April 7, 2024 • 78 mins
Hello Backstory fans! join us for a fun chat where we reminisce about our own hitchhiking tales and have a discussion on life’s unexpected risks.
The episode features our first-ever four-time guest, author Jeff Rasley, a seasoned storyteller whose life mirrors his narratives, sharing captivating details about his hitchhiking experiences.
Experience a thrilling ride through America in winter of 1972 with Jeff in his latest narrative, "Adventure Unleashed: A Hitchhiker’s Big Journey". From encounters with diverse spectrum of characters to learning invaluable life lessons, this episode provides a look into the American hitchhiking culture of the 70s.
Jeff also relives his remarkable journey meeting fascinating characters across America. From the 'Jesus in a Ferrari’ to the fanciful crime gang inviting him to join their ranks, this episode paves the path to intriguing storytelling leading to stirring self-introspection and spiritual growth.
Another highlight of this Backstory Sessions includes a riveting detour into the counterculture scene. Jeff talks about his unexpected stops at secretive cult compounds, his adventures at Mardi Gras, and how these diverse cultural exposures have shaped his life. Tune in to take part in this journey, which promises a great mix of humor, nostalgia, and transformative life events.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Kat, and I want to welcome you to this episode of Backstory Sessions.
I'm joined today by my co-host, Matt.
Hey, Matt. Hey, Kat. Hey, everyone. How are you?
Well, we've reached the milestone. This is the first guest that we have had
(00:20):
on for four times on the podcast.
Cast that's true yeah he is returning for
yeah i'm trying to remember when
the first one was it's been a while though
yeah probably like three years or
something i would say yeah we're doing like
a travel episode or something yeah it
(00:43):
was him and another lady so
it was a split episode of that time so you
could say that was like half a guest you know if
you want half an episode episode but they
did yeah it did about travel and then
we had pickleball if you remember the book yeah i do remember that yeah a mystery
(01:04):
wasn't it or murder pickleball yeah pickleball murder or something like that
yeah so definitely that was a hit and you know then it was the wisdom book Yes,
I was in that one. Yeah, I remember that.
You were. I was not.
(01:25):
But I still remember it. And it was interesting, you know, to talk about the
wisdoms and the one that you submitted.
And now, you know, he's got a new book out and we're going to be talking about that.
So I feel like he deserves something.
Something like? Ka...
(01:48):
I don't know, a star on this picture that we posted or something. There you go.
A star on the podcast wall of fame.
That's right. And that's better than the wall of shame because we don't really have one of those.
And we don't have the wall of fame either.
(02:08):
Well, we do now. Right.
We have the theoretical wall of fame. Yes. Thanks to Jeff Radley. Yeah.
See that he's inspired us yet again well really
it's thanks to me thinking of it but um i
don't know you think that'll get me in the book
maybe the next one you never know yeah
(02:32):
i hope there'll be a next one because you know it
would be it would suck to be like cut up right now when
i'm you know i've earned a spot yeah well
i mean he he writes quite a bit as i recall so
you know you never know well this
one is uh really it sounds very interesting you
(02:52):
know it's a hitchhiking story based a
bit it seems like on his own true experiences
which you know i think all writing probably
has little bits and pieces of the writer's life
or true experiences mixed in don't
you think yeah usually some aspect of
(03:15):
it you know like something that happened to you or somebody
you know or some story that you've
heard of or whatever yeah so you
know i i personally would be.
Afraid to hitchhike i also
don't want to pitch up pick pick up any hitchhikers
(03:37):
but sometimes you know like my heart
feels like bad about that it'll be
like but you know like they their
cars broke down or you know whatever but i
don't know i mean i'm just if i don't know
the the people i'm i i will stop like you know and call if they need somebody
(04:00):
somebody called right but you know i'm just i'm just too afraid yeah i mean
i haven't really done too much hitchhiking i have done it years ago not recently.
But you know it is what it is yeah i
mean you know you see those people at the interstate exits
or whatever you know that are like we'll work
(04:24):
for food need you know whatever but that's
like you know i don't know if they're really hitchhikers
but i don't stop and pick them up
either yeah i mean there's
some like if somebody's going from like i don't
know in your case let's say they're going from Corbin to
Lexington or something like
(04:46):
that I mean maybe I would give them
a ride I don't know because I'm going that way anyway so you know for me it
would be a pass unless I knew them because they get you know you get on that
interstate 75 going north and And you're as good as trafficked right into,
(05:08):
you know, wherever they traffic you.
Okay.
So, yeah. I mean, really, there's
just so much stuff going on in the world that it's just hard to know.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you gotta be, you know, I guess you gotta be smart about it.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, without a doubt, like if I saw somebody that was
(05:31):
a former student or, you know, someone even in the community that I recognize
as, you know, a friend of a friend, something,
you know, I mean, I definitely like to help people.
But you have to, you know, like it's you can't kill yourself to do that.
So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so.
(05:54):
But, I mean, I do find, like.
Hitchhiking aspect of things
it's kind of like the i guess what jeff rasley
is kind of like you know he like travels and does all these expeditions and
things like that so and people that do nomadic life i mean all of it sounds
(06:17):
very interesting and intriguing but i'm just too much of a scaredy cat Well,
I mean, you know, I guess this this story takes place in the early 70s from what I remember.
And, you know, things were a little bit different then where.
Yes. And also, I was a lot younger and did not see things like I do see them now.
(06:44):
So you know i did a lot of
things that my parents were like so worried you
know like oh my gosh you're gonna get killed or you
know whatever like you can't do that and i never like i mean i i went to texas
with my friend mary so it wasn't just me but i mean we'd never been we'd never
(07:07):
driven to texas and at that time you know there were maps like atlases,
So you didn't have GPS or cell phones or anything like that.
And, you know, we just got the map. She got off from work. I was already off
from work. We headed to Texas.
Made it texas stayed with this family that we knew nothing about had i mean no i mean just,
(07:34):
you know nothing absolutely nothing and they
were the nicest family like you know
they like had pressed squeezed orange juice every
morning like you know they were so good to us i
was like oh you know i want to stay here for a while
you know the guy didn't end up being like
all that interesting but the family i would
(07:56):
love to have the family but anyway you
know i mean didn't think a thing about that and
you know i probably wouldn't do same thing now i've been naive the naive what's
the word naivete naivete of youth yes yeah well you know maybe it was foolish i I don't know,
(08:20):
but I mean, that's part of being young, isn't it? Like young and foolish, I think.
I guess that's part of it, but, you know, I mean, I'm sure you remember my trip to Ukraine.
I mean, some would call that foolish, and I did that, like, you know, when I was in my 50s.
(08:42):
I was going to say, you can't really claim the young part.
Right, younger. younger but younger right
yeah so so i guess
i don't know if it's like something that i guess you lose your you know that
spirit over time to some degree i mean some people do others you know they're
(09:05):
just more or less fearless well i mean like i think like children Even,
you know, if you watch children, you know, that they don't think about.
Fear and all those things like they're thinking about what
they want or you know what they're wanting to try and
right yeah so i do think like it's
(09:29):
a good thing that you get wiser as you
get older because you wouldn't last that long
in most cases if you didn't learn
you know that fear is i mean
there are some things that are not safe to do so
so are you saying that hitchhiking is
not safe to do i mean you it definitely
(09:51):
is a risk just like going on that
trip to texas like you know ted bundy
like he could be the one picked you up you know i
mean that's true i guess you know there's all
sorts of risk in life so you just never
know right and you can't
always tell hell you know by looking either because again
(10:13):
like the serial killers like ted
bundy you know attractive and you know
lawyer and or passing off to
be a lawyer i don't know if he really was one whatever but
you know good looking guy and whatever did not look
the type of what people thought was going
to be somebody to kill them so i mean you know
(10:35):
you never know but then you've got.
Other people you know that i mean so you
could be married to someone for many
years and then find out that they're also
crazy as could be and kill you because that
happens too you know that sure i think that i think we're you know kind of getting
(10:56):
off track though it's like you know well i mean i just i think it does speak
to yes i am afraid of hitchhiking and it is risky you know in In my mind, it is too much of a risk.
But as you said, we do take risks all the time. Life is hard.
You know, I mean, every decision really has some risk and it's just a matter
(11:21):
of the balance, I think, of, you know, how much risk is a is a reasonable amount for your life.
And, you know, hopefully the odds are in your favor.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Yeah. I mean, you know, you never know.
(11:41):
That's a line from the Hunger Games. yeah well
and that is a popular you know
that was very popular so yeah so
i guess you're right i guess it's like
all and what you're willing to tolerate and you
know your risk avoidance and
things like that yeah because really
(12:04):
i mean you could if you thought
about every risk every germ every you know
every every every yeah you never leave the house
no you'd be locked in a bubble you'd
be afraid to eat any foods take any medicine you
know you'd be afraid the government like you know
(12:24):
surveying your house so you wouldn't talk on the phone i mean you know so you
i i think you could just go overboard and be afraid of everything or be afraid
of nothing you know i think both of those are kind of extremes and they don't work for me,
not to, you know, but I probably could like loosen up a little bit,
(12:47):
you know, on my fears, but yeah,
Overall, I would say age-appropriate. I'm pretty age-appropriate with fears, I think.
So do you find yourself more fearful now than you were years ago?
Is that what you're saying?
Well, I must because, you know, like I said, I wouldn't take off now to some stranger's house.
(13:10):
Yeah, probably not.
But, you know, I know you have cell phones. you
have a lot of things that you could
maybe like you know i could say hey matt you
know i'm going to this location you know if
i don't call you at you know whatever you'll you
know send help or whatever i mean
(13:31):
we didn't have that like that was payphone days
you know remember and that's if you you had a quarter or dime
35 cents collect call
i know and you know my parents they
would have accepted it but you know my my dad
he was always like i don't believe you
know it's like he didn't believe i was going he thought i
(13:53):
was just saying it to aggravate my mom but my
mom knew i was going and she was like
you know just like begging me you know i'll do
anything if you don't you know know you're gonna
get killed but i i did like
in the days of again you had to have a camera you know so i did take some photos
of texas um you know welcome to texas signs and such so my dad would know that
(14:19):
we actually were there oh so he was saying that you're just pretending to go,
Yeah, it's just pretending to go.
I could see that. Yeah, yeah, it could have been that, too. But in this case, I really did go.
And, you know, it wasn't just the fact of, like, staying with the strange people.
(14:43):
I mean, it was just, like I said, we'd never driven any place like that.
You know i mean we could have ended
up in i don't know maine or
something but luckily i was a
good math reader so you know
we we did fine there i did get a speeding ticket um so you know that's unfortunate
(15:09):
colleen texas if you're listening but yeah i find it i find that i find that
a little little difficult to believe,
only because I've driven with you before. I know, yeah.
I know. So, in my life, I have gotten...
(15:30):
Two speeding tickets wow and i
slowed down after that huh yes i
mean well you know i was a lot more cautious of where i might be speeding yeah
because you know you i don't want to get points on your your license and all
(15:50):
of that so do you speed now no okay.
Now you know and the speed limit has gone
up now too you know compared to what it was at that time when i got i don't
even know what it was in texas but you know like the roads are like the miles
(16:11):
are really long and i just had like mary was the one driving and we had just
switched so you know here Here I am, like, all fresh,
ready to drive and get back home because, you know, every mile seems like 50. Yep.
And I'm just like, you know, it looks safe. So, again, I'm, you know, assessing the risk.
(16:35):
The risk looked like, yeah, this road looks safe for me to go whatever speed I was going.
