Lately, I’ve had the opportunity to sit back and reflect on some of the events of my life - thanks, Substack. It’s been a lot of fun. There remains one area of exploration that puzzles me, still. As in, why in the hell did I do that?
Generally speaking, most of my friends would agree I’m a pretty cautious guy. Never smoked, never did drugs, never been drunk. One thing I did do - which still sort of blows me away - was hitchhike.
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When a kid had to get around, sometimes I used the ol’ thumb!
Growing up in Brookline, a small one-light (blinking yellow) town, we didn’t have a high school for the 24 of us who needed an ed-u-ma-cation. Since our Town Fathers were unable to convince nearby Hollis (6 miles away) to take us, we were bused to Nashua High, which was more than twice as far away, a school that was probably four times the size of Hollis. (Tough to make athletic teams, too! But I made it!)
Since I had to stay for baseball and football practice and both my parents worked, often not really close to Nashua, I had to find a way to get home. The good thing was many Brookline residents worked in Nashua so if I got to the highway at the appropriate time when they were coming home from work, generally a few minutes after five, I’d get a ride with them. If I missed them for some reason, or they had some errands to run or whatever, I had to stick out my thumb and beg.
Sometimes, it was after practice. Once I started college in Nashua at Rivier and got a part-time job at a grocery store near the college, I had to find a way there just about every day. My friend Mark’s father, Matt worked nearby. So sometimes I’d ride with him. He was a great guy and we’d talk boxing and baseball (he hated Muhammad Ali, loved Carl Yastrzemski, so we had disagreements and agreements and there was a lot of “Christ-ing” as in “Christ, they could pitch one day and come back and throw the next…” Mark used to occasionally nag on his dad. “Stop Christ-ing!”
But he was always reliable and would carefully drop me off right across from the Rivier campus. That was especially key in a New Hampshire winter.
Another guy who was a savior for me was Al Blaisdell, a manager at the Nashua Bradlee’s. I used to call him “The Blazer.” Bradlee’s was still a good healthy three-mile walk to Rivier for me but it was a lot closer than the 15 miles from Brookline. He was a wonderful, patient man who used to ask me to read whatever assignment I’d written for my Rivier classes and then, we’d talk about it. He was just a great sounding board for me. That was something he sure as hell didn’t have to do.
There were some weirdos, of course. Once I got a ride with a guy who was a gambler and went into great detail about his theory that in a horse race, one of the horses will instinctively know which one of them should win. The key, he explained, was figuring out which horse that was. Since his car had a rusty door, I think he was still working that one out.
Once, my first girlfriend, Julie Heaney, who lived in Mont Vernon, which was about a dozen miles away, called me on a Saturday afternoon, just as a World Series game was about to start. She’d had a fight with her parents and needed to see me, she said. She knew, of course, I didn’t drive - she had to on all our dates.
This was a challenge because there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic from Brookline to Mont Vernon, especially on a weekend. But I had my duty. Fortunately, I got a ride with a kid who was just driving around. I told him my story and he brought me out to the Heaney farm. Sometimes you get lucky.
When I look back, I don’t think any of my friends hitchhiked. So why did I? Still not sure about that one. Nowadays, it seems like an incredibly risky thing to do. But I had to get to Nashua, didn’t drive or have a car. What choice did I have?
Once one of my Nashua friends found out that I had to hitchhike back and forth between Brookline and Nashua, they let me stay up on top of their garage in a family playroom. Mahlon and Dorothy Artz were so generous to me. I was friends with their son, Jeff and his sister, Cindy. When I had a late shift at the store or had to work all day on a Sunday to get time and a half, I’d stay over.
That a family would be that kind and considerate seems almost impossible to believe in this highly charged political world. Mahlon and I would have epic, half-the-night chess games, chatting about President Nixon. He loved him, I hated him. We’d chat and play chess. He was a hellacious player but one night, I played like a Master and beat him three games in a row, even took his queen. And he STILL let me stay over. (I think I slept about three hours after the chess.)
As I look back at it now, how in the world my parents LET ME DO THAT is beyond me. I wouldn’t have let John hitchhike across the street. But, in fairness, you have to remember it was a different time, it was a small New Hampshire town, it was only a few miles and it seemed innocent enough. Plus, my folks had major issues in their own lives at the time (en route to a divorce) and I was always a pretty independent kid, “the kid upstairs” they called me.
It wasn’t like they never gave me a ride, they did plenty of times. I suppose I could have hassled my father to buy me one of his $100 bombers but frankly, it didn’t seem worth the bother. I was working 38 hours a week, taking three challenging classes (that I loved!) at Rivier and I had to get places. I didn’t have time to wait for that. So, for a good year or two, the good ol’ thumb did the trick.
And now, I suppose I should thank the Good Lord for protecting me on all those jaunts from Brookline to Nashua and back. I was very lucky.
One of the great lines I remember from that period came when I’d had an overnight stay at the Artz’s when they were actually out of town. (That’s how nice they were!) So as I was walking down their driveway to walk to work on a Sunday morning - I’d manage the store the whole day for time and a half - a neighbor spotted me walking across the driveway.
“Who’s that man leaving the Artz’s” a neighbor asked?
“That’s no man,” came the reply. “That’s John Nogowski.”
Great line. Still makes me laugh.
Great story! Yes, I hitchhiked sometimes while in Keene. Like you.... mostly to get to school or work. Having always been a bit of a risk taker and independent I justified it by thinking that I simply had to get where I needed to be! Silly I suppose but fortunately for me I only had good experiences, thank GOD! Different times back then for sure!! Never in a million years today would I ever suggest that to anyone!!
Too bad Jeff Artz didn’t tutor you. He was a genius!