Redneck country

Driving back to the Bay Area from Seattle today brought back memories of an amazing hitchhiking trip that I took down the coast, from Seattle to San Diego, many years ago with my friend Gerry. Two guys hitchhiking is a recipe for not getting a lift, so we had to devise ways around this. One of us would stand with a sign saying “Hitchhiker – 100 feet” while the other would stand down the road with another sign saying “Hitchhiker”. Another absurd attempt was holding a sign that said, “We eat wheat.” But the most effective of all was when the two of us would act outrageously silly. We’d hop around, arms flailing, pulling our hair – doing whatever as long as it was absurd and silly… Gerry loved “playing piano” on his teeth while humming a tune… We’d do this while holding a sign with the name of the next city. This somehow worked great and people would laugh and stop, and we had great fun doing it. We kept this up through Washington… through Oregon… But we found that the further south we went, the less people laughed. In southern Oregon, no one was laughing any more. The climax occurred in Crescent City: California’s most northern city. Here they were downright nasty: cars would intentionally swerve toward us; people would poke their faces through curtains and just stare at us; others were yelling obscenities. We started to feel like everyone in this town knew who we were… that news about these two strangers had rapidly spread to every pore of this angry place. We were in redneck hell! We stopped the crazy behavior and decided to walk to the edge of town and resume our hitching beyond the city.

Minutes later, a pickup truck abruptly turns, driving right onto the sidewalk we are walking on and blocking our path. Four big guys in lumber jackets step out and walk toward us. “Wha don’t you git a job an baa a caa,” one says through a sneer. Gerry and I look at each other. “Yea… well.. yea …that’s what we’re gonna do when we get back home.”

They stare at each other, not sure what to do. Another says, “an wha don’t you cut yo hiii, maybe you git a rad.” We stare at each other again and nod. “Yea, that’s what we need to do.”

They stare at each other, angry and confused since we’re not giving them a chance to descend upon us with their fists (and likely resulting in our being charged by the local Sherriff with Disturbing the Peace). They climb back in their pickup and drive away.

“Holy shit, lets get the fuck outta here!!”

We quickly walk to a corner store; I pick up the phone (this is pre-historic, pre-cell phone days) and call a cab. Gerry comes up to me, wide-eyed. “X, you gotta see.” I go to the window and see three pickups parked side by side with their lights on, full of guys staring at us like they want to kill us.

The cab arrives and we tell the cabbie to just get us out of this place. As we’re driving to a campground in the nearby Redwoods, I tell him what’s been happening. The driver looks at me with some disdain – he knows all about us, just like the rest of the town. He growls at us, “If I’d seen you boys hoppin round, I’d a run you over!!”

We get to the campground and have a good sleep. The next morning we resume our trip, finding to our great relief that continuing south, we re-enter civilization where tolerance and people’s sense of humor returns.

Stuff I shot on this recent trip:

Birds at dawn:

Low water levels in California from a 2-year drought

Cows watching the sunrise

Trees watching the sunrise