And it was, except for, you know, I didn't assess the police being, you know. So, Harry.
Hiding behind the billboard.
Well, you know, they cared about my safety. Yes, yeah.
(16:58):
And, you know, I mean, it is true that I only did get one more speeding ticket after that.
So, I feel like, yeah, you know, maybe that did help me along the path. Yes, potentially so.
You know how many I've gotten? i mean
how many you deserve would be a lot but
(17:20):
i'm gonna say you have gotten four i've actually gotten one and it was um they
dropped it so i never got in charge with it were you speeding yeah i drove by
a state police car at like 80,
well how come you didn't have
(17:41):
to pay it because they got me for dwai
which was i had been at
a bar earlier and stopped drinking like
two hours before i left and you know so they did the breathalyzer and all that
and i got it i was just under the legal limit for drinking and so whatever whatever
(18:06):
the next step down from a DWI is, is what I got charged with.
Well, you know, listeners out there, you know, don't, don't listen. Don't follow along.
Learn from us. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, that was back in the,
you know, like the eighties.
(18:28):
Yeah. I mean, would you
say like you're wiser about that kind
of activity now and you're driving drinking and
driving sure um driving faster
than i should yeah maybe yeah
i mean you know so i i do think like you get a little bit more wise however
(18:52):
there's probably a point which we're not at the age of yet but when we get to
it will probably be like okay well well, you know, we're at about the end here,
so let's just, like, throw caution to the wind and do whatever we want to do. Yes, yeah.
Yeah, they could be. We'll see. I mean, it's not too far away, so.
(19:15):
Well, you know, we're far enough.
But another season or two. Yeah.
Speaking of seasons, we have one more episode after this one.
Oh, and season 11 will be history. Is it 11 or 10?
11. We're on 11 right now. Oh, okay. Wow.
(19:38):
You're more up on this than I am. But I know we've talked about a couple of
things for next season and we've got a lot of cool stuff coming up.
Yeah, you know, it's going to be exciting for season 12, which we'll see everybody in May for that.
Yep, Cinco de Mayo. Yeah.
(19:59):
So, you know, just lots to look forward to and lots happening between now and
then. All right, well, let's talk to Jeff and find out what his hitchhiking
story is and where he went and how that all went for him.
Well, and let's see if we can get me in the next book. There you go.
(20:19):
All right. Well, Jeff Rasley, I am so happy to have you as our guest again on
Backstory Sessions. It's been a while.
It has been, and thanks for having me back, Kath and Matt. Yeah,
I do think it's the fourth time.
And if it is, you will be our very first fourth time guest.
(20:44):
OK, well, that's got to be worth something. I'm looking forward to the check in the mail.
That and five bucks will get you some coffee at Starbucks.
OK, I'll take it. Well, this book that you're going to be discussing today is quite interesting.
Thing a hitchhiker's big adventure you know
(21:05):
I myself have never hitchhiked so we'll just start with that Matt I don't know
have you yeah I think I have certainly not hundreds of miles but yeah I do remember
catching a ride into town a few times.
Okay. So, you know, you all can share that experience.
(21:27):
I would be terrified. So I'm just going to say that, you know,
like the thought of strangers.
So Jeff, you know, let's start there.
Like you're what, 18 years old at the time? Yeah. And just two points.
One is, I think, Kat, you're right to be afraid of doing that.
(21:51):
And one of the points that I make in the book is how things have changed.
So this book is set in 1972 and how back then there was this kind of hippie peace, love,
zeitgeist that made hitchhiking much safer because a lot of the people that
were hitchhiking and picking up hitchhikers were kind of hippies,
(22:16):
college students into the alternative consciousness. suspiciousness.
So there was that safety factor, but I'm sorry, go ahead. I could tell you were going to ask something.
Well, I was going to say like, you know, at 18, your view of what's safe,
is a lot different, at least for me, I would not have thought as much about it at 18 as I do now.
(22:43):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I wanted to do it because, as the title indicates,
I wanted to have a big adventure.
And it was my first big adventure in terms of going off into the world and doing
something that had a certain amount of risk and doing it solo.
(23:05):
Solo, although I was with, you know, different people almost all the time,
except when I was standing on the side of the road with my thumb out by myself.
But to clarify, the book is half memoir and half, well, probably it's about
80% memoir and 20% fiction.
(23:27):
I mean, it's what the literati would call auto fiction,
which is a fictionalized, memoir
because i didn't want to write just
a straight memoir of the experience because mainly
it was so long ago i can't remember a
whole lot of it and i i didn't
(23:49):
keep a journal and i didn't take a camera so
i have no pictures no journal to jog my memory and so what i did is I took most
the characters in it that pick me up and that I run into were all people that
(24:09):
I actually did have encounters with,
or they're at least based on those characters.
And all the places that I stopped where I crashed for the night or spent time,
those are all places that that I actually did that.
But some of the events are changed, and some of the people are changed in certain ways.
(24:36):
So anyway, it isn't a straight memoir. It's a novel.
So it's, like I said, it would be classified as auto fiction.
So I did have that as a question to ask about how much of it was,
you know, the true experience and then how much of it was a fictional part.
So that's very interesting that you've added that.
(25:00):
So I don't even have to ask that. But I've got a lot of things I do have to ask.
And the first thing is like, okay, so I understand like, you know,
people wanting adventures and like risk sounds exciting.
And I guess, you know, and all of that.
How did you go about, I mean, so you're in college and then you drop out of
(25:26):
college after a semester.
And then you worked enough to make $65.
So is that part true? Is that what you made to go off on this adventure? You had $65?
Yeah, that's completely true. I did one semester, college, dropped out,
(25:48):
worked in a factory, which was probably more dangerous than hitchhiking.
Because I was running this steel cutting machine that had no safety devices.
And every other person in the factory that had run that machine lost fingers.
But I don't know if I was smarter or more agile than they were.
(26:11):
But anyway, I did it for six weeks. And back in 1972, I saved up $65 from that.
And when I got back home after being on the road for six weeks, I had $5 left. Wow.
So was 65, were you, was it a conscious effort to like,
(26:34):
okay, I'm going to work until I've got $65 or, you know, was it,
okay, I've worked as long as I'm going to, and I just happened to be with $65? Yeah.
It was the latter. It was like, I can't stand this any longer.
I want to get out of here. And that's, you know, that's how much I had. Okay.
(26:59):
So you got $65. I imagine you pack lightly, but what do you take with you?
I took clothes, sort of, you know, personal kit.
So that kind of thing, probably not deodorant.
And because I'm starting out
in northern Indiana and it's in
(27:19):
the dead of winter so it's cold and
snowing so I'm you know kitted out
with warm clothes but then because my intention is
to get down to Key West I've got you know a bathing suit and and shorts and
that kind of those kind of clothing and had a big knife for protection and that's
(27:44):
about it i did i had a flashlight,
and i had some reading material some snacks
which were used up fairly quickly and that
was about it and had it all you know stuffed in
what was a boy scouts of america pack
which um i i covered the bsa a emblem with the dove of peace symbol because
(28:10):
I wanted to project more an aura of being a hippie than being a Boy Scout.
And a sleeping bag. Okay, so was it for just a warmer weather that you chose
Key West or what made that the first destination?
(28:34):
It was the it's the furthest point south and I wanted to go south.
And so I've been to Key West on a family trip when I was a little kid and thought it was pretty cool.
So there was a nice memories of it. But it was mainly just like that's as far
south as you can go. So make that the destination.
And that's where I'm headed.
(28:56):
All right. so you're all
ready to go and how long before someone picks you up it wasn't very long and
the first ride i got i i have in reality just kind of a vague memory of the
(29:17):
guy being you know kind of.
Hippie type on speed who was
sort of scary because he was always
talking and looking at me while he was driving instead
of paying attention to the road so
his character and our conversations
are almost entirely made up
(29:39):
because i you know just had this very vague memory
of him the next person in the pick me up i have
a very clear memory of so and who
was that like what i well he was
he was a very tall man who looked like
he was about 40 and he wanted
(29:59):
to engage in sex with me and i imagine that would be hard to forget on your
second pickup okay well and it was It's especially memorable because growing up in a small town,
a very conservative small town in northern Indiana,
(30:20):
I had never known someone who was an out-of-the-closet homosexual.
And one of the things I wanted to experience that I thought this would be a
big adventure was to encounter people that were different than people I had known in my small town.
(30:41):
The second person that picks me up was very different because, like I said,
at that point in my life, I had never known somebody who was openly gay or a
man who wanted to have sex with me.
(31:01):
So that was an interesting encounter.
And when I managed to get a nice long ride all the way from Indianapolis down
to Bloomington, where Indiana University is, which was my goal for the night,
and managed to do it without having to have sex with the guy.
(31:22):
I mean, so were you naive to what was going on at first?
No, in the sense that he came right out and asked.
And it didn't take him very long before he did that.
But it shocked me. I mean, it was shocking. And it was also scary.
(31:43):
And I'm a pretty decent size at the time. And still, I was very fit.
I was a three-sport athlete all through high school.
And I knew how to take care of myself.
In a fight and my immediate thought was oh my god i'm gonna have to fight this
guy off and he's actually bigger than me but,
(32:06):
I also developed just almost instantaneously a strategy to avoid any kind of
a conflict, which was I started asking him about his life.
And I told him, I've never met somebody who's homosexual before.
Would you mind telling me about yourself and how did you figure out you were gay?
(32:32):
And I just asked him a whole bunch of questions like that. And he seemed to enjoy answering them.
And he told me sort of the whole story of his life and why he thought he was homosexual,
which he blamed it all on his mom, which back in those days was sort of the
classic understanding that you had a domineering mother and kind of an inconsequential father.
(32:59):
And he sort of fit that stereotype.
But I had taken a psychology class in high school and also my first semester in college.
I'd taken intro psych class, too, and had sort of remembered that one,
either my high school teacher or the college professor had briefly addressed
(33:24):
the subject and had thought or either said that there was evidence.
Is that this was your sexual orientation was genetically
determined and so i asked him
about that and you know we had an interesting discussion
about whether that was possible it was all environmental and i mean he was a
(33:44):
thoughtful intelligent guy but he did this routinely he told me he'd go out
on the highway pick up and because back then there were a lot of young young guys out hitchhiking,
pick up young guys hitchhiking and see if they wanted to get it on.
Interesting. I mean, did you have, was there anyone that you turned down a ride from?
(34:13):
No. No, I didn't. And I got in like one car, or actually truck,
I got in and the guy has his hand kind of down near his feet.
And as I started to get in, I look and he's got a handgun in his hand and there's
a rifle on a gun rack in the cab of the truck.
(34:34):
And so there was a moment of, oh, man, maybe I ought to jump back out of here.
But he turned out to be a fascinating guy. It was one of the more enjoyable
rides I got, which was across Alligator Alley down in Florida from Miami over to Naples.
(34:55):
And he was an alligator hunter. hunter so
he and we even while we're
driving across through the everglades at one
point he stops pulls over jump
grabs the rifle jumps out of the cat
the truck and runs out into the mangrove swamp
everglades with with his rifle
(35:18):
you know looking around as he thought he'd seen a gator but
he didn't shoot one although he told
me it would have been great for my education if he yeah
so so i
mean was there a plan b like
if if you had had gotten into
(35:39):
a situation did you have a
plan b of like okay this is enough
of this i'm gonna take my 65 dollars and
try to to get back home no i didn't
really but i knew that if i really got in trouble i could call my parents or
(35:59):
call my girlfriend and they would probably come get me and i had a step-grandmother
brother in Inglewood, Florida.
