passed. It came to a halt on the shoulder about a hundred yards up.

“Holy cow, Phil Rizzuto!”

The door on the passenger’s side opened in a cloud of dust. A man with glasses leaned out and waved for us to come on. We stopped looking dumbfounded and ran up with our stuff.

The door was about five feet off the ground. In a slurry, fast-talking gobble, the man said, “Where you goddamn motherlovin’ whores headed?”

“California,” I said.

He was neither surprised nor skeptical. “Well, I’m goin’ all the way to Nebraska, so hop up ’fore I get my hind quarters rammed.”

Halfway across the country on one pickup! I never dreamed cross-country hitchhiking would be this easy. At this rate, we’d be in California in two days.

The guy got up to full speed after about ten gear changes.

“Name’s Tom,” he shouted. “Tom Pavallow.” He pointed to an identification card of himself taped to the dashboard. Staticky country- western music droned out the AM.

You know how they say everybody resembles an animal? Tom looked like a bird—small and weightless. He seemed about sixty—kind of old to be doing this type of thing for a living. He had short, graying hair, thick-lensed glasses, and a scraggly Bob Dylan beard. He had short arms and discolored skin. His ribs poked out from his yellow teeshirt.

We shook hands. We told him our names, but with the deafening engine it was evident you had to keep conversation brief and general as possible.

“Where you from?” he yelled.

“Newark,” I said.

“What?!”

Otto added, “We’re cousins.”

“Cousins?! You goddamn motherlovin’ whores don’t look like cousins to me. You sure as hell ain’t from Newark, I damn well know that.”

It was so much fun riding in a tractor-trailer. It was like the Spider Dragon ride at Seaside Heights, only better. You were high off the ground, going fast, barreling ahead with so much power underneath that you felt unconquerable. Out of habit only did I locate—for emergency—the door handle.

The noise didn’t bother Tom. He babbled on in such a way that all you had to do was say “yeah” every minute or so and that was enough to keep him going. He was the type whose hygiene, language, and lifestyle you might not agree with, but he wasn’t about to harm us and he was supplying a ride. So I didn’t care what he yammered about.

From what I understood (confirmed by Otto at later points), Tom was a company man, a career trucker who shuttled raw beef from Omaha to New York twice a week, and that a one-way trip took a day and a half. “I don’t sleep,” he said, “I drink coffee.” From time to time he brought down a vial of pills from under the sun visor and popped them in his mouth. Home was Omaha. He spent every Sunday at home with his wife and two kids. He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the leaves. He pointed to a photo of a beast of a woman.

“Hell, you think that stops me?” He grinned with brown and missing teeth. “I’ve corn-holed every waitress at the Zanesville truck stop. Ever’ damn one.”

I was introduced to this phenomenon, “truck stops,” before long, and had the grim obligation of visiting several before the night was over. I never knew they existed. They were like a combination gas station / restaurant / store for truck drivers, always open twenty-four hours, where all these gritty people who look like they haven’t slept or washed recently gather about and stock up on their needs.

Tom fit right in. He slid his rig into the gigantic parking lot, idling the engine instead of turning it off, and the three of us walked in. Tom made believe he didn’t know us, and went to sit with a bunch of his truck-driving buddies in a special section marked ‘RESERVED FOR PROFESSIONAL TRUCKERS. THEY OPERATE ON A TIME SCHEDULE AND THIS AREA IS RESERVED TO ASSURE THEY ARE NOT DELAYED.’

The walls were muddy brown; the tables and booths were thin as balsa. A smell of grease and rubber permeated the air. The store sold just about everything a trucker would need, like baseball caps, wind- breakers, sunglasses, eight-track tapes, watches, decals, and maintenance supplies. A combination salt and pepper shaker was on special, ‘For The Little Lady At Home,’ and was selling briskly.

An additional truckers’ lounge was off-limits to anyone not a trucker, as were laundry and showers. A long row of telephones in the corridor was a busy area. Tom made at least five phone calls, lasting a good half hour.

Not one attractive girl was in there, nor were many of the feminine sex available to begin with. The waitresses were a bunch of dogs who derived their pleasure from flirting with the drivers.

“I’d rather masturbate,” I told Otto. We laughed for twenty minutes.

