Back on the Road again
fiction
edward w pritchard
Back about 1970 my pals and I would hitch hike to southern Ohio near the Ohio River, over towards Pennsylvania to fish or with little money for security clear up to the Canadian national road after spending a few days in Montreal. Money was scarce, but friends were easy to make then and we were rough and ready enough to sleep on the ground usually without a sleep bag. Even in July in Ohio nights were cold at 4:30 am and I take the credit of inventing with our group newspaper as blankets. Once three of us were stuck in a small town without enough money for a hotel and I ask at the police station if we could sleep in their yard. No dice said the captain. So we asked at an old couples house nearby and slept on their porch, The older lady made us supper but had her son who was head of the Ohio Prison system stop by to check us out. His last name was Rice I recall. That's the only name I recall from our travels.
Too bad we can't remember names like writer Jack Kerouac in his novel " On the Road". In chapters two through seven old Jack must have met about fifty interesting characters while hitching, and remembered them enough later to describe their families, clothes , idiosyncrasies and philosophies.
It's funny how travel writers like Jack Kerouac, Bill Bryson or Paul Theroux always sit next to the most interesting and unusual hobos and eccentrics, remember their names and bio's and on each trip make lifelong dear friends of people they sat with while hitchhiking or in the second class seats on a cross county train.
Since now in 2021 I have few friends I dearly wish I had obtained the names of all the drivers we hitch hiked with, all the pretty girls we flirted with and all the interesting characters we mesmerized with our opinions and travel stories. Perhaps I should have sent the Rice family from southern Ohio Christmas cards over the years. If only I could remember the small southern Ohio town they lived in.