Which is just maybe 90, I think it's about 90 miles north of Naples,
which was why I was going over across Alligator Alley at that point to get to her house.
(36:25):
And I spent several days at her house.
So she was also sort of a safety valve that I could call on if I needed. Yeah.
But I didn't, you know, I didn't, I, this was something I wanted to do.
I didn't expect or, you know, really even think through, okay,
plan B is, you know, X, Y, Z.
(36:47):
Just I'm doing this. I got myself into it. I'm going to get myself out of it.
And I've always, I mean, years later when I was doing Himalayan expeditions
and climbs on peaks, that was always the attitude I had.
And I sort of resent people who, like in the mountains, who would get into trouble
(37:10):
and have to be rescued because it puts the lives of other people at risk.
Rescuing people on big mountains is a dangerous thing to have to do.
And I was determined I would never have to call on somebody else to get me out
of a situation that I put myself in, knowing that this is risky. ski.
(37:31):
And so I've always tried to be, at least in my own mind, prepared to handle whatever came up.
And so far, I always have.
Was there anyone that discouraged you from this trip? Oh, my mom.
(38:19):
When I got out of the car.
So she was she didn't think this was a great idea.
My dad, my dad, I think, was not so upset about it because he hitchhiked across
the country when he got out of the service to get back home from the West Coast.
(38:39):
Was there like a
reason that you would
have had a lesser adventure you know by
taking a bus or you know some other
means yeah i mean i think
you know riding a bus could could be pretty interesting i've
had some interesting bus rides if you know you get to
(39:00):
talking to people on the bus but in
terms of the sort of the intimate experience
of being in a car either i mean
it was usually with just one person although there were
a few rides with more than one person in the car but you know being in this
very small space with someone and you're there isn't anything to do other than
(39:24):
listen to the radio or look out the windows than talk and so i I had just,
I mean, I sort of entered into other people's lives.
And so many of them were people I would have never met in Goshen, Indiana.
And that, I mean, I wanted to have that experience. I thought that would be really cool.
(39:48):
And it was. And I knew there would be some risks. And that's why I had the large
knife in the side of my pack, which I usually was within reach.
But, you know, to meet people like the guy who picked me up in a Ferrari and
(40:08):
I mean, who drives a Ferrari and will pick up hitchhikers?
This guy, he was he was Jesus in a Ferrari because he had decided to try to
live like Jesus and would help offer help to anybody he met.
And so it was really cool to get a ride in this Ferrari.
(40:32):
But I was on my way home at that point. And because he stopped every time we saw.
And back then, cars broke down.
So every time we saw a car that was broken down or we saw another hitchhiker,
which we couldn't pick up because we couldn't get more than the two of us in
the car, he would stop. He would give them money.
(40:55):
We went, we got gas for a young couple who'd run out of gas.
He paid to get a car fixed at a gas station because this Hispanic family had
their car was broken down.
And he gave citrus he gave citrus
fruit and money he had it in the trunk this this
big box full of grapefruit and
(41:18):
orange juice or oranges because he'd been down to
florida and was taking this back to minnesota
where he was where he lived and it
ended up taking a hell of a long time to get
that very far so actually that night
when we stopped to sleep at at
(41:38):
a a rough stop i ditched him and found another
ride and so
i went from getting a ride with jesus in a
ferrari to the two guys that i
then got a ride with were the mafia
from dowagiac michigan and
they turned out to be a real hoot because
(42:01):
their criminal enterprise is from
what i could tell was mostly in their imagination yeah but they wanted me to
join their gang and so i said yeah sure after you drop me off i'll be in touch
well which had the bigger impact the mafia or the jesus.
(42:25):
Well, the Mafia was more entertaining except when, so there was an old guy and a young guy.
The young guy drove and the old guy was really decrepit looking.
But who was the godfather of the Dowagiac Mafia when he pulled a revolver out
of his glove compartment and spun the cylinder around.
(42:48):
Around and it's like i'd gotten
in the car and we'd driven oh for
maybe 10 minutes or so before he seemed to
sort of notice that i was in the back seat and
all of a sudden he declared that
there was somebody else in the car and got
(43:09):
got this revolver out and so
that was not very edifying terrifying but
it turned out to just he was just really more
more or less just playing with the gun but jesus
was was really inspirational and
what was the timing was kind of cool because
(43:32):
just a couple days before that i
had spent the night in a church i slept on
the porch of an episcopal church and
then in the morning the priest found me there and took me
in and i spent the morning rapping
back in those days rapping meant talking
(43:53):
conversation so so using.
The 72 lingo but so have this really you know in-depth kind of spiritual talk
with this priest who gave me tea and donuts while we talked and about what did
it mean to be a Christian? Was I a Christian?
(44:14):
And at that point, I said, you know, I was brought up Christian,
believe in the principles, especially the, you know, love your neighbors yourself.
Try to follow that in my own flawed way.
But no, I don't believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection and kind of
(44:35):
the crazy myths that Christianity and every other major religion try to foist off on their believers.
So then to meet somebody who was as true and authentic as anybody I've ever
encountered was trying to live the way of Christ and being,
(45:00):
you know, self-sacrificial in every opportunity was like, oh, wow.
Wow, I mean, I am so far away from the principle that I had just told this priest
that I did believe in and wanted to follow.
(45:22):
That, you know, it was really, it was a great experience to then kind of have
this test and to have him sort of in the back of my mind the rest of my life.
So instead of like, you know, remember the phrase, what would Jesus do?
When I ask that, I'm picturing a guy in a Ferrari, not a guy on a cross. Yeah.
(45:45):
Did anyone have music that just drove you crazy and you just didn't know if
you could ride with them too much longer?
No. Most of the music was great because, like I said, a lot of the people that
picked me up were hippies and were kind of into the same music I was.
(46:07):
And the best music, and to this day, some of the best music I ever heard,
I got picked up in Alabama by a black guy.
And he was the only African-American of all the many rides I got and of the
hitchhiking I'd done before and after this.
(46:28):
It's the only time an African-American ever picked me up. And so we're driving
through Alabama and Mississippi, and we're in a Cadillac.
So it had, for the time, a really good radio.
But he, and I don't know if this is still true,
but back then, there were all these local stations,
(46:51):
that and many of them were african-american
owned that played sort of
local rock or music by
local rock soul blues jazz musicians and he knew all the stations so you know
we go in 20 30 miles and he'd have to change the station because the range of
(47:14):
these stations was was so limited and And I mean, the music was, and gospel,
I mean, it was so much better than the sort of pop rock stuff that me and my
hippie friends listened to.
So how long did the trip take from the time you left home to you got to Key
(47:36):
West? Let's just go to there now.
It was it took me a little over a week to get there.
But and I could I would have gotten there sooner.
But so I spent two nights at Indiana University with friends.
And then I spent a day and a half at Hanover College with friends.
(48:04):
And so I kind of added time, added at least another day, day and a half that it took.
But, you know, if I would have just hitchhiked straight there and just sleeping
at night, wherever I might be at that night, I probably would have been there in four or five days.
(48:29):
Any females pick you up or were they not driving or? I was picked up by one young woman.
And I mean, I think most women, even hippie chicks at the time would be reluctant
to pick up hitchhikers, but I got picked up.
(48:51):
By a really pretty young woman who was a couple of years older than me, outside of Atlanta.
And she was going down to Florida to college down there to be involved in some
kind of peace, anti-war activist conference.
(49:12):
And I couldn't remember all the details, so I made up a whole,
you know, kind of added to her character.
What she was doing and why she was doing it so i had
her be in the sds and she was
this you know kind of leftist radical committed
person which i she was i
(49:33):
just couldn't remember the details to it but she
was delightful she was just this really happy buoyant personality which was
really kind kind of unlike the serious Marxist leftist student radicals that
I had known and knew later at the time,
(49:54):
because they were mostly really serious and dour personalities.
And she was this happy-go-lucky kind of, you know, flower child type,
but she was a serious student radical.
Medical, and she said the reason that she felt safe picking me up is at the
time I had on a red t-shirt, which meant I might have been a communist,
(50:18):
which I wasn't, but okay, and I had long hair.
So she said, I figured you're either a communist or a hippie,
either one would be safe.
So she used those two categories as to who she thought she could safely pick
up, and she had done a fair her monolithic hiking herself.
Interesting. All right, Matt, I guess you can take it from here. Well, so I'm curious.
(50:45):
You said you had been to Key West when you were younger, and the trip was just
to go back there because it was the farthest point south.
What did he do when he got there? I mean, did you just hang out for a couple of days?
Yeah, it turned out to be a very strange experience.
When I was south of Miami, like right to entering the Keys, I hooked up with two other guys.
(51:15):
And one of them was from Key West, and he had been discharged from the Army,
had been in very serious combat.
Bat he was in a rifle company in vietnam
and he his
mom owned a restaurant in key
west and she had a shrimp boat and it
(51:39):
was a you know a seafood restaurant and one of the ideas i had was to when i
got to key west especially if i need thought i needed money was to see if i
could get a job on a shrimp boat or a fishing boat because i'd heard that you know they people that,
own those boats or captains were often looking for
(52:00):
people to work for them so that's sort of a dream i had or an idea and so i
get to these two guys they're standing on the road right where i was gonna hitchhike
and i stopped and talked to him and you know first time thinking well three
of of us, we're not going to get picked up.
So I'll just go on down the road and you guys get the first ride and I'll get the next.
(52:23):
But they said, no, no, stay with me because I said that, and I'm just going
to call him Bill, Bill, the Vietnam vet said he had some military clothes on,
said, you know, vets will pick up.
Other vets, which was true. I said, so we'll get a ride. And they had hitchhiked
(52:46):
all the way from California.
And so we'll get a ride from a vet can almost guarantee it, or somebody who knows Bill.
Cause you know, there'll be people going down to Key West who might know him.
And so first ride we got there, right.
It was a, was a Korean war veteran.
(53:06):
And he picked us up cause he saw Bill and yeah, You know, that guy looks like
he's just out of the army, got the short hair,
got camo pants cut off at the knees, combat boots, you know,
that kind of thing, and an army duffel bag.
And the next guy that picked us up, which was the last ride,
actually worked for his mom.
(53:28):
So but what made the experience very weird and unfortunate was turned out bill
was a heroin addict who got addicted over in and had was going cold turkey and
he was also suffering from.
Dtsd which you know wasn't that well known at the time and so at first this
(53:54):
guy who just seemed like really happy kind of guy.
He would even dance at the side of the road in his combat boots.
By the time we got to Key West, he was trembling. He was having DTs.
He was foaming at the mouth.
It was terrifying, especially to an 18-year-old who, again,
(54:15):
never experienced something like this, although I was a lifeguard,
so I knew something about how to deal deal with people who were distressed.
But so anyway, we got to his house. His mom takes us in and,
you know, he, she's, you know, of course, really concerned about her son and,
(54:37):
but, you know, she kind of takes care of us for that night and feeds us really well.
And Bill basically just kind of passes out.
And the guy he was
with was was not a vet he was kind
of a rough i would describe
(54:58):
him as almost more of a hobo than
a hippie although he had long hair and had
been living rough and just met bill on the road and really as it turned out
didn't really want me as a third wheel that That he was depending on Bill's
(55:19):
mom to give him a job in the restaurant.
And he, you know, sort of as things developed, saw me as just sort of either
interference or distraction and made it clear he just assumed that I would shut off.
But Bill's mom said, you know, stay, stay for a night or two.
