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Once in Oregon I hooked a ride with two craggy middle age men and a craggy middle age woman who appeared to be of rather less than normal intelligence. After a few miles the woman turned to me and said they were going to go east at the next crossroad. I said thank you for the ride I will get out at the corner. The driver turned and said no, you're gonna see ơur place. We got a farm. They slowed to 30 or so to turn the corner and I pushed the door open and rolled out on the shoulder with my guitbox. The car almost stopped and I got up to run and it sped up again. When you hitch a lot you learn to respond instantly to ominous signals.

I have a lot of stories but this one sticks out more than the others.

I hitched from Boston MA to Bow NH on a Friday night to stay at a friend's lake house for the weekend. This would have been early 70's. Got a ride from a redhead who had rolled a joint in a Tampax wrapper.

Was still hitching round about midnight and seems like I was getting a ride from a middle aged guy in a nice BMW. Got left off where I thought I needed to be but it turned out two roads met in two different places (almost like a Bow) and I was at the wrong intersection.

I saw a house with a light on and ventured up to ask some directions. It was a guy from a state road crew who was making sandwiches for the next day. He was real nice and gave me a sandwich or two and I asked him if I could put my sleeping bag on the floor for the night. He said OK. There were a lot of cats around - like 10 or 15 as I recall.

I was thinking it could have been worse - got food and shelter and could push on at first light. As I start putting my sleeping bag on the floor he goes to a closet and comes back with a revolver. By all rights, I should have been dead. But instead he puts it under a couch cushion and explains that the cats get nervous with a stranger in the house and that the gun calms them down.

I thanked him for his hospitality and skedaddled and spent the night sleeping by the side of the road. The next night my friend and I went to Old Orchard Beach NH in his Corvair, and spent the night in jail for drinking beer on the beach with two girls we had just met - turns out that town made a living off of arresting people for doing exactly that - the jail was full of people just like us and the shelves above the desk sergeant's desk were filled with confiscated Budweiser.

I truly marvel at my good fortune at having survived some of my "adventures".