The Insterstate System

One thing you can follow along with my book, somewhat, is the progress of the American Interstate system. As you may know, this network of limited-access highways, named for President Dwight Eisenhower who initiated it in 1956, took 35 years to build.  That puts 1971 smack in the middle of its construction history. You surely can see the start-‘n-stop nature of the interstate in the pages of We Picked Up. Some states were further along than others. Nebraska, for instance, had almost all of I-80 built when we crossed. Kudos to them. But I can’t say the same for Nevada. Turn to page 116 on Day Eleven. I write, “We gained sporadic distance at best as a series of kiddie rides brought us through dry alkaline gulches, broken by hills and mountains, empty sagebrush reservoirs, and canyons stripped by quarries. The interstate was complete, incomplete, complete, incomplete.” The pain in the neck was the most common place for the interstate to be incomplete was around towns. As a hitchhiker, this was frustrating, because you wanted to avoid towns that weren’t your destination as they would slow you down. A couple of nice things about the interstates back then was police weren’t doing an efficient job in patrolling them—you could “usually” get on the highway proper and hitch directly on it, especially in way-out places like Wyoming. Other states were more strict to varying degrees. Also, the system wasn’t fully “discovered” by the public, meaning traffic wasn’t a circus like it is these days. There was adequate traffic flow, but sparse enough so that drivers still could pull over in a safe manner to pick you up.

I Address the Reader Only Once

When writing a novel, it’s tough enough figuring out if the first or third person will be used in the narrative. Also difficult is deciding how close do you want the reader to get to the author. Should he or she be acknowledged directly?  I did so just one time in the book.  Turn to page 283.  Roger, Otto, Detroit, and Paul McCartney have just gotten let off in the middle of the night at what is described as “the last exit before the desert,” in a heavily wooded area of south-central California. They are heading north along I-15 toward Las Vegas.The quartet has a good buzz on their heads thanks to their previous driver.  But now the starkness of the situation hits them all at once. “We sized up the vast canyon’s degree of severity.  Our elevation was ‘high, very high.’ The only hint of life was the glare of a Shell station on the far side of the interchange.” That’s when I, author Kenneth Lobb, felt the need to turn to the reader. “Not a lick of traffic came by in either direction.  I’m not talking about the entrance ramp, dear reader.  But I-15.  Nothing. Zero.” Maybe I was suddenly lonely and needed a friend. More likely, I wanted to emphasize that the nothingness around us wasn’t just on the local roads, but included the interstate as well.  Everything was silent and non-moving. It was a vast void of emptyness. No wonder within a few minutes Paul McCartney unrolled his sleeping bag and went to sleep in the shoulder of the ramp.

Roger the Writer, Not the Reader

Another strange thing to talk about is how when Roger (i.e. Kenneth Lobb) starts out on the trip, he’s a writer but not a reader. That's a flip from the norm. He’s been keeping a daily journal for quite some time, but keeps reading material at arm’s length. Just by virtue of typing out this story in day-to-day format shows that. “I never read any Huck Finn books, but I knew the themes,” Roger says while being camped out at the Mississippi River. But how did that pan out? It doesn’t seem to follow the usual scheme of events—being a writer but not a reader. But that is true. I was always writing . . . always had the need to express myself, to jot something down. That’s probably because I never had the friendship outlet or the security bond with my parents to express all I felt I needed to express—even with Otto. There was always something more that needed to be said, to be pondered, to be withheld from the verbal realm.  So I turned to writing it down. It never occurred to me I needed to know another person’s (i.e. author’s)  viewpoint before I could properly “join the conversation.” It didn’t strike me until I hit Hanford Library and decided that I'd better start reading (it didn’t happen THAT starkly, by the way, but it’ll do as a good point of reference). However, I believe I actually said to Otto, as Roger does to Otto on page 219, “I’m going to write a book someday if I ever find a subject.” Otto actually said back to me, “Don’t forget to put me in it.  Mention this ice could water foundtain, why don’t ya. This spouritn’ stream eased this kid’s dry innards.”