(55:41):
And I then did not ask her about getting a job because the situation was just too freaky for me.
So I spent the one night there, spent the next day walking around Key West,
checking out the sites, got to see the buoy, which marks the furthest southern point in the U.S.
(56:05):
And at that point, kind of wished I had a camera.
You idiot. You could have brought a camera, but, you know, travel life.
And who cares? these pictures are all
in my mind that's what's important but and
then decided i want to go for swim
(56:27):
and got to this you
know this great looking sandy beach and then notice
there's a bunch of guys all running around naked
so more gayness it's a
gay beach but anyway i
got to swim in the ocean at on key
west and then headed back north and
(56:50):
then i went to new orleans so you were only there two days that
was my next stop wow i would
i would yeah yeah i was thinking this whole thing
took like way longer than you know
the week or week and
a half or whatever it was before you you headed out yeah new orleans
well then i i stopped at
(57:12):
the university of miami and i spent a few
it turned out a few days there because while
i was there i was just camping out and interesting situation there are a number
of people who were not students who just camped out by this this lake on campus
who were just either like me traveling around or or anyway,
(57:36):
a lot of them had tents, which I didn't have.
But there's this little tent hobo community on the campus.
But the most interesting thing that happened to me there was I got flirty fished
(57:56):
by two very attractive young women.
Okay, so what's flirty fishing, right? You ever heard that term?
No. Well, I learned that term because it turned out they invited me to come
with them to their commune.
And I said, oh, my God, this is talk about a dream come true. Who needs a shrimp boat?
(58:20):
These are two beautiful young women that are taking me home with them to their
commune. So, of course, I'm imagining, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll.
And it turned out the commune was the Children of God cult.
Um and flirty
(58:42):
fishing was the term i learned
through later research used by
the children of god to do exactly
what they did with me is send out a
pretty young woman women or other
turn around or handsome young guys
(59:03):
who would flirt with their
the fish and then reel them in take
them home to the commune and suck
them in to join it at which point you would give all your material possessions
including a car if you had one to the cult and but you'd live there They'd take
(59:28):
care of you three meals a day,
and you'd either be assigned to working maintenance or repair that had this
big house and then two barracks, dorms in the back.
Or you'd go out flirty fishing.
And so it was a really interesting experience being there and very quickly determining
(59:55):
I was not going to stay there and then sneaking out that night.
So i actually only spent
a day and into the early morning there but got you know got got the sort of
full experience of how you're lucky i mean and i tried to keep imagine that
(01:00:16):
a lot of people got got there and couldn't leave i would i would think if they
took everything from me at some point.
The compound was enclosed with this high wooden fence,
and there were all these cars and motorcycles there that were given up by the members of the commune.
(01:00:46):
There were some very nice cars, and they assigned two friends to look after
you while you were there.
One of them assigned to me was this young guy who was from a wealthy family,
and he had a Camaro, which he'd given to the cult.
(01:01:09):
And he had been there, let's see, he'd been there for I think about two months,
but was totally committed to it.
And who knows how much he would have ended up giving to them before he got out.
So you mentioned early on that you had a girlfriend at the time.
(01:01:30):
What did she think about you going on this trip?
Well, she was in her last year in high school, so she wasn't going to be able to go with me.
Not that her parents would have let her anyway, I'm sure.
But she is completely left out of the book. She's not even mentioned in the
(01:01:54):
book, because I didn't think it was fair to her.
So what she thought of it is really irrelevant to the book, but she was okay with it.
And the next year, or I shouldn't say next year, that summer,
we actually went to school in England together and then spent the rest of that
(01:02:16):
summer traveling, hitchhiking, part of the time all over Europe. up.
So what made you, so you went to New Orleans, I assume you wanted to go to Mardi Gras.
Yeah, that was, I wanted to experience Mardi Gras, which I did in what turned
out to be a very intense way.
(01:02:37):
And I was there several days.
I experienced a police riot where these anarchists that I had met tried to,
well, they did, successfully disrupted.
Parade at night and they their
their whole purpose they traveled around the
(01:02:59):
country and would engage in
disruptive and vandal activities
to stick it to the man and
they their ultimate
goal was to bring down the government but they
went about it in these sort of very
(01:03:22):
specific little disruptive ways
and so they came to new to mardi gras to disrupt
i don't know if it was more than one parade but
at least the parade when the day that i met him that night and they got they
were they became kind of like cheerleaders and so you know they're all these
drunk people and so they they go out into the street as the parade is approaching
(01:03:46):
but it It still weighs off and start, you know, chanting,
you know, something like, you know, take back the streets and,
you know, stuff like that.
And the streets are for the people. And so a bunch of drunk people and,
you know, maybe some leftist, you know, Marxist, anti-government types,
(01:04:07):
who knows, libertarians, whatever, get out in the street with them.
And in New Orleans, you don't mess with Mardi Gras parades, but the,
and they knew this. And so.
Cops on horseback came charging in with their batons, swinging,
(01:04:28):
and rode over, beat the crap out of people.
Well, these two guys slunk off without getting hurt, but all the people that
they convinced to get out there and try to stop the parade, a bunch of them
got beaten seriously by the cops.
Because then a phalanx of cops on
(01:04:50):
foot followed the the cavalry and then
a couple paddy or several paddy wagons they beat people up for him in the paddy
wagon and then you know moved on and one guy i had met that day too was a big
guy he was on you know i've forgotten whether it was lsu or some You know, football team,
(01:05:13):
college football player, big lineman guy.
He got his skull cracked by a billy club of a cop.
And I figured, no, that's probably the end of his football career.
So it was, you know, very ugly experience. Before that, Mardik Ra was really
cool and had a wonderful experience.
(01:05:35):
Got taken in by a two-lane med student who let me stay in his apartment.
Had wonderful taste in music, too.
Always a plus. Very expensive stereo.
So that, yeah.
So, you know, that Mardi Gras was this kind of combination of just being taken
(01:05:59):
in by this really generous guy who was in medical school and meeting interesting people,
seeing parades, which were really cool.
Cool but then having this sort of horrifying experience which i mean did you
know that that was gonna happen beforehand like did the people the two guys
that you met were they telling you like yeah you gotta join in and you know.
(01:06:23):
They were, yeah, you got to join in. Well, first, they were very vague about what their plans were.
And so they, so the big guy, the football guy and I had met them and we were
hanging out at Jackson Park and just, you know, like throwing Frisbees,
smoking pot, having a good time.
(01:06:44):
Jackson Park was like this, you know, kind of the hippie center of Mardi Gras
at the time, and the street musicians playing terrific music,
and it's like, you know, mini Woodstock.
And so they so then
these are the two anarchists and they had
not told i'll just call him fred had
(01:07:07):
not told fred and me that their plans were they said you know there's this break
well let's go over to the parade and it wasn't until we got there that they
started kind of talking to each each other about what their plan was,
how they were going to execute it.
(01:07:27):
And so, no, you know, I had no idea that's what they were up to until actually
the wheels got set in motion.
And I was smart enough that Fred tried to pull me out into the street.
But I just thought, you know, this is a bad idea.
I mean, plus, I didn't want to stop at the parade. I thought,
(01:07:50):
you know, that's not right.
I mean, these parades are really cool. And people work really hard to put the
floats together and these elaborate costumes.
And I'd seen a few parades by then. It was a really cool experience.
So I just, I stayed on that. I pulled away from Fred and stayed on the sidewalk
and was just an observer.
(01:08:10):
Yeah, and the police back then were, you know, not so friendly to,
I would guess, the hippie culture kind of people.
No i mean if you've seen the film on or the movie based on 1968 democratic convention
(01:08:34):
the police riot that happened in chicago i mean this was this was just a mini
version okay what do you think.
Well i mean there certainly is a lot of risk and a lot of adventure and you
live to tell about it and write about it so what as you look back on it to write
(01:08:57):
and incorporate you know fiction as well.
What did you learn from the experience maybe
now writing the book
that you maybe didn't or
had not thought about prior to that yeah
well the on sort of the cultural sociological
(01:09:18):
level one of more historical one
of my observations and conclusions is a
change in our culture that the hippie
counterculture zeitgeist although is
very naive in a lot of ways is also
beautiful in a lot of ways and it created this sense of adventure but love and
(01:09:46):
peace and community that pretty much is gone. It died.
And of course the hippies then are the baby boomers now.
And to see people or just imagine the people who were hippies and into peace
(01:10:09):
and love back then and now vote for Trump.
There's been such such a dramatic are more scared less kind and friendly to
strangers at least i think of the attitude towards immigrants.
You know, who are strangers. And all these people, you know,
(01:10:32):
welcome me into their cars, some into their homes.
And I am just this stranger, I mean, like a migrant.
And then people were so kind and loving.
And would that happen now? Would do people hitchhike now?
You know, know no because we're too scared and we're
(01:10:54):
too unkind to strangers to
do that so that's you know one sort of as
i see unfortunate development in
our the in our culture our sort
of our attitude towards other people
and then on a personal level you
(01:11:14):
know looking back on it i don't think this was particularly conscious at the
time was that it was an experience that gave me confidence that I could live
successfully through situations that were,
you know, that were not necessarily predictable,
(01:11:37):
that were not, you know, that didn't just fit into neat channels.
And that served me me very well over the years. I mean, it served me well as a lawyer.
You know, every case I got as a lawyer, I could react, oh, you know,
I don't know how to do this or, oh gosh, I'm not sure we can win or, and instead,
(01:11:59):
you know, my attitude was always,
okay, I need to understand what are the facts, what are the issues?
Let me get a hold of this. And if I'm taking this case, we're going going to win.
And that served me well in athletics. I continued when I went back to college.
I played football, rugby, swam.
(01:12:20):
I had that experience of just going out, encountering the world in this very different way,
I think imbued in me a sense of confidence that I could handle situations that
were maybe beyond the capacity of a lot of people.
(01:12:40):
And so I end the book saying,
you know, something like I learned that there was no place like home,
that being away from home made me really appreciate what a wonderful family
and community I had grown up in and how safe and stable it was and how I came to appreciate that.
(01:13:04):
And also education, that I really wanted to get an academic formal education.
So those were two immediate lessons that I learned, but also that although I
wanted to be part of a community and a family,
I also would not lead a conventional life, and I haven't.
(01:13:27):
Interesting well what's
next um have you started another writing project
already no i haven't i
have a book that i feel like i should do and i it the experience of writing
that book was so much fun and enjoyable of reflecting back and you know remembering the experiences,
(01:13:54):
but also having the freedom to add to it and fill in the gaps and make some
experiences maybe a little more exciting than how I remember them.
The next book should be this motorcycle trip that a friend and I did two years later.
(01:14:16):
So that summer, I went to Europe, but then the summer after that one,
We rode motorcycles from northern Indiana all across the country down through
Mexico and ended up within six hours of losing both of our motorcycles and having
(01:14:36):
to find our way home without our without our wheels.
So that's what I but I just I'm having trouble getting up the the sort of the
focus, the determination to do it.
So I don't know if I actually will write that book or not, but that's what's
(01:14:57):
percolating in the back of my mind.
Well, there seems to be always something percolating in the back of your mind.
And we've been fortunate enough to get to hear some of the stories.
It's always a pleasure to hear about your writing. And really,
this book is on Amazon for those listening.
(01:15:19):
You'll be able to order that. It's already available.
And, you know, I can't wait to just sit down and read it. And well,
one thing that I have to warn you, I don't quote Matt in this book.
Well, you know, I think I have yet to get my quote.
