Sunday Essay: Hitching-Part Two

                                                      Hitching- Part Two

	Returning to the United States meant a return to hitching.  It’s a big country and not a lot of public transportation and even with the little that it had in 1978, I couldn’t afford it anyway.  My brothers lived in our family house in Vienna while my school was in Harrisonburg, 130 miles away.  I made that hitch many times, maybe a hundred times over the three years.  I had a girlfriend in Princeton but not for very long, but long enough to have made that hitch at least a half dozen times.  The reason that trip ended was because one time, that last time, I made incredibly good time, well we both did.  I got a ride on the highway outside my college, I-81 and the driver was headed straight to Princeton and then beyond.  She was a horse training jockey.  She “breezed” racing horses and had come down here to Virginia to look at prospects, horses she might buy.  She was a tiny woman, probably not five feet tall but she had amazing biceps and she showed them to me.  She said that working with horses takes a lot of power and strength to manage a ¾ ton beast made to run.  She also showed me her thigh muscles which were equally stunning.  I told her that I was on my way to see my girlfriend at Princeton and she said, “That’s a shame.”  To this day I am amazed at my density.  I never seemed to understand what constituted flirting and I still don’t know.  She was kind enough to drop me right outside the dorm.  She gave me her card and I thanked her profusely for going out of her way and dropping me so close.  She saved me miles of walking and I sprinted up the stairs to my girlfriends room, so excited to surprise her by being here at least 3 hours earlier than I had ever made the trip.
	As I approached her room I heard a familiar sound of moaning and another, not at all familiar sound of moaning made by a deeper voice, something in the male line of pitch.  I checked the tag on the door with the name of the room’s occupant.  There it was, just as it had been all fall with her name done in some kind of clever calligraphy which in very small part would explain how she got into a place like Princeton.  She was competitive everywhere at all times.  In music, in brains, in athletics.  Even when making this trip up, I knew this relationship was heading down but I was way too stupid about these things to have any clue.  I left a small note pinned to the tiny cork board built around her name.  It said something like, “I got here really early, had great luck hitching and noticed that you were very busy.  Let’s call it quits. Thanks for everything.”  On my way out of the dorm I searched for the card the horse lady gave to me but I could not find it anywhere.  Now there’s a regret I’ll carry with me.  I can still recall her saying something very similar to, “Yeah, I really have to ride those horses hard and I always work up quite a sweat,” and she gave me what a perceptive person would call a “meaningful glance” but I was not a perceptive person, I was a dumb shit.
	During the college years I hitched a lot.  From Virginia up to the north of Boston, even once to Montreal and from there west towards Ottawa.  Never made it because it was too goddamn cold.  It was March, I was on Spring Break and wanted to check out a school I was accepted to called Concordia.  My brother had gone to McGill and I was staying with his ex-girlfriend in Montreal.  I had never experienced real cold before but on this early afternoon it was in the teens, something I don’t think I had ever felt in Virginia or Europe.  The sun was already turning down at 2 pm, the wind was picking up and my thumb was numb.  A fellow going the opposite way pulled over, rolled down his window and said, “You need to get off this road pretty soon.  It’s going down to below zero in a couple hours.”  Well, this plain scared the shit out of me.  Within 30 minutes of hearing from that Samaritan I started hitching both sides of the road.  Whenever a car came from either direction, I slogged across the road and hitched.  Luckily I was picked up by a trucker but by then my arm was numb to my elbow and I was shaking with the shivers.  He said, “This ain't no time of year for hitching.”  Pretty much from that time on, I have always tried to stay away from cold weather hitching if there were any other options but, unfortunately I was always broke and I was always restless.  
	While I promised to mention “one of the most important lessons of my life” that I learned from hitching, I didn’t get to it yet.  I really expect to nail it on the next one.  (editor's note; He does nail it on the next one, Sunday Essay, hitching #3, coming in ten days, March 24.)

Now, a short poem.

        Years ago on the side of a highway I found a very flat, two inch pencil with no eraser.  Only a very cool and steady hand can write a poem with no eraser, the risks are enormous but what is life without risk?  (More editor's notes; The average pencil is 7.5" long and can draw a line 35 miles long or write a 50,000 word novel.)  It has just snowed 19" here in Colorado and I wish I was (were?) back in Mexico.  10" more coming today and tonight.   Yippie, two hours on Mule plowing!

                 The Pencil

          Each pencil can run
          a marathon and still
            have lead enough 
      for a dozen short stories.
            I have found them
        on long, lonely hitches 
         keeping me company 
             on the shoulders,
      which shrugged for miles
            in every direction.
      One little stub -no eraser-
               recorded this 
      late evening by flashlight 
          and mile marker 107.
       He had miles left in him
      but I only had one poem.

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