The Kindness Of Strangers
Music, Road Angels, and Finding Community While Hitchhiking (1973 Memoir)
Full Table of Contents: Surfing the Interstates: Complete Chapter Guide
Chapter Three: The Kindness Of Strangers
Wake to semis thundering past. Pennsylvania morning, already sticky. My back aches from the ground, throat raw from the Colombian. Everything damp with dew—sleeping bag, tent, even the inside of my guitar case.
Pack up quick. No grace in it, just efficiency. Stuffing wet nylon, rolling bags, checking I haven't left anything. The cassette player safe in the pack, that Dead tape like a talisman now. Evidence that all of it—Sara, the tambourine, Pigpen's knowing grin—actually happened.
Make my way back to the highway. Eight AM, thumb out, watching for cops.
A yellow VW Bug putters to a stop fifty yards up. Have to run for it, pack bouncing, guitar case banging my leg. The driver leans across, pushes open the passenger door. Skinny guy, maybe twenty-five, shoulder-length brown hair waving like mine. Faded work shirt, cutoff jeans, that easy smile of someone who's been on the road hi…
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