(01:15:42):
Well, if you would have picked me up when I was driving through at their writing,
hitchhiking through Appalachia, you'd be in the book.
Yes. When I was eight years old, I sure was.
This cute little eight year old girl picked me up.
Yeah hey we could have been a team we could
(01:16:03):
have we could have been something i would
have had some good music too so um there
you go i'll bet yeah i'll bet well hey well well i just i want to say i want
to yeah i wanted to say to you though cat good luck with your next project i
hope that turns out fingers crossed for you yes see that's better than getting in the book matt,
(01:16:27):
you get mentioned on your own podcast as
i recall that
chapter didn't show up in the book until the second printing it wasn't the chat
it was the table of contents oh you got out of that yes that's right yeah no
yeah you you you were in there from the beginning that so No.
(01:16:54):
See, he's never happy. I would have been like, oh, I'm in the book.
Well, yeah. And Matt, how many fan letters have you gotten as a result of being
in that almost New York Times bestseller?
Let me look at the I have a spreadsheet here somewhere.
(01:17:15):
Yeah, it was exactly. I think Kat was the only one who sent me a fan letter.
Oh, no. No, well, even when I'm like slided, I feel like very nice and caring and the right thing.
You are like Jesus in a Ferrari.
(01:17:37):
She's like Mary in a van.
Yes. Just like that. Yeah. Mary in a minivan.
All right. Jeff, thanks for coming by. We really appreciate it.
And great stories, you know. Well, thanks for having me, you guys.
(01:17:57):
And I always enjoy talking with you. And I hope we'll make number five in the
future. I'm thinking we will.
So write that motorcycle book.
That's right. With Mary and the minivan showed up, we'd be down on being number five.
Yeah, well, that could at least be a short story that I could write. Yeah, why not?
(01:18:21):
I'll take it. I'll take a poem, anything, really. There you go.
All right. Well, thank you again. We really appreciate your time.
All right. Take care. You too. Bye-bye.
Hey everybody, it's Kat, and I want to welcome you to this episode of Backstory Sessions.
I'm joined today by my co-host, Matt.
Hey, Matt. Hey, Kat. Hey, everyone. How are you?
Well, we've reached the milestone. This is the first guest that we have had
(00:20):
on for four times on the podcast.
Cast that's true yeah he is returning for
yeah i'm trying to remember when
the first one was it's been a while though
yeah probably like three years or
something i would say yeah we're doing like
a travel episode or something yeah it
(00:43):
was him and another lady so
it was a split episode of that time so you
could say that was like half a guest you know if
you want half an episode episode but they
did yeah it did about travel and then
we had pickleball if you remember the book yeah i do remember that yeah a mystery
(01:04):
wasn't it or murder pickleball yeah pickleball murder or something like that
yeah so definitely that was a hit and you know then it was the wisdom book Yes,
I was in that one. Yeah, I remember that.
You were. I was not.
(01:25):
But I still remember it. And it was interesting, you know, to talk about the
wisdoms and the one that you submitted.
And now, you know, he's got a new book out and we're going to be talking about that.
So I feel like he deserves something.
Something like? Ka...
(01:48):
I don't know, a star on this picture that we posted or something. There you go.
A star on the podcast wall of fame.
That's right. And that's better than the wall of shame because we don't really have one of those.
And we don't have the wall of fame either.
(02:08):
Well, we do now. Right.
We have the theoretical wall of fame. Yes. Thanks to Jeff Radley. Yeah.
See that he's inspired us yet again well really
it's thanks to me thinking of it but um i
don't know you think that'll get me in the book
maybe the next one you never know yeah
(02:32):
i hope there'll be a next one because you know it
would be it would suck to be like cut up right now when
i'm you know i've earned a spot yeah well
i mean he he writes quite a bit as i recall so
you know you never know well this
one is uh really it sounds very interesting you
(02:52):
know it's a hitchhiking story based a
bit it seems like on his own true experiences
which you know i think all writing probably
has little bits and pieces of the writer's life
or true experiences mixed in don't
you think yeah usually some aspect of
(03:15):
it you know like something that happened to you or somebody
you know or some story that you've
heard of or whatever yeah so you
know i i personally would be.
Afraid to hitchhike i also
don't want to pitch up pick pick up any hitchhikers
(03:37):
but sometimes you know like my heart
feels like bad about that it'll be
like but you know like they their
cars broke down or you know whatever but i
don't know i mean i'm just if i don't know
the the people i'm i i will stop like you know and call if they need somebody
(04:00):
somebody called right but you know i'm just i'm just too afraid yeah i mean
i haven't really done too much hitchhiking i have done it years ago not recently.
But you know it is what it is yeah i
mean you know you see those people at the interstate exits
or whatever you know that are like we'll work
(04:24):
for food need you know whatever but that's
like you know i don't know if they're really hitchhikers
but i don't stop and pick them up
either yeah i mean there's
some like if somebody's going from like i don't
know in your case let's say they're going from Corbin to
Lexington or something like
(04:46):
that I mean maybe I would give them
a ride I don't know because I'm going that way anyway so you know for me it
would be a pass unless I knew them because they get you know you get on that
interstate 75 going north and And you're as good as trafficked right into,
(05:08):
you know, wherever they traffic you.
Okay.
So, yeah. I mean, really, there's
just so much stuff going on in the world that it's just hard to know.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you gotta be, you know, I guess you gotta be smart about it.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, without a doubt, like if I saw somebody that was
(05:31):
a former student or, you know, someone even in the community that I recognize
as, you know, a friend of a friend, something,
you know, I mean, I definitely like to help people.
But you have to, you know, like it's you can't kill yourself to do that.
So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so.
(05:54):
But, I mean, I do find, like.
Hitchhiking aspect of things
it's kind of like the i guess what jeff rasley
is kind of like you know he like travels and does all these expeditions and
things like that so and people that do nomadic life i mean all of it sounds
(06:17):
very interesting and intriguing but i'm just too much of a scaredy cat Well,
I mean, you know, I guess this this story takes place in the early 70s from what I remember.
And, you know, things were a little bit different then where.
Yes. And also, I was a lot younger and did not see things like I do see them now.
(06:44):
So you know i did a lot of
things that my parents were like so worried you
know like oh my gosh you're gonna get killed or you
know whatever like you can't do that and i never like i mean i i went to texas
with my friend mary so it wasn't just me but i mean we'd never been we'd never
(07:07):
driven to texas and at that time you know there were maps like atlases,
So you didn't have GPS or cell phones or anything like that.
And, you know, we just got the map. She got off from work. I was already off
from work. We headed to Texas.
Made it texas stayed with this family that we knew nothing about had i mean no i mean just,
(07:34):
you know nothing absolutely nothing and they
were the nicest family like you know
they like had pressed squeezed orange juice every
morning like you know they were so good to us i
was like oh you know i want to stay here for a while
you know the guy didn't end up being like
all that interesting but the family i would
(07:56):
love to have the family but anyway you
know i mean didn't think a thing about that and
you know i probably wouldn't do same thing now i've been naive the naive what's
the word naivete naivete of youth yes yeah well you know maybe it was foolish i I don't know,
(08:20):
but I mean, that's part of being young, isn't it? Like young and foolish, I think.
I guess that's part of it, but, you know, I mean, I'm sure you remember my trip to Ukraine.
I mean, some would call that foolish, and I did that, like, you know, when I was in my 50s.
(08:42):
I was going to say, you can't really claim the young part.
Right, younger. younger but younger right
yeah so so i guess
i don't know if it's like something that i guess you lose your you know that
spirit over time to some degree i mean some people do others you know they're
(09:05):
just more or less fearless well i mean like i think like children Even,
you know, if you watch children, you know, that they don't think about.
Fear and all those things like they're thinking about what
they want or you know what they're wanting to try and
right yeah so i do think like it's
(09:29):
a good thing that you get wiser as you
get older because you wouldn't last that long
in most cases if you didn't learn
you know that fear is i mean
there are some things that are not safe to do so
so are you saying that hitchhiking is
not safe to do i mean you it definitely
(09:51):
is a risk just like going on that
trip to texas like you know ted bundy
like he could be the one picked you up you know i
mean that's true i guess you know there's all
sorts of risk in life so you just never
know right and you can't
always tell hell you know by looking either because again
(10:13):
like the serial killers like ted
bundy you know attractive and you know
lawyer and or passing off to
be a lawyer i don't know if he really was one whatever but
you know good looking guy and whatever did not look
the type of what people thought was going
to be somebody to kill them so i mean you know
(10:35):
you never know but then you've got.
Other people you know that i mean so you
could be married to someone for many
years and then find out that they're also
crazy as could be and kill you because that
happens too you know that sure i think that i think we're you know kind of getting
(10:56):
off track though it's like you know well i mean i just i think it does speak
to yes i am afraid of hitchhiking and it is risky you know in In my mind, it is too much of a risk.
But as you said, we do take risks all the time. Life is hard.
You know, I mean, every decision really has some risk and it's just a matter
(11:21):
of the balance, I think, of, you know, how much risk is a is a reasonable amount for your life.
And, you know, hopefully the odds are in your favor.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Yeah. I mean, you know, you never know.
(11:41):
That's a line from the Hunger Games. yeah well
and that is a popular you know
that was very popular so yeah so
i guess you're right i guess it's like
all and what you're willing to tolerate and you
know your risk avoidance and
things like that yeah because really
(12:04):
i mean you could if you thought
about every risk every germ every you know
every every every yeah you never leave the house
no you'd be locked in a bubble you'd
be afraid to eat any foods take any medicine you
know you'd be afraid the government like you know
(12:24):
surveying your house so you wouldn't talk on the phone i mean you know so you
i i think you could just go overboard and be afraid of everything or be afraid
of nothing you know i think both of those are kind of extremes and they don't work for me,
not to, you know, but I probably could like loosen up a little bit,
(12:47):
you know, on my fears, but yeah,
Overall, I would say age-appropriate. I'm pretty age-appropriate with fears, I think.
So do you find yourself more fearful now than you were years ago?
Is that what you're saying?
Well, I must because, you know, like I said, I wouldn't take off now to some stranger's house.
(13:10):
Yeah, probably not.
But, you know, I know you have cell phones. you
have a lot of things that you could
maybe like you know i could say hey matt you
know i'm going to this location you know if
i don't call you at you know whatever you'll you
know send help or whatever i mean
(13:31):
we didn't have that like that was payphone days
you know remember and that's if you you had a quarter or dime
35 cents collect call
i know and you know my parents they
would have accepted it but you know my my dad
he was always like i don't believe you
know it's like he didn't believe i was going he thought i
(13:53):
was just saying it to aggravate my mom but my
mom knew i was going and she was like
you know just like begging me you know i'll do
anything if you don't you know know you're gonna
get killed but i i did like
in the days of again you had to have a camera you know so i did take some photos
of texas um you know welcome to texas signs and such so my dad would know that
(14:19):
we actually were there oh so he was saying that you're just pretending to go,
Yeah, it's just pretending to go.
I could see that. Yeah, yeah, it could have been that, too. But in this case, I really did go.
And, you know, it wasn't just the fact of, like, staying with the strange people.
(14:43):
I mean, it was just, like I said, we'd never driven any place like that.
You know i mean we could have ended
up in i don't know maine or
something but luckily i was a
good math reader so you know
we we did fine there i did get a speeding ticket um so you know that's unfortunate
(15:09):
colleen texas if you're listening but yeah i find it i find that i find that
a little little difficult to believe,
only because I've driven with you before. I know, yeah.
