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| Misanthropic Boomer |
It was late in the summer of 1966. Harold Payne and I had recently turned twenty. We had flown up to Sacramento a few days earlier to meet up with a couple of our former bandmates who had been playing in Lodi. The four of us had gone to the California State Fair in Sacramento. Rather than fly back home I convinced Harold that we could save the price of airfare, and it would be a great, fun adventure to hitchhike home. And so on a Monday morning at the end of August we were headed south out of Sacramento on our way to Old Route 99 and eventually back home to Gardena, California.
It was 92 degrees Fahrenheit at seven forty-five in the morning—humidity was off the chart. We had been standing at the base of the highway on-ramp for just over an hour; cars and trucks flying by us as though we were mere mirages. Harold was getting antsy and I could see that he was beginning to regret agreeing to hitchhike back home to Gardena with me. The more I tried to cheer him up, and make light of our inability to catch a ride, the more I could see regret in his eyes. He was quickly losing his enthusiasm for the adventure, and it would seem my apparently annoying patter.
I had been relying on my thumb to get around since I was fourteen and always found it to be an exciting way to see the world. So while I saw hitching rides as an exciting way to travel and meet interesting fellow travelers and learn about the various denizens of the road, seeing myself as a burgeoning Kerouac, Harold was at this point, just seeing it as a tedious trap with no escape.
Then, seemingly out of the hot mists rising from the green, sweet smelling alfalfa fields that bordered both sides of the highway, there appeared a light-brown 1956 Ford Station Wagon that looked like it hadn’t ever been washed. The driver, an affable looking man, sporting a dirty grey fedora that had certainly seen better days, who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, pulled over and waved us to come on. “From the look of you I’d guess you boys have been in this spot near long enough to take root. I’m only going as far as Stockton, fifty or so miles up the road but you’re welcome to join me. C’mon, get in.”
We immediately accepted his most welcome offer and climbed aboard. I climbed into the front passenger seat which had most recently been the resting place of our new benefactor’s rather loud red, white, and brown plaid sport coat. Harold, our bags and his Washburn acoustic guitar were relegated to the back seat.
As he draped the jacket over the front seat-back the older gentleman introduced himself as Fred. He told us he owned a traveling carnival and was on his way to meet up with it: then immediately offered us jobs with the carnival which we politely declined. We explained that we were college students and were going home to resume our education. He laughed and told us we would certainly get an education if we joined him.
Fred then looked at Harold’s Washburn guitar, and as he pulled out onto the highway, addressing Harold said, “Radio’s broken. How about you make some music, it’ll shorten the ride. You do play that guitar don’t you, or do you just carry it around to attract girls?” He laughed.
Harold, in the back seat seemed reluctant. I, on the other hand, being a well seasoned thumb-traveler knew we owed this man a debt easily discharged with song. Not to mention the fact that I was a born performer and looked for any excuse to capture an audience. Harold and I had been singing together for quite some time, both for the pure pleasure and as bandmates, so it wasn’t too difficult to coax him to perform for our benefactor. And so Harold began to play and together we sang for Fred. He was right, it did shorten the ride.
Roughly sixty minutes later Fred took his exit from old State Road 99. As he pulled over to let us out he again suggested we join the carnival. This time he was much more enthusiastic in making his pitch. He told us we could be a featured act in the evening in the main tent and work the midway during the day. Although he made the carny life sound exciting both Harold and I were sensible enough to thank Fred for both the ride and the offer of employment, and politely declined. In truth Fred was offering Harold a job with me as an add-on. Without Harold I would just be a carny roust-about. Fred then handed me his business card and said, “If you should change your minds.” He waved and drove on.
It was now just a bit past 9:00am and a little over 100 degrees in the shade. Harold and I crossed under the overpass where Fred had dropped us and again stood with our thumbs out. This time we were much more fortunate and within just a few minutes we had our second ride. A young farmhand in a red Dodge pickup loaded with bales of hay pulled up and we tossed our bags in with the hay bales then hopped in. It was an uneventful ride that ended thirty-five miles and forty minutes later in Modesto.
We hadn’t had breakfast before we started out, and since it was still early we crossed the highway and had breakfast at an old truck-stop diner. The place was clean, the food was good and Helen, our waitress sporting the ever popular beehive hairdo and makeup that might have been applied with a trowel—was one of the funniest people I‘ve ever met. I remarked that she should be performing standup. A sly smile crept over Harold’s countenance. He winked and said knowingly, “She is.”
After we had eaten our breakfast, Harold and I walked back down the highway and once again at the on-ramp, thumbs out, we waited patiently. It was just past eleven and we still had three hundred plus miles to go. Fortune again smiled upon us and ten minutes later we got our third ride.
As I said, we didn’t have long to wait. An older immaculate black Chevrolet, maybe a 1953 Bel-Air pulled to a stop maybe 100 feet ahead of us and an older African American gentleman put his arm out the driver’s side window and waved us on, yelling back, “C’mon boys, shake a leg. Me and the old woman got a court date waitin’ for us in Visalia.”
Harold and I began to run, afraid of missing the ride. We got to the car and the woman riding shotgun said, “Get in children, the door’s open. The couple were husband and wife, maybe early sixties; dressed in their Sunday church-going finest. The driver was wearing a tan suit, over a starched pastel pink dress shirt, a brown polka-dot bow tie. Beside him on the seat was a white straw fedora. His wife was wearing a red, periwinkle, and blue flower print dress. She held her purse tightly on her lap as though she were worried that it might be taken from her. I got the distinct impression that it was her husband, not Harold or I from whom she sought relief. The couple was very pleasant to Harold and me, however, to each other, not so much.
