February 4, 2010

I did a lot of hitch hiking in my early 20's. While I was living at Harvard, vacation times (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) were difficult for me. I didn't have money to fly home and all my friends were gone so I had to come up with cheap alternatives. I hitched down to D.C over one spring break to be a spectator at one of the huge anti-war demonstrations that were occuring. (early '70's).

I had an older brother living in Ontario, Canada at that time and one Thanksgiving break I decided to visit him. I had enough money to fly from Boston to Toronto. He lived in Exeter, a couple hundred miles to the west. I got into Toronto about midnight and took a bus downtown.
It was raining and cold. I got a map and figured out what road I needed to get on and stuck out my thumb. It must have been 2am when someone finally picked me up. In the course of the ride I found out that he had recently been released from a federal prison in upstate New York. We talked the whole way and he was kind enough to go out of his way to drop me off at my exact destination point.

When I look back on that experience I am so amazed that I felt no fear. Here I was, alone, late at night, riding in a car with a complete stranger--an ex con-- and all I felt was this wonderful sense of adventure. I guess it was my naivite.

What a fearful world we live in today...It causes me to stop and wonder what is going on? Am I still naive?