I know. So, in my life, I have gotten...
(15:30):
Two speeding tickets wow and i
slowed down after that huh yes i
mean well you know i was a lot more cautious of where i might be speeding yeah
because you know you i don't want to get points on your your license and all
(15:50):
of that so do you speed now no okay.
Now you know and the speed limit has gone
up now too you know compared to what it was at that time when i got i don't
even know what it was in texas but you know like the roads are like the miles
(16:11):
are really long and i just had like mary was the one driving and we had just
switched so you know here Here I am, like, all fresh,
ready to drive and get back home because, you know, every mile seems like 50. Yep.
And I'm just like, you know, it looks safe. So, again, I'm, you know, assessing the risk.
(16:35):
The risk looked like, yeah, this road looks safe for me to go whatever speed I was going.
And it was, except for, you know, I didn't assess the police being, you know. So, Harry.
Hiding behind the billboard.
Well, you know, they cared about my safety. Yes, yeah.
(16:58):
And, you know, I mean, it is true that I only did get one more speeding ticket after that.
So, I feel like, yeah, you know, maybe that did help me along the path. Yes, potentially so.
You know how many I've gotten? i mean
how many you deserve would be a lot but
(17:20):
i'm gonna say you have gotten four i've actually gotten one and it was um they
dropped it so i never got in charge with it were you speeding yeah i drove by
a state police car at like 80,
well how come you didn't have
(17:41):
to pay it because they got me for dwai
which was i had been at
a bar earlier and stopped drinking like
two hours before i left and you know so they did the breathalyzer and all that
and i got it i was just under the legal limit for drinking and so whatever whatever
(18:06):
the next step down from a DWI is, is what I got charged with.
Well, you know, listeners out there, you know, don't, don't listen. Don't follow along.
Learn from us. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, that was back in the,
you know, like the eighties.
(18:28):
Yeah. I mean, would you
say like you're wiser about that kind
of activity now and you're driving drinking and
driving sure um driving faster
than i should yeah maybe yeah
i mean you know so i i do think like you get a little bit more wise however
(18:52):
there's probably a point which we're not at the age of yet but when we get to
it will probably be like okay well well, you know, we're at about the end here,
so let's just, like, throw caution to the wind and do whatever we want to do. Yes, yeah.
Yeah, they could be. We'll see. I mean, it's not too far away, so.
(19:15):
Well, you know, we're far enough.
But another season or two. Yeah.
Speaking of seasons, we have one more episode after this one.
Oh, and season 11 will be history. Is it 11 or 10?
11. We're on 11 right now. Oh, okay. Wow.
(19:38):
You're more up on this than I am. But I know we've talked about a couple of
things for next season and we've got a lot of cool stuff coming up.
Yeah, you know, it's going to be exciting for season 12, which we'll see everybody in May for that.
Yep, Cinco de Mayo. Yeah.
(19:59):
So, you know, just lots to look forward to and lots happening between now and
then. All right, well, let's talk to Jeff and find out what his hitchhiking
story is and where he went and how that all went for him.
Well, and let's see if we can get me in the next book. There you go.
(20:19):
All right. Well, Jeff Rasley, I am so happy to have you as our guest again on
Backstory Sessions. It's been a while.
It has been, and thanks for having me back, Kath and Matt. Yeah,
I do think it's the fourth time.
And if it is, you will be our very first fourth time guest.
(20:44):
OK, well, that's got to be worth something. I'm looking forward to the check in the mail.
That and five bucks will get you some coffee at Starbucks.
OK, I'll take it. Well, this book that you're going to be discussing today is quite interesting.
Thing a hitchhiker's big adventure you know
(21:05):
I myself have never hitchhiked so we'll just start with that Matt I don't know
have you yeah I think I have certainly not hundreds of miles but yeah I do remember
catching a ride into town a few times.
Okay. So, you know, you all can share that experience.
(21:27):
I would be terrified. So I'm just going to say that, you know,
like the thought of strangers.
So Jeff, you know, let's start there.
Like you're what, 18 years old at the time? Yeah. And just two points.
One is, I think, Kat, you're right to be afraid of doing that.
(21:51):
And one of the points that I make in the book is how things have changed.
So this book is set in 1972 and how back then there was this kind of hippie peace, love,
zeitgeist that made hitchhiking much safer because a lot of the people that
were hitchhiking and picking up hitchhikers were kind of hippies,
(22:16):
college students into the alternative consciousness. suspiciousness.
So there was that safety factor, but I'm sorry, go ahead. I could tell you were going to ask something.
Well, I was going to say like, you know, at 18, your view of what's safe,
is a lot different, at least for me, I would not have thought as much about it at 18 as I do now.
(22:43):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I wanted to do it because, as the title indicates,
I wanted to have a big adventure.
And it was my first big adventure in terms of going off into the world and doing
something that had a certain amount of risk and doing it solo.
(23:05):
Solo, although I was with, you know, different people almost all the time,
except when I was standing on the side of the road with my thumb out by myself.
But to clarify, the book is half memoir and half, well, probably it's about
80% memoir and 20% fiction.
(23:27):
I mean, it's what the literati would call auto fiction,
which is a fictionalized, memoir
because i didn't want to write just
a straight memoir of the experience because mainly
it was so long ago i can't remember a
whole lot of it and i i didn't
(23:49):
keep a journal and i didn't take a camera so
i have no pictures no journal to jog my memory and so what i did is I took most
the characters in it that pick me up and that I run into were all people that
(24:09):
I actually did have encounters with,
or they're at least based on those characters.
And all the places that I stopped where I crashed for the night or spent time,
those are all places that that I actually did that.
But some of the events are changed, and some of the people are changed in certain ways.
(24:36):
So anyway, it isn't a straight memoir. It's a novel.
So it's, like I said, it would be classified as auto fiction.
So I did have that as a question to ask about how much of it was,
you know, the true experience and then how much of it was a fictional part.
So that's very interesting that you've added that.
(25:00):
So I don't even have to ask that. But I've got a lot of things I do have to ask.
And the first thing is like, okay, so I understand like, you know,
people wanting adventures and like risk sounds exciting.
And I guess, you know, and all of that.
How did you go about, I mean, so you're in college and then you drop out of
(25:26):
college after a semester.
And then you worked enough to make $65.
So is that part true? Is that what you made to go off on this adventure? You had $65?
Yeah, that's completely true. I did one semester, college, dropped out,
(25:48):
worked in a factory, which was probably more dangerous than hitchhiking.
Because I was running this steel cutting machine that had no safety devices.
And every other person in the factory that had run that machine lost fingers.
But I don't know if I was smarter or more agile than they were.
(26:11):
But anyway, I did it for six weeks. And back in 1972, I saved up $65 from that.
And when I got back home after being on the road for six weeks, I had $5 left. Wow.
So was 65, were you, was it a conscious effort to like,
(26:34):
okay, I'm going to work until I've got $65 or, you know, was it,
okay, I've worked as long as I'm going to, and I just happened to be with $65? Yeah.
It was the latter. It was like, I can't stand this any longer.
I want to get out of here. And that's, you know, that's how much I had. Okay.
(26:59):
So you got $65. I imagine you pack lightly, but what do you take with you?
I took clothes, sort of, you know, personal kit.
So that kind of thing, probably not deodorant.
And because I'm starting out
in northern Indiana and it's in
(27:19):
the dead of winter so it's cold and
snowing so I'm you know kitted out
with warm clothes but then because my intention is
to get down to Key West I've got you know a bathing suit and and shorts and
that kind of those kind of clothing and had a big knife for protection and that's
(27:44):
about it i did i had a flashlight,
and i had some reading material some snacks
which were used up fairly quickly and that
was about it and had it all you know stuffed in
what was a boy scouts of america pack
which um i i covered the bsa a emblem with the dove of peace symbol because
(28:10):
I wanted to project more an aura of being a hippie than being a Boy Scout.
And a sleeping bag. Okay, so was it for just a warmer weather that you chose
Key West or what made that the first destination?
(28:34):
It was the it's the furthest point south and I wanted to go south.
And so I've been to Key West on a family trip when I was a little kid and thought it was pretty cool.
So there was a nice memories of it. But it was mainly just like that's as far
south as you can go. So make that the destination.
And that's where I'm headed.
(28:56):
All right. so you're all
ready to go and how long before someone picks you up it wasn't very long and
the first ride i got i i have in reality just kind of a vague memory of the
(29:17):
guy being you know kind of.
Hippie type on speed who was
sort of scary because he was always
talking and looking at me while he was driving instead
of paying attention to the road so
his character and our conversations
are almost entirely made up
(29:39):
because i you know just had this very vague memory
of him the next person in the pick me up i have
a very clear memory of so and who
was that like what i well he was
he was a very tall man who looked like
he was about 40 and he wanted
(29:59):
to engage in sex with me and i imagine that would be hard to forget on your
second pickup okay well and it was It's especially memorable because growing up in a small town,
a very conservative small town in northern Indiana,
(30:20):
I had never known someone who was an out-of-the-closet homosexual.
And one of the things I wanted to experience that I thought this would be a
big adventure was to encounter people that were different than people I had known in my small town.
(30:41):
The second person that picks me up was very different because, like I said,
at that point in my life, I had never known somebody who was openly gay or a
man who wanted to have sex with me.
(31:01):
So that was an interesting encounter.
And when I managed to get a nice long ride all the way from Indianapolis down
to Bloomington, where Indiana University is, which was my goal for the night,
and managed to do it without having to have sex with the guy.
(31:22):
I mean, so were you naive to what was going on at first?
No, in the sense that he came right out and asked.
And it didn't take him very long before he did that.
But it shocked me. I mean, it was shocking. And it was also scary.
(31:43):
And I'm a pretty decent size at the time. And still, I was very fit.
I was a three-sport athlete all through high school.
And I knew how to take care of myself.
In a fight and my immediate thought was oh my god i'm gonna have to fight this
guy off and he's actually bigger than me but,
(32:06):
I also developed just almost instantaneously a strategy to avoid any kind of
a conflict, which was I started asking him about his life.
And I told him, I've never met somebody who's homosexual before.
Would you mind telling me about yourself and how did you figure out you were gay?
(32:32):
And I just asked him a whole bunch of questions like that. And he seemed to enjoy answering them.
And he told me sort of the whole story of his life and why he thought he was homosexual,
which he blamed it all on his mom, which back in those days was sort of the
classic understanding that you had a domineering mother and kind of an inconsequential father.
(32:59):
And he sort of fit that stereotype.
But I had taken a psychology class in high school and also my first semester in college.
I'd taken intro psych class, too, and had sort of remembered that one,
either my high school teacher or the college professor had briefly addressed
(33:24):
the subject and had thought or either said that there was evidence.
Is that this was your sexual orientation was genetically
determined and so i asked him
about that and you know we had an interesting discussion
about whether that was possible it was all environmental and i mean he was a
(33:44):
thoughtful intelligent guy but he did this routinely he told me he'd go out
on the highway pick up and because back then there were a lot of young young guys out hitchhiking,
pick up young guys hitchhiking and see if they wanted to get it on.
Interesting. I mean, did you have, was there anyone that you turned down a ride from?
(34:13):
No. No, I didn't. And I got in like one car, or actually truck,
I got in and the guy has his hand kind of down near his feet.
And as I started to get in, I look and he's got a handgun in his hand and there's
a rifle on a gun rack in the cab of the truck.
(34:34):
And so there was a moment of, oh, man, maybe I ought to jump back out of here.
