Hitchhike 7,0000 miles across America
Kind of scared, kind of excited —
Journal entry, Monday morning,
March 27th, 1978
pocket knife, wallet, harmonicas, sleeping bag
That morning when waking up I had no special plans for the day. But when I stopped pacing in my basement bedroom, I dumped the binders from my college backpack and filled it with clothes, a Buck knife, and two harmonicas. After cinching a red flannel sleeping bag underneath the pack, it was time to leave.
I took confident strides—until reaching the bedroom door. Its threshold became a one-way passage, that once crossed, would make my commitment final. Looking around: the pale walls and a faded blue rug; my semi-made bed below a poster from the movie Easy Rider with Peter Fonda cruising on his stars and stripes chopper while giving the finger; the dark craftsmen desk made shortly after the Civil War; books heaped on a nightstand. I stood in silence. My breath drew in deep and smooth, filling my nose with that basement smell of unwashed clothes and damp concrete, but when exhaling a wheeze sputtered out. I knew that I’d never view this room the same again.
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