ADVENTURES IN HITCH-HIKING

This is a reprint of Lewis Butler's memories of his main transportation to and from college from home in the mid-fifties. Many of his other wonderful stories from time growing up in Carthage, Tennessee are on his blog: http://lewisbutler.blogspot.com/

Seeing people on the side of the road hitchin' a ride was a common occurrence during the middle of the century. In fact there were persons whose only means of transportation from one place to another was by thummin'. One such was a local character in Carthage named Booger McCormick.

There were many Booger Stories during my growing up years. One of which was that once upon a time Leon Petross, a long haul truck driver spotted Booger on the square in Carthage. Leon was heading for New York City with a load of live cattle. Leon made his regular rest stops, but also made good time. As he came out of the Lincoln Tunnel and made a right onto 19th in downtown Manhattan he spotted Booger! "....standin' there as big as life with tobacco juice running down his chin." Leon told that for the truth!

I began hitchin' at age four by riding with the postman to Gordonsville to spend the weekend with my grandparents. Dad would put me in the middle of the postman's truck, and Mr. and Mrs. Boston and I would go to Gordonsville, six miles south of Carthage. I would be delivered right to the front door of the home of Dr. W.B. Dalton, my Grandfather. I was one of those kids who could entertain my grand parents by word and deed. (In school I was known as a "Class Clown," since then I have evolved into a 'situational humorist.')

During the fifties there were no interstate highways: The primary east - west highway was US-70 which ran from Winston Salem, NC to Los Angeles, CA and ran by the end of the Carthage Bridge. During my teen years we hitch-hiked from Nashville to Carthage after working all week for the state highway department. Of course I hitched from college to Carthage almost every weekend. That's where I had most of my "Adventures in Hitch-Hiking".

Between Cookeville and Carthage there were two major turn-offs, one to Gainesboro at Double Springs and one a little further down the road, to Baxter. I found out the hard way, never to take a ride that turned off at either of these two junctions. The two times I did I thumbed for two hours without getting a ride.

It was usually pretty easy getting a ride out of Cookeville to Carthage. I had T.P.I. decals all over my Samsonite suitcase and a big grin all over my face with my thumb up. But a fellow had to be careful about his money, because the fifteen dollars allotted to meals and entertainment during the week had to yield seventy-five cents for cab-fare to "The Triangle" to hitch a ride on Saturday morning. (No tip, Sorry)

Most of the time the rides to the end of the Carthage Bridge were uneventful. But one time I was picked up by a former female school-mate with whom I'd gotten very "fresh" on the band bus. She had a girlfriend with her and she remembered our encounter and discussed it for the benefit of the other traveler, but she kept calling me Sonny Apple. I never got the opportunity to tell her that it was not the "Sonny" she was talking to/about.

One delightfully warm spring day I was standing in the sunshine at the Triangle with a big grin when a 1955, War Bonnet Yellow, Chevy Convertible pulled up. I thought, 'Man, this has got to be the greatest!' I attempted to swing my Samsonite into the back seat since the top was down, but there was some guy lying all over the seat and floorboard. I got in the front with my bag between my knees, and we took off. In about ten seconds I realized that I was in the company of a drunk driver and a very drunk, back-seat passenger!

The guy in the back "woofed his cookies" over the side on a regular basis, and the driver was doing his best to stay in the designated lane. My gracious offers to drive were ignored! We made it to the Carthage bridge without mishap, but I'll never know how. It was a white-knuckle trip.

highway 70-North between Cookeville and Carthage follows the tops of several ridge-lines. Now-a-days not a lot of people actually know what that means. Some think they have been on "curvy roads," but highway 70 N is not just another curvy road. It is so crooked that one is challenged to the extreme. These curves lend themselves to recklessness and showmanship!

Three of us were hitchin' one day when a Cadillac Eldorado stopped. We got in the back seat. There were two guys in the front who never acknowledged our existence. The driver wore a big diamond ring and had the stub of a cigar in his fingers. The front seat passenger had longish hair and was engrossed in the one-sided, front-seat conversation.

I knew we were in trouble when the speedometer registered 70 mph on the first flat stretch outside Cookeville. We took almost every curve in a "broadside-slide", known as a power-slide, until we got to Chestnut Mound.

That trip was when I learned the definition of holding a tight "pucker string"! I held one for at least half an hour. In fact I was preoccupied with perfecting a gripping ability in my butt muscles. We survived the trip without ever having been spoken to by the driver or his companion.

Once I rode with a poor down-&-out guy in a '47 Chevy. That hunk of rolling junk was using oil faster than gasoline. He stopped at every auto repair place on the highway to beg for a quart or two of burnt oil: oil that was left over from oil changes.

I had managed to hang onto two dollars from my weeks allowance by skipping supper on Thursday. My host asked if I had any money "cause he sure did need a beer". I kept quiet and used all my mental powers to urge that old clunker to keep on chugging. We arrived at the end of the bridge, and I gratefully exited. For once I looked forward to the long walk across the Carthage bridge, burdened with my weeks laundry but with my two dollars intact.

These days we hardly ever see folks on the road 'thummin-a-ride.' The last one I saw was in Homer Alaska. The guy had a rumpled beard, rumpled clothes and a rumpled sign asking for a ride to "ANYWHERE!"