But he turned out to be a fascinating guy. It was one of the more enjoyable
rides I got, which was across Alligator Alley down in Florida from Miami over to Naples.
(34:55):
And he was an alligator hunter. hunter so
he and we even while we're
driving across through the everglades at one
point he stops pulls over jump
grabs the rifle jumps out of the cat
the truck and runs out into the mangrove swamp
everglades with with his rifle
(35:18):
you know looking around as he thought he'd seen a gator but
he didn't shoot one although he told
me it would have been great for my education if he yeah
so so i
mean was there a plan b like
if if you had had gotten into
(35:39):
a situation did you have a
plan b of like okay this is enough
of this i'm gonna take my 65 dollars and
try to to get back home no i didn't
really but i knew that if i really got in trouble i could call my parents or
(35:59):
call my girlfriend and they would probably come get me and i had a step-grandmother
brother in Inglewood, Florida.
Which is just maybe 90, I think it's about 90 miles north of Naples,
which was why I was going over across Alligator Alley at that point to get to her house.
(36:25):
And I spent several days at her house.
So she was also sort of a safety valve that I could call on if I needed. Yeah.
But I didn't, you know, I didn't, I, this was something I wanted to do.
I didn't expect or, you know, really even think through, okay,
plan B is, you know, X, Y, Z.
(36:47):
Just I'm doing this. I got myself into it. I'm going to get myself out of it.
And I've always, I mean, years later when I was doing Himalayan expeditions
and climbs on peaks, that was always the attitude I had.
And I sort of resent people who, like in the mountains, who would get into trouble
(37:10):
and have to be rescued because it puts the lives of other people at risk.
Rescuing people on big mountains is a dangerous thing to have to do.
And I was determined I would never have to call on somebody else to get me out
of a situation that I put myself in, knowing that this is risky. ski.
(37:31):
And so I've always tried to be, at least in my own mind, prepared to handle whatever came up.
And so far, I always have.
Was there anyone that discouraged you from this trip? Oh, my mom.
(38:19):
When I got out of the car.
So she was she didn't think this was a great idea.
My dad, my dad, I think, was not so upset about it because he hitchhiked across
the country when he got out of the service to get back home from the West Coast.
(38:39):
Was there like a
reason that you would
have had a lesser adventure you know by
taking a bus or you know some other
means yeah i mean i think
you know riding a bus could could be pretty interesting i've
had some interesting bus rides if you know you get to
(39:00):
talking to people on the bus but in
terms of the sort of the intimate experience
of being in a car either i mean
it was usually with just one person although there were
a few rides with more than one person in the car but you know being in this
very small space with someone and you're there isn't anything to do other than
(39:24):
listen to the radio or look out the windows than talk and so i I had just,
I mean, I sort of entered into other people's lives.
And so many of them were people I would have never met in Goshen, Indiana.
And that, I mean, I wanted to have that experience. I thought that would be really cool.
(39:48):
And it was. And I knew there would be some risks. And that's why I had the large
knife in the side of my pack, which I usually was within reach.
But, you know, to meet people like the guy who picked me up in a Ferrari and
(40:08):
I mean, who drives a Ferrari and will pick up hitchhikers?
This guy, he was he was Jesus in a Ferrari because he had decided to try to
live like Jesus and would help offer help to anybody he met.
And so it was really cool to get a ride in this Ferrari.
(40:32):
But I was on my way home at that point. And because he stopped every time we saw.
And back then, cars broke down.
So every time we saw a car that was broken down or we saw another hitchhiker,
which we couldn't pick up because we couldn't get more than the two of us in
the car, he would stop. He would give them money.
(40:55):
We went, we got gas for a young couple who'd run out of gas.
He paid to get a car fixed at a gas station because this Hispanic family had
their car was broken down.
And he gave citrus he gave citrus
fruit and money he had it in the trunk this this
big box full of grapefruit and
(41:18):
orange juice or oranges because he'd been down to
florida and was taking this back to minnesota
where he was where he lived and it
ended up taking a hell of a long time to get
that very far so actually that night
when we stopped to sleep at at
(41:38):
a a rough stop i ditched him and found another
ride and so
i went from getting a ride with jesus in a
ferrari to the two guys that i
then got a ride with were the mafia
from dowagiac michigan and
they turned out to be a real hoot because
(42:01):
their criminal enterprise is from
what i could tell was mostly in their imagination yeah but they wanted me to
join their gang and so i said yeah sure after you drop me off i'll be in touch
well which had the bigger impact the mafia or the jesus.
(42:25):
Well, the Mafia was more entertaining except when, so there was an old guy and a young guy.
The young guy drove and the old guy was really decrepit looking.
But who was the godfather of the Dowagiac Mafia when he pulled a revolver out
of his glove compartment and spun the cylinder around.
(42:48):
Around and it's like i'd gotten
in the car and we'd driven oh for
maybe 10 minutes or so before he seemed to
sort of notice that i was in the back seat and
all of a sudden he declared that
there was somebody else in the car and got
(43:09):
got this revolver out and so
that was not very edifying terrifying but
it turned out to just he was just really more
more or less just playing with the gun but jesus
was was really inspirational and
what was the timing was kind of cool because
(43:32):
just a couple days before that i
had spent the night in a church i slept on
the porch of an episcopal church and
then in the morning the priest found me there and took me
in and i spent the morning rapping
back in those days rapping meant talking
(43:53):
conversation so so using.
The 72 lingo but so have this really you know in-depth kind of spiritual talk
with this priest who gave me tea and donuts while we talked and about what did
it mean to be a Christian? Was I a Christian?
(44:14):
And at that point, I said, you know, I was brought up Christian,
believe in the principles, especially the, you know, love your neighbors yourself.
Try to follow that in my own flawed way.
But no, I don't believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection and kind of
(44:35):
the crazy myths that Christianity and every other major religion try to foist off on their believers.
So then to meet somebody who was as true and authentic as anybody I've ever
encountered was trying to live the way of Christ and being,
(45:00):
you know, self-sacrificial in every opportunity was like, oh, wow.
Wow, I mean, I am so far away from the principle that I had just told this priest
that I did believe in and wanted to follow.
(45:22):
That, you know, it was really, it was a great experience to then kind of have
this test and to have him sort of in the back of my mind the rest of my life.
So instead of like, you know, remember the phrase, what would Jesus do?
When I ask that, I'm picturing a guy in a Ferrari, not a guy on a cross. Yeah.
(45:45):
Did anyone have music that just drove you crazy and you just didn't know if
you could ride with them too much longer?
No. Most of the music was great because, like I said, a lot of the people that
picked me up were hippies and were kind of into the same music I was.
(46:07):
And the best music, and to this day, some of the best music I ever heard,
I got picked up in Alabama by a black guy.
And he was the only African-American of all the many rides I got and of the
hitchhiking I'd done before and after this.
(46:28):
It's the only time an African-American ever picked me up. And so we're driving
through Alabama and Mississippi, and we're in a Cadillac.
So it had, for the time, a really good radio.
But he, and I don't know if this is still true,
but back then, there were all these local stations,
(46:51):
that and many of them were african-american
owned that played sort of
local rock or music by
local rock soul blues jazz musicians and he knew all the stations so you know
we go in 20 30 miles and he'd have to change the station because the range of
(47:14):
these stations was was so limited and And I mean, the music was, and gospel,
I mean, it was so much better than the sort of pop rock stuff that me and my
hippie friends listened to.
So how long did the trip take from the time you left home to you got to Key
(47:36):
West? Let's just go to there now.
It was it took me a little over a week to get there.
But and I could I would have gotten there sooner.
But so I spent two nights at Indiana University with friends.
And then I spent a day and a half at Hanover College with friends.
(48:04):
And so I kind of added time, added at least another day, day and a half that it took.
But, you know, if I would have just hitchhiked straight there and just sleeping
at night, wherever I might be at that night, I probably would have been there in four or five days.
(48:29):
Any females pick you up or were they not driving or? I was picked up by one young woman.
And I mean, I think most women, even hippie chicks at the time would be reluctant
to pick up hitchhikers, but I got picked up.
(48:51):
By a really pretty young woman who was a couple of years older than me, outside of Atlanta.
And she was going down to Florida to college down there to be involved in some
kind of peace, anti-war activist conference.
(49:12):
And I couldn't remember all the details, so I made up a whole,
you know, kind of added to her character.
What she was doing and why she was doing it so i had
her be in the sds and she was
this you know kind of leftist radical committed
person which i she was i
(49:33):
just couldn't remember the details to it but she
was delightful she was just this really happy buoyant personality which was
really kind kind of unlike the serious Marxist leftist student radicals that
I had known and knew later at the time,
(49:54):
because they were mostly really serious and dour personalities.
And she was this happy-go-lucky kind of, you know, flower child type,
but she was a serious student radical.
Medical, and she said the reason that she felt safe picking me up is at the
time I had on a red t-shirt, which meant I might have been a communist,
(50:18):
which I wasn't, but okay, and I had long hair.
So she said, I figured you're either a communist or a hippie,
either one would be safe.
So she used those two categories as to who she thought she could safely pick
up, and she had done a fair her monolithic hiking herself.
Interesting. All right, Matt, I guess you can take it from here. Well, so I'm curious.
(50:45):
You said you had been to Key West when you were younger, and the trip was just
to go back there because it was the farthest point south.
What did he do when he got there? I mean, did you just hang out for a couple of days?
Yeah, it turned out to be a very strange experience.
When I was south of Miami, like right to entering the Keys, I hooked up with two other guys.
(51:15):
And one of them was from Key West, and he had been discharged from the Army,
had been in very serious combat.
Bat he was in a rifle company in vietnam
and he his
mom owned a restaurant in key
west and she had a shrimp boat and it
(51:39):
was a you know a seafood restaurant and one of the ideas i had was to when i
got to key west especially if i need thought i needed money was to see if i
could get a job on a shrimp boat or a fishing boat because i'd heard that you know they people that,
own those boats or captains were often looking for
(52:00):
people to work for them so that's sort of a dream i had or an idea and so i
get to these two guys they're standing on the road right where i was gonna hitchhike
and i stopped and talked to him and you know first time thinking well three
of of us, we're not going to get picked up.
So I'll just go on down the road and you guys get the first ride and I'll get the next.
(52:23):
But they said, no, no, stay with me because I said that, and I'm just going
to call him Bill, Bill, the Vietnam vet said he had some military clothes on,
said, you know, vets will pick up.
Other vets, which was true. I said, so we'll get a ride. And they had hitchhiked
(52:46):
all the way from California.
And so we'll get a ride from a vet can almost guarantee it, or somebody who knows Bill.
Cause you know, there'll be people going down to Key West who might know him.
And so first ride we got there, right.
It was a, was a Korean war veteran.
(53:06):
And he picked us up cause he saw Bill and yeah, You know, that guy looks like
he's just out of the army, got the short hair,
got camo pants cut off at the knees, combat boots, you know,
that kind of thing, and an army duffel bag.
And the next guy that picked us up, which was the last ride,
actually worked for his mom.
(53:28):
So but what made the experience very weird and unfortunate was turned out bill
was a heroin addict who got addicted over in and had was going cold turkey and
he was also suffering from.
Dtsd which you know wasn't that well known at the time and so at first this
(53:54):
guy who just seemed like really happy kind of guy.
He would even dance at the side of the road in his combat boots.
By the time we got to Key West, he was trembling. He was having DTs.
He was foaming at the mouth.
