On the Road

The era ended, for me, unceremoniously on the 24th of October.

That was the day that the universe made it very clear to me that the hitchhiking portion of my commute to school would be, from then on, so unreliable as to render it useless. While the shocked expressions of many of my schoolchums at the news that I had to routinely thumb my way up to Placerville to begin my comute down to school made me think my commute may have been atypical, it was still part of my daily routine all summer long, and up through mid-semester it'd been a critical component of my commute to work and school both.

That third week of October, however, everything went south. Where before I could almost guarantee finding a sympathetic driver within a quarter hour--since early June that'd been true, without fail!--suddenly hours passed without so much as a whiff of compassion or the slow depression of brakes.

So this is to you, lovely people who helped a sweaty freak make his way up out of the canyon to get to work--especially you total strangers that felt compelled to give me a ride all the way to wherever I needed to go, be it the newspaper I worked at or the bus station I needed to get to school from.

From the retiree on his way down from Georgetown to "the big city"(Placerville) and the fisherman on his way to put his boat in storage before he flew off to Alaska, thanks for the "when I was your age" sympathy, it meant a lot on those hot days.
To all the single women who picked me up claiming you'd never picked up a hitchhiker before "but [I] didn't look like a murderer," thanks for that. I'm pretty sure I'm not a murderer, and I appreciate being given the benefit of the doubt.
As to the 17-year-old blond, blue-eyed home schooler in the CRX--I hope your family didn't celebrate Prop 8 too heavily, and I hope Obama's victory didn't encourage any new firearm purchases.


Thanks to all of you for helping me to work on my interview technique, and for the ride out of the otherwise unwalkable canyone. I wouldn't have made it without you. Literally, I wouldn't have gotten to work or school. For next semester, I'm getting a car. It's the only way to get reliably out of here:


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