MY TRAVELIN' TRAVAILS..

I can’t even remember the year but it had to be in the early sixties that I did a lot of hitch-hiking across the country. I know that I lived a short time in or passed through cities from El Paso to Tulsa. I hitched to New York City via Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio and probably skirted other cities and states. I don’t even know why other than I was divorced, angry and looking for something and didn’t know what. In some cities I would work for a bit. Tulsa was one. Davenport, Iowa was another. Kansas City, Kansas. It was a lot less dangerous back then to hitch-hike. At least, I never had any trouble. People were pretty nice.
The one most frustrating time was coming back from New York. I was going through Cincinnati, Ohio or rather I was trying to. Some guy picked me up about 9 or 10 at night outside of Cincinnati and dropped me off toward the center of the city. He mentioned that Cincinnati was built in a circle like Paris and told me to just stay on some, I don’t remember, street or highway and I would go right through Cincinnati. Well, I had several rides until I found that I had passed by the same buildings most of the night. The last ride let me off in what seemed like country. It was 2 in the morning and a Lonely road and very dark. It was an intersection with a very dim street light above it. I heard dogs barking not too far from me but I was afraid to leave the street light and wasn’t even sure which way to go. There was a really long time went by before I finally saw a car coming.

It was still dark so I put out my thumb and they slowed down so I went over to the car and started to open the door. It was an old couple and when I touched the door I could see the absolute fear on the lady passengers face and the driver hit the gas and took off scared to death. Looking back, I didn’t blame them. I probably appeared very scary to them. I felt that they may have been frightened enough to possibly report the situation to the police or someone and possibly try to find me. I walked in the direction that instinct took me. About less than an hour I suspected there Was a God. Lo and behold, another car came and saw me and stopped and I got in.
It was a young guy who was going to work. The radio was blasting and he just started to talk over it. Now, I had not eaten anything for a really long time and when I got in I could smell that he had a big box of donuts between us. I was so thankful for the ride that I didn’t feel like I could ask for a donut even though the urge was overpowering. He said he was going to the west end of the city which would get me going in the right direction. After about ten minutes he asked me if I would care for a donut. I said I would. Nothing has ever tasted better in my life than that donut. I finally told him what I went through and he said I could eat all the donuts I wanted. I ate 6. I wanted 12 but I held back. When we got to where he let me off I thanked him profusely.
I never got his name but at that moment I wanted to put him in my will, which probably would amount to about nothing then. But, it was the thought that counted. And he got me going in the right direction.