Outside it was dark. A large chunk of Pennsylvania was already knocked. Already I was a lot further west than I ever was before. My old record was Hershey, Pennsylvania, to visit the chocolate factory. That was three summers earlier, August, 1968, on a day trip with my Uncle Merv, brother Willis, and two sisters. Otto’s furthest point out was the Pocono Mountains, where he once went to a basketball camp.

Adding to our roll call of states was major. Otto rang in with a measly three. I had ten, so at least my disappointing camping trip to New England was worth something. My bro Willis had eleven states and I had ten—always a sore point for me since I was two years older!

Inside the truck behind the grimy curtain was a small, box-like compartment, which explained where truck drivers catch up on their sleep and carry on their sexual activities. It was fun to scan across the scores of shining, stately trucks, picture the compartments, and speculate about the number of bare waitresses.

Tom finally came back and we got rolling again. It had been some kind of busy week since school let out. Tuesday I went to Yankee Stadium to see Roy White and Thurman Munson in a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. Wednesday I was at the shore with the student council—a thank you party from our faculty advisors. Thursday I hitchhiked to White Plains, New York, to see my favorite group in concert, the Rascals. Friday, Otto and I attended a Round Valley Reservoir camp-out as stealthy adjuncts of a church youth group, where I drank half a bottle of Boone’s Farm and threw up. Saturday I had a wonderful midnight picnic with my girlfriend, Amy. We ate grapes and cheese doodles under a tree near the Raritan River, punctuated by juicy necking.

It seemed ages that I split home. That had been some dreadful spectacle. My mom, crying, dropped me off with my two duffel bags at the George’s house at noon (my father said goodbye from home). I got perturbed at Otto for having all his trip items sprawled across the living room and bedroom, not even organized. He brought so much extra crap—flares, rope, a rain slicker, searchlight, metal jungle hat, shampoo, even an athletic supporter. All to load in a single, metal- framed knapsack.

“Hey man, I thought we were going to show the world what roughing it really means.”

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be on my back, not yours,” he smiled.

For good measure, his whole family was staring like owls. I had to answer the dumb questions of his twin sisters, refuse his step-mom’s offers for lunch, and politely laugh at Mr. George’s jokes about “the call of the wild.” Finally we got out of there at one-thirty p.m.

Ride number two had been interesting. That was with a Jewish family named the Silvermans. They were friendly and talkative. The parents took us quite seriously when we explained we were hitchhiking from New Jersey to California and back. They said upon our arrival in San Francisco, there was some author, Alan Watts, who lived on a yacht in the bay north of the city. He was known as a “friend of hippies,” and let people bunk on his boat. I jotted down that item in my pocket notebook.

I didn’t realize Tom’s route of travel along the Pennsylvania Turnpike would get me into West Virginia, but there we were—Wheeling, West Virginia. State number eleven. That tied me with my brother Willis for the lead of the Winans family siblings. Then we hit Ohio and I jumped into the undisputed lead. Otto’s state total skyrocketed to five.

I couldn’t understand why Tom had to stop at every truck stop on the road. After the third or fourth one we ceased going in with him. He’d only get a cup of coffee anyway; that, and make a few phone calls.
At one truck stop in Ohio in the dead of night, he came back to the cab gobbling, “Well boys, we’re on our way to Chicago. We’ll make it by tomorrow afternoon.”

What? Anguish tore through my soul. I couldn’t help but cry out: “What happened to Nebraska?”

Tom replied with some slurry answer I couldn’t understand, though he tacked on at the end, “We’ll have a ball up there in Chicago. There ain’t nothin’ but whores!”

Otto took it in stride, as usual. He rarely got rattled. His complacency smoothed over my outbursts. I was demonstrative and he was meditative. We complemented each other completely. That’s why we did everything as one—sneaking into movies; hitchhiking to Princeton University on a snowy night to see a wrestling match; sitting together on field trips to the Trenton rock station and state museum, counseling each other for hours over milkshakes at Dairy Queen. Our mutual trust ran deep. I knew he watched out for me. In return, I put up with his mysterious nature. That’s to say: Sometimes he did things outside the realm of logic.

This became one of those times. With our ride cut down to Chicago, my morale crashed and burned. I felt drained and could see myself snoozing in that portable sleeping compartment of Tom’s. Otto, though, felt the need to keep himself awake the whole night. When Tom hinted that one of us could grab some shut-eye if we wanted, I took him up on the offer. I climbed over the seat and tumbled inside. Ugh. It was an uncovered box springs with a greasy sheen and moldy smell. Just enough room existed to stretch your legs.