Contemplating the Library

One of the biggest admissions I make in the book is that Roger has never read a book in his life. Well, actually, he’s read one—he did a book report in sixth grade on The Babe Ruth Story. He only did that because he was forced to by his teacher. As he talks to Otto, Roger almost seems to be flaunting the stark admission. He’s almost proud that he’s never read a book. This is a true statement. I never started to read on a consistent basis until I was in college. I caught up rather quickly, I believe, and still read about 25 books a year to this day. So you can say I caught up and then some. But I put this part into the book because it seems that much of America is comprised of non-readers—people who slip by in a lazy manner without taking the time to crack a book or learn anything. So I threw my own dirty secret in there, hoping to shake the cobwebs off some peoples’ brains via a like-minded pea head. The moment at the library in Hanford, California on Day 24 is shown as a spark of discovery, a light bulb going off.  “I never comprehended a library before.  Its purpose eluded me. Every one always seemed like a museum of paper, with tedious compilations of esoteric details.  But I found out something: If you put in the effort, books’ll meet you half way.  They called out.  They felt exciting to handle and touch.” Otto adds, “What you read adds up. You gotta get your head together in a place like this once in a while. Most words last longer than the author does.”

"It's All the L.A. Area."

When the guys are in Wyoming and catch a ride with lonesome Bill, he describes his home region: “Have you ever heard of Santa Monica? It’s one of those neighboring towns to L.A.  You don’t know where one stops and the next one begins.  All the town run into each other.  We just call it the L.A. area.” That’s what I tried to convey when we got there—the jumble of sights piled on top of one another—as the guys finally arrive there starting on page 228. “Houses and more houses assaulted the senses, increasing proportionately with exits, billboards, cars, construction, and a coffee-lemony smell.” It sparks the guys to skip the glob altogether and park themselves at Disneyland for a few days, and then go to Huntington Beach. Roger, however, uses his feud with Otto to backtrack into the jungle.  On Day 31 he invades more of the area they missed:  The Hollywood sign, the movie lots of Burbank, Beverly Hills. “I got to Wilshire Boulevard and hailed down a guitarist in an old Rambler. But in the process he screwed me up.  He brought me to a tight, curving ramp on the Glendale Freeway, which was the wrong freeway. I fought my way onto the Long Beach Freeway, but before I knew it I was on the Santa Monica Freeway and headed in the wrong direction again.” That is the L.A. area, where one town runs into another. Definitely one of the most challenging spots I’ve ever hitchhiked.

Exchanging Letters With Paul McCartney's Handlers

Here’s what I sent to Paul McCartney at his townhouse in New York on February 3, 2015, along with a copy of my book:

Dear Paul, When I was 17, a friend and I hitchhiked cross-country from New Jersey to California and back. On the trek back, we got picked up by a driver in California who also carried two other hitchhikers: a guy I came to call ‘Detroit,’ and a guy whom I call ‘Paul McCartney.’ (he looked like you, and acted like you—a Beatle haircut, bohemian and free-spirited, always humming music) I would like you to have a copy of the book, so you can enjoy yourself as portrayed in literature—accurately, I believe! A cool thing about these two characters (Detroit and Paul McCartney) is they appear a SECOND time in the story, further down the road. That had never happened to me before in 25,000 miles of hitchhiking. So enjoy the ride. The two sections are pages 278-287 and then on pages 324-349. Thank you.

Here’s what his handlers wrote back to me on February 13, along with my returned book:

Dear Mr. Lobb, Unfortunately, due to complications that have arisen in the past, we have a firm policy not to accept, review or forward unsolicited material to Sir Paul McCartney.  Also, please be advised that neither Paul McCartney himself nor his representatives have reviewed your request and that Paul McCartney is not aware that you have sent your unsolicited request to our office.  We hope you understand.

Yours truly,

-MPL Music Publishing Inc.