[kghjr]

In the summer of 1970, I was driving from Denton, TX to San Diego in a '48 Plymouth Special Deluxe with a straight six flathead, buying 5 gallon containers of reconstituted motor oil because the Plymouth used a quart every 200 miles.

Going across west Texas in a blinding rain storm, at night, crossing a bridge over train tracks, I see a hand coming out of a huddled mass. Slam on the brakes. Two figures, soaked to the bone, come running and pile in the car. These guys look like outlaw bikers. Uh oh.

They turned out to be normal, just looked menacing. They have just graduated from Shreveport High School and are hitch-hiking to LA. There were four of them but they decided it would be easier to hitch in pairs.

We were not in a rush and stopped at any interesting sight to explore. After we got into California, we left the interstate and took off across the desert on dirt roads exploring old abandoned mines. At one point I was leading us into a mine shaft and then it occurred to me that I am in an abandoned mine shaft in the boonies with complete strangers. Let's get on the road, shall we? I dumped them in Huntington and split.

At the end of the summer, I headed back to Denton in the Plymouth, but the engine blew at 10 pm 40 west of Yuma on I-8. One truck stopped but the guy was transporting illegal immigrants. Pass.

About 6 am, A sheriff's deputy sees me. He called a wrecker who pulled me to Yuma. I sold him the car for $25 and used my summer money to buy a used ex-farm pickup truck, radio and heater delete, $600.

Back on the road to Texas. Outside of Tucson I picked up two college looking guys going east and a couple more later. The first two in the cab, the second pair in the back under the tarp.

The two guys in the cab have just spent the summer in LA after graduating from Shreveport High School and are heading home. They were the other pair of the guys I picked up on the way west. They told me about what their buddies said, a crazy guy in an old car forcing them to go down mine shafts. I had scared them. We had a big laugh and then I dumped them under an overpass in a blinding rain storm at the first bridge on I-10 after the I-20 split.

I have a ton of 'em. I used to be hitch-hiker and picked them up for decades, but not in the last 20 years.

Once I picked up a Lakota Sioux in full ceremonial dress, head to toe, at the I-25 southbound on ramp in Raton, NM. He was headed to the Annual Pow Wow of Indian Nations in Albuquerque. He knew Russell Means and John Robidoux and that whole crowd personally. He had some killer weed and native music on tape.

I picked up a French Canadian high school graduate who had been dumped at the most out of the way place in the middle of the Bisti Badlands. He had bussed to Phoenix from Montreal and hitch-hiked all around the four-corners. He was headed to Albuquerque to catch the bus home. I was his last ride. Took him to Radio Shack, Subway, and the bus station. He had a mixed tape, no weed. I practiced my old French and he wrote down American idioms, like, "there you go", and other things I would say without thinking.

Too bad it got dangerous. It used to be fun.