“The young’un needs his rest for the night,” Otto joked to Tom, loudly.

I ignored him and recited my bedtime prayer, with one obvious modification:

Dear God, Please guide me safely through the night.
And forgive me for all the bad things I did during the day.
This goes for everyone in my family,
Including my relatives and friends,
And please guide this house—er, I mean, this 18-wheeler
Safely through the night, too. Amen.
Dear God, that was a special prayer. Amen.
Dear God, THAT was a special prayer, too. Amen.

Day Two (Monday, June 28, 1971)

I rested but never fell asleep, due to the ceaseless engine grunt, diesel scent, and uneven tug and pull. Tom told Otto about the time Tom’s brother caught him in bed with his brother’s wife, and how his brother came after him with an ice pick.

I was dazed and confused as daylight leaked into the compartment. I climbed back out to the bench seat. Tom was gobbling away, briefing Otto on the ways truckers communicate to each other using beeps and lights.

Miles passed. My world was pretty much contained to the interior of Tom’s cab. Beyond the windshield seemed like a movie. Otto was holding up admirably. We were already in Indiana (state thirteen). We arrived into the outskirts of Indianapolis via the broken concrete of the old highway. Rumbling past older stores and shopping centers, Tom craned his head at each corner, looking for a phone booth. He rumbled into the parking area of a dry cleaning store, idling the rig across every slot the place had available. What news would Tom bring this time? We laughed at the elderly clerk peering out the window. She had a fit.

“Well boys, it looks like we’re at the end of the line,” Tom announced upon his return. “I’m pickin’ up my pappy down here to the county garage, and there ain’t gonna be no room for youse. He’s a big whore, with a temper like a billy goat.”

He let us off at I-465, the interstate bypass around Indianapolis, which was fully complete according to my map. We thanked him, collected our gear, and Tom chugged out of sight. The venture was in the past before I had a chance to realize I had been living it.

“What’s with these truck drivers anyway?” I said to Otto from a lazy field of yellow grass, swigging water from our canteens. “Always changing plans!”

“Haven’t I told you before, sons? Never count on bein’ somewhere until you’re there. Especially with thumbin’. The in’s and out’s of this trip are gonna torch your last nerve if you let it. I can see that already.”

“I thought we snagged us a big one.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a nice day.” Otto stretched out in the high grass. He was 6'3", 130 pounds, a hopeful for this year’s varsity basketball team.

“Don’t you think he was purposely trying to get rid of us with that line about his pappy?”

“Naw, he was too dumb to be a liar.” Otto slipped a blade of hay between his teeth.

“Why would anyone want to be picked up by their son in a rig?”

Otto shrugged his shoulders. “That’s probably the family car.”

Less imposing vehicles bending northward in a never-ending curve whizzed across flat, open fields. Clouds were light, high, and puffy. The air was still. We joked about our ride as if we had just filmed a documentary, “Tom Pavallow and His Semi-World of Tractor Trailers.”

An old guy with a prosthetic device picked us up. He had only one leg. He was going to a small town on the west side of Indianapolis, named Plainfield.

“You’re looking for America? It’s right here,” he said, driving along a boulevard decked out in patriotic banners of baldheaded eagles. “We win all the awards for civic pride and federal allegiance.” We decided to explore the place ourselves. Spend an easy day resting and soaking up atmosphere. Take the day off. Tomorrow we’d go back to work; that is, get up toward Chicago and onto our preplanned route, I-80.

“No sense in rushing to California,” I reasoned. “With thirty-nine days left, it almost seems like we’ve come too far.”

The name Plainfield caught my ear because I lived the first ten years of my life in Plainfield, New Jersey. I liked geography and knew this Plainfield wouldn’t be a thing like the burned-out, old money, divisive Queen City from my childhood. But then I had to keep in mind that neither were all towns suburbs of New York.

There was no way you could spend a hectic day in this Plainfield. All businesses closed at five o’clock. The main excitement was a weekly farm auction. Pedestrians waited for green lights. The radio gave hog and cattle prices. There were lots of shade elms and fertile fields. Was this what they called the Midwest? Whoever was responsible for naming it had to be mistaken. From what I could tell, we were still in the eastern time zone.

A grammar school principal kicked us off the front lawn of his school for sitting in the sprinkler system. I tried saying we were visitors from Indianapolis, but it didn’t work.

