Author Description

“If you hitchhike, you’ll be mugged, robbed, arrested, in a bad car accident, or soaked to the skin by rain.” So said Steve’s mother, but she was wrong. None of those things happened. Two 20-year-old college kids hitchhiked for nine weeks around the USA in the summer of 1961, totally dependent on the kindness of friends and strangers. After reading Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road, though not of the Beat nor Hippy generation, they hitchhiked in search of “slow fun,” as coined by an ex-hitchhiker. They traveled two-lane blacktop roads through the soul of early 1960s America. The Kerouac of it was traveling cheaply in non-commercial time and space. The stories are of the places visited, the incredible scenery, the things they did, and the loads of friends and strangers they engaged with. Bums, migrant workers, salesmen, WW II veterans, and people fleeing poverty and adversity a la Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath; even a Canadian Mountie. Their journey included the Chicago Water Tower, the Mighty Mississippi, a startling first view of the Rocky Mts., Red Rocks in Denver, the Great Salt Lake, laid-back San Francisco, sleepy Seattle, Mt. Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula, the brick Main street in Salina Kansas, Niagara Falls, The Freedom Trail in Boston and the some Jesus beautiful shoreline of Nova Scotia. Throughout the story there’s tension: what’s next? Will they get a ride? And then there’s the question of whether to do it again. It was slow, cheap fun; great for the 1960s for 20-year-olds with expectations not ruined by easy money. But now? Throughout the story there’s tension: what’s next? Will they get a ride? And then there’s the question of whether to do it again. It was slow, cheap fun; great for the 1960s for 20-year-olds with expectations not ruined by easy money. But now?