They were, we found out in due course, on their way to a court date in Visalia, the County Seat and home of the Superior Court. It was there where Joshua had to appear on charges of domestic violence and battery. He had apparently thrown an unopened can of beer at Maria and hit her on the cheek, blackening her eye.
It was a three hour ride to Visalia that began pleasantly enough, but which soon deteriorated into Maria picking at Joshua. For a long time the old man said nothing, just listened to his wife berate him. For his various faults. Sitting behind him I began to notice Joshua’s shoulders begin to tighten and his grip on the steering wheel became intense and claw-like. If the old woman didn’t let up Joshua was going to explode. Harold and I were trapped and so we just sat there wondering not if, but when the old man was going to lose it.
When the old man finally pulled off Highway 99 he didn’t slow down and pull over to let Harold and I out, but instead drove straight down Main Street and pulled up in front of the Court House: their final destination. As we were exiting the vehicle and trying to thank them for the ride, the old guy finally let go. Not only did the not hear us thanking them, but in reality we no longer existed. “Bitch,” the old man yelled, “if you had just dropped the charges we wouldn’t have had to waste the entire day to come down here for your nonsense.”
The old woman countered with, “If you hadn’t tried to take my head off with a beer can there wouldn’t be charges to drop you old fool.” That last remark was a step too far for the old man. As I bent to pick up my duffle I saw his arm extend at lightning speed toward his wife—smack—he backhanded her straight into her mouth and suddenly the court date was gone; replaced by an arrest and a visit to jail. Harold and I beat a hasty retreat and headed back down Main Street to the Highway, lest the police decide they needed to speak with us.
It was 2:30pm and we still had three hundred miles to put behind us before we could call the day a success. Once again “Lady Luck,” came through. We hadn’t been standing by the on-ramp even five minutes when a well worn 1962 Ford Fairlane pulled over and waved to us. When we got alongside the car the passenger began a soliloquy in Spanish, waving his arms and pointing. My two years of high school Latin were less than useless, and we might still be standing there but for the fact that the ever sensible Harold Payne had taken two years of Spanish in high school and another year in college and was quite fluent.
It seemed our present potential benefactors were Mexican migrant farm workers and had been working the fields just north of Visalia and were going back home to Mexico. They wanted to know if we knew how to get to Interstate 5 which would take them to the border at San Ysidro. Harold asked me if I knew how to direct them and I assured him that if we could hitch a ride with them I would get them to Interstate 5. The young migrant farm workers agreed and Harold and I had our ride. Harold asked me if it was going to be difficult to get from Highway 99 to I-5. I explained that we would transition to the 5 as we went through Bakersfield…it was a straight shot.
While Harold and I were having our conversation about directions, the young man behind the wheel was apparently attempting to achieve escape velocity. When I stopped talking with Harold and looked up, the speedometer needle was bouncing between ninety and ninety-five miles per hour, with an occasional brief encounter with one hundred. Harold and I exchanged a brief glance that let each other know of our discomfort, nay, fear brought on by the young driver’s need to break Craig Breedlove’s land speed record.
A somewhat heated three way discussion then ensued between Harold and the two young men occupying the front seat. As previously indicated I spoke not a word of Spanish, however, I knew exactly what was being said. I asked Harold to tell them that this corridor was heavily patrolled by the CHP and that these speeds were considered reckless driving and could land the driver in jail. This got the young man’s attention and he slowed down…for a while.
It being a weekday, and the fact that we were on much less used State Road 99, we were making up a lot of time. We were also making exceptional time due to our young driver having managed to speed back up to about 90 miles per hour. I again suggested to Harold that he remind the young men about the Highway Patrol. Harold spoke with them at length in Spanish and when he was through he told me they said they were always on the lookout for the CHP and didn’t think we would be caught. It was very shortly
Thereafter that we heard the CHP loudspeaker from the chopper overhead advising us to pull over…immediately. Harold translated and our host pulled to the side of the road, where we waited for a CHP vehicle to arrive.
We didn’t have to wait very long, just a few minutes, and a CHP Pursuit vehicle pulled in behind us. I could see the officer’s very unhappy expression as he approached. The next few minutes were a bit tense as the Highway Patrolman discovered the perpetrators spoke not a syllable of English, and his Spanish was apparently on par with my own. Fortunately Harold began to intervene from the back seat. The patrolman asked Harold and the driver to get out of the car and to go with him. He told me to stay in the car with the passenger.
To this day I still do not know how he did it, but Harold, acting as both translator and advocate managed to avoid any repercussions for our new found friend. He got the young man off with a stern warning, and the assurance that a CHP vehicle from the air and ground would be observing us as we traveled on to ensure we stayed within the posted speed limit. Within twenty minutes of being hailed by the helicopter we were again on our way: this time within the speed limit.
Still on State Road 99 we approached Bakersfield and I pointed out the transition to Interstate Highway 5. The driver and his companion then began a very animated exchange in Spanish. When they finished the passenger turned his attention on us and told Harold in Spanish how grateful they were for his intervention with the Highway Patrol, and that since they were way ahead of schedule they would be happy to take us all the way home to Harold’s house in Gardena. I gave Harold the directions which he translated and an hour and twenty minutes later our grand adventure ended as we were dropped off at Harold’s parents house on 153rd Street in Gardena. Harold thanked the two young men for the both of us and gave them directions back to the freeway.
Although that was Harold’s first adventure on the thumb, it was not to be his last. Harold has told me that following his graduation from UCLA and his start upon his magical music journey he again took to the road, as many musicians did in those much more safe, halcyon days, relying on his thumb and his wits to get him from place to place; coloring his music along the way. It gives me a sense of parental like pride to know that I held that door open for him, and a vicarious pleasure in his marvelous musical journey.
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