We split a Plainfield, Indiana, pizza for dinner. It was terrible, ranking among the worst pies I’d ever tasted: thin, flaky crust, bland sauce, skimpy portion of mozzarella. I had been suspicious all along because the name of the pizzeria was “Larry’s Spot,” and Larry was blond and bland. Our taste buds were acclimated to the chewy, spicy, cheesy pies of Dominick’s Pizzeria in Whitehouse, where we were loyal patrons for years.

“That’s the best we can do. Sorry if you don’t like it,” Larry said sheepishly when I complained. “There’s no Italians in Plainfield.”

Hummel Park was a recreational haven on the edge of the woods. Its old fashioned gazebo, open-air pavilions and band shell, and clean, unsullied walkways conjured up visions of the movie Pollyanna.

We attended a co-ed softball game. We got to talking with the girl sitting next to us on the grass. Her name was Paula, a free-spirit whose eagerness to play was curbed by a sprained wrist. She was interested in hearing all about our adventures. Before we knew it, Paula offered to have us camp in the back yard of her family’s house for the night.

“My father won’t mind,” she said, round eyes jumping and maroon hair jelling to her lipstick. “He used to be a hitchhiker himself. He likes to tell everyone how meaningful it was.”

Sure enough, once we met Paula’s dad, Francis, we knew there’d be no problem lodging in the back yard. He looked younger than his age, but with lines on his face and keen eyes. Paula was engrossed herself as Francis described how he used to hitchhike back and forth from Brownsville, Texas, while he was in the army. He worked on the side as a stunt pilot. “I had a ballyhoo of a time, boys. All of life is in front of you, so reach out and grab it while you can.”

“We hitchhike even when we’re not together,” Otto offered. “I hitchhiked to my father’s office in New Brunswick last week.”

“And I hiked seventy miles to White Plains, New York, to see a concert,” I said. “That was tricky. I had to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge around midnight. But I got home not much later than if I had driven.”

“Now you’re out on national tour. That’s great. Welcome. You guys are heroes,” Francis said.

After awhile, a younger daughter, Theresa, came out and joined our ring. Her wire was just as alive as the others, with a sweet, devilish smile to boot. I was having a great time, but then Francis really did us a favor. Saying, “I’m sure the younger generation has things to talk about that the old man wouldn’t be interested in,” he supplied everyone with lemonade, asked if we needed anything else, and then disappeared into the house.

Whoever thought a meeting between us four would take place on this starry, starry night! In tribute to Francis, I vowed to taste all the life I could while I was able. His daughters were educated and playful. We bandied over some discrepancies in language that already started seeping up, like ‘sneakers’ vs. ‘tennis shoes;’ ‘wallet’ vs. ‘billfold;’ ‘dungarees’ vs. ‘jeans,’ and ‘soda’ vs. ‘pop.’

“Why did I start to hitchhike in the first place?” Otto laughed, fluffing out his long blond hair. “Hmm, lemme see.”

“. . . Fighting the mentality of ‘gas, grass, or ass,’ ” I said.

“. . . I guess ’cause free is me.”

“. . . ’Cause it’s better to stay inside of a dream than out.”

“. . . ’Cause less is best,” Otto said. “Gluttony don’t cut it.”

Paula burst out, “You guys are so alike!”

“We’re body, mind, and soul manifest,” I said, nudging up to Paula’s straightforward energy.

“We’re enlightened spirits one and two,” Otto said, making inroads with innocent, daring Theresa.

“You’re best friends,” Paula said.

“Twin brothers of different mothers,” Theresa said.

“I’m his guru,” Otto said.

“And I’m his swami,” I said.

Before we knew it, the four of us were making out! Theresa and Otto. Paula and myself. Heaven touched earth; angels fluttered when I placed my pucker on warm, willing, moist lips. Otto sweetly caressed Theresa’s hair and neck.

The girls showed no signs of wanting to leave. That is, not until their mother yelled to them from an upstairs window, “Now you girls get on to bed!” They scampered into the house.

Alone in our sleeping bags, under heavenly constellations, I asked my philosophical friend a few questions pertaining to the matter at hand.

“Hey Otto? How could Francis be such a nice guy and the old lady be a witch? Francis wanted to lend us his daughters.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Best of the best. Paula’s kisses were wanting.”

“That’s the reason,” Otto sighed. “So were Theresa’s. The old lady was afraid we were gonna sign ’em up.”