It was terrifying, especially to an 18-year-old who, again,
(54:15):
never experienced something like this, although I was a lifeguard,
so I knew something about how to deal deal with people who were distressed.
But so anyway, we got to his house. His mom takes us in and,
you know, he, she's, you know, of course, really concerned about her son and,
(54:37):
but, you know, she kind of takes care of us for that night and feeds us really well.
And Bill basically just kind of passes out.
And the guy he was
with was was not a vet he was kind
of a rough i would describe
(54:58):
him as almost more of a hobo than
a hippie although he had long hair and had
been living rough and just met bill on the road and really as it turned out
didn't really want me as a third wheel that That he was depending on Bill's
(55:19):
mom to give him a job in the restaurant.
And he, you know, sort of as things developed, saw me as just sort of either
interference or distraction and made it clear he just assumed that I would shut off.
But Bill's mom said, you know, stay, stay for a night or two.
(55:41):
And I then did not ask her about getting a job because the situation was just too freaky for me.
So I spent the one night there, spent the next day walking around Key West,
checking out the sites, got to see the buoy, which marks the furthest southern point in the U.S.
(56:05):
And at that point, kind of wished I had a camera.
You idiot. You could have brought a camera, but, you know, travel life.
And who cares? these pictures are all
in my mind that's what's important but and
then decided i want to go for swim
(56:27):
and got to this you
know this great looking sandy beach and then notice
there's a bunch of guys all running around naked
so more gayness it's a
gay beach but anyway i
got to swim in the ocean at on key
west and then headed back north and
(56:50):
then i went to new orleans so you were only there two days that
was my next stop wow i would
i would yeah yeah i was thinking this whole thing
took like way longer than you know
the week or week and
a half or whatever it was before you you headed out yeah new orleans
well then i i stopped at
(57:12):
the university of miami and i spent a few
it turned out a few days there because while
i was there i was just camping out and interesting situation there are a number
of people who were not students who just camped out by this this lake on campus
who were just either like me traveling around or or anyway,
(57:36):
a lot of them had tents, which I didn't have.
But there's this little tent hobo community on the campus.
But the most interesting thing that happened to me there was I got flirty fished
(57:56):
by two very attractive young women.
Okay, so what's flirty fishing, right? You ever heard that term?
No. Well, I learned that term because it turned out they invited me to come
with them to their commune.
And I said, oh, my God, this is talk about a dream come true. Who needs a shrimp boat?
(58:20):
These are two beautiful young women that are taking me home with them to their
commune. So, of course, I'm imagining, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll.
And it turned out the commune was the Children of God cult.
Um and flirty
(58:42):
fishing was the term i learned
through later research used by
the children of god to do exactly
what they did with me is send out a
pretty young woman women or other
turn around or handsome young guys
(59:03):
who would flirt with their
the fish and then reel them in take
them home to the commune and suck
them in to join it at which point you would give all your material possessions
including a car if you had one to the cult and but you'd live there They'd take
(59:28):
care of you three meals a day,
and you'd either be assigned to working maintenance or repair that had this
big house and then two barracks, dorms in the back.
Or you'd go out flirty fishing.
And so it was a really interesting experience being there and very quickly determining
(59:55):
I was not going to stay there and then sneaking out that night.
So i actually only spent
a day and into the early morning there but got you know got got the sort of
full experience of how you're lucky i mean and i tried to keep imagine that
(01:00:16):
a lot of people got got there and couldn't leave i would i would think if they
took everything from me at some point.
The compound was enclosed with this high wooden fence,
and there were all these cars and motorcycles there that were given up by the members of the commune.
(01:00:46):
There were some very nice cars, and they assigned two friends to look after
you while you were there.
One of them assigned to me was this young guy who was from a wealthy family,
and he had a Camaro, which he'd given to the cult.
(01:01:09):
And he had been there, let's see, he'd been there for I think about two months,
but was totally committed to it.
And who knows how much he would have ended up giving to them before he got out.
So you mentioned early on that you had a girlfriend at the time.
(01:01:30):
What did she think about you going on this trip?
Well, she was in her last year in high school, so she wasn't going to be able to go with me.
Not that her parents would have let her anyway, I'm sure.
But she is completely left out of the book. She's not even mentioned in the
(01:01:54):
book, because I didn't think it was fair to her.
So what she thought of it is really irrelevant to the book, but she was okay with it.
And the next year, or I shouldn't say next year, that summer,
we actually went to school in England together and then spent the rest of that
(01:02:16):
summer traveling, hitchhiking, part of the time all over Europe. up.
So what made you, so you went to New Orleans, I assume you wanted to go to Mardi Gras.
Yeah, that was, I wanted to experience Mardi Gras, which I did in what turned
out to be a very intense way.
(01:02:37):
And I was there several days.
I experienced a police riot where these anarchists that I had met tried to,
well, they did, successfully disrupted.
Parade at night and they their
their whole purpose they traveled around the
(01:02:59):
country and would engage in
disruptive and vandal activities
to stick it to the man and
they their ultimate
goal was to bring down the government but they
went about it in these sort of very
(01:03:22):
specific little disruptive ways
and so they came to new to mardi gras to disrupt
i don't know if it was more than one parade but
at least the parade when the day that i met him that night and they got they
were they became kind of like cheerleaders and so you know they're all these
drunk people and so they they go out into the street as the parade is approaching
(01:03:46):
but it It still weighs off and start, you know, chanting,
you know, something like, you know, take back the streets and,
you know, stuff like that.
And the streets are for the people. And so a bunch of drunk people and,
you know, maybe some leftist, you know, Marxist, anti-government types,
(01:04:07):
who knows, libertarians, whatever, get out in the street with them.
And in New Orleans, you don't mess with Mardi Gras parades, but the,
and they knew this. And so.
Cops on horseback came charging in with their batons, swinging,
(01:04:28):
and rode over, beat the crap out of people.
Well, these two guys slunk off without getting hurt, but all the people that
they convinced to get out there and try to stop the parade, a bunch of them
got beaten seriously by the cops.
Because then a phalanx of cops on
(01:04:50):
foot followed the the cavalry and then
a couple paddy or several paddy wagons they beat people up for him in the paddy
wagon and then you know moved on and one guy i had met that day too was a big
guy he was on you know i've forgotten whether it was lsu or some You know, football team,
(01:05:13):
college football player, big lineman guy.
He got his skull cracked by a billy club of a cop.
And I figured, no, that's probably the end of his football career.
So it was, you know, very ugly experience. Before that, Mardik Ra was really
cool and had a wonderful experience.
(01:05:35):
Got taken in by a two-lane med student who let me stay in his apartment.
Had wonderful taste in music, too.
Always a plus. Very expensive stereo.
So that, yeah.
So, you know, that Mardi Gras was this kind of combination of just being taken
(01:05:59):
in by this really generous guy who was in medical school and meeting interesting people,
seeing parades, which were really cool.
Cool but then having this sort of horrifying experience which i mean did you
know that that was gonna happen beforehand like did the people the two guys
that you met were they telling you like yeah you gotta join in and you know.
(01:06:23):
They were, yeah, you got to join in. Well, first, they were very vague about what their plans were.
And so they, so the big guy, the football guy and I had met them and we were
hanging out at Jackson Park and just, you know, like throwing Frisbees,
smoking pot, having a good time.
(01:06:44):
Jackson Park was like this, you know, kind of the hippie center of Mardi Gras
at the time, and the street musicians playing terrific music,
and it's like, you know, mini Woodstock.
And so they so then
these are the two anarchists and they had
not told i'll just call him fred had
(01:07:07):
not told fred and me that their plans were they said you know there's this break
well let's go over to the parade and it wasn't until we got there that they
started kind of talking to each each other about what their plan was,
how they were going to execute it.
(01:07:27):
And so, no, you know, I had no idea that's what they were up to until actually
the wheels got set in motion.
And I was smart enough that Fred tried to pull me out into the street.
But I just thought, you know, this is a bad idea.
I mean, plus, I didn't want to stop at the parade. I thought,
(01:07:50):
you know, that's not right.
I mean, these parades are really cool. And people work really hard to put the
floats together and these elaborate costumes.
And I'd seen a few parades by then. It was a really cool experience.
So I just, I stayed on that. I pulled away from Fred and stayed on the sidewalk
and was just an observer.
(01:08:10):
Yeah, and the police back then were, you know, not so friendly to,
I would guess, the hippie culture kind of people.
No i mean if you've seen the film on or the movie based on 1968 democratic convention
(01:08:34):
the police riot that happened in chicago i mean this was this was just a mini
version okay what do you think.
Well i mean there certainly is a lot of risk and a lot of adventure and you
live to tell about it and write about it so what as you look back on it to write
(01:08:57):
and incorporate you know fiction as well.
What did you learn from the experience maybe
now writing the book
that you maybe didn't or
had not thought about prior to that yeah
well the on sort of the cultural sociological
(01:09:18):
level one of more historical one
of my observations and conclusions is a
change in our culture that the hippie
counterculture zeitgeist although is
very naive in a lot of ways is also
beautiful in a lot of ways and it created this sense of adventure but love and
(01:09:46):
peace and community that pretty much is gone. It died.
And of course the hippies then are the baby boomers now.
And to see people or just imagine the people who were hippies and into peace
(01:10:09):
and love back then and now vote for Trump.
There's been such such a dramatic are more scared less kind and friendly to
strangers at least i think of the attitude towards immigrants.
You know, who are strangers. And all these people, you know,
(01:10:32):
welcome me into their cars, some into their homes.
And I am just this stranger, I mean, like a migrant.
And then people were so kind and loving.
And would that happen now? Would do people hitchhike now?
You know, know no because we're too scared and we're
(01:10:54):
too unkind to strangers to
do that so that's you know one sort of as
i see unfortunate development in
our the in our culture our sort
of our attitude towards other people
and then on a personal level you
(01:11:14):
know looking back on it i don't think this was particularly conscious at the
time was that it was an experience that gave me confidence that I could live
successfully through situations that were,
you know, that were not necessarily predictable,
(01:11:37):
that were not, you know, that didn't just fit into neat channels.
And that served me me very well over the years. I mean, it served me well as a lawyer.
You know, every case I got as a lawyer, I could react, oh, you know,
I don't know how to do this or, oh gosh, I'm not sure we can win or, and instead,
(01:11:59):
you know, my attitude was always,
okay, I need to understand what are the facts, what are the issues?
Let me get a hold of this. And if I'm taking this case, we're going going to win.
And that served me well in athletics. I continued when I went back to college.
I played football, rugby, swam.
(01:12:20):
I had that experience of just going out, encountering the world in this very different way,
I think imbued in me a sense of confidence that I could handle situations that
were maybe beyond the capacity of a lot of people.
(01:12:40):
And so I end the book saying,
you know, something like I learned that there was no place like home,
that being away from home made me really appreciate what a wonderful family
and community I had grown up in and how safe and stable it was and how I came to appreciate that.
(01:13:04):
And also education, that I really wanted to get an academic formal education.
So those were two immediate lessons that I learned, but also that although I
wanted to be part of a community and a family,
I also would not lead a conventional life, and I haven't.
(01:13:27):
Interesting well what's
next um have you started another writing project
already no i haven't i
have a book that i feel like i should do and i it the experience of writing
that book was so much fun and enjoyable of reflecting back and you know remembering the experiences,
(01:13:54):
but also having the freedom to add to it and fill in the gaps and make some
experiences maybe a little more exciting than how I remember them.
The next book should be this motorcycle trip that a friend and I did two years later.
(01:14:16):
So that summer, I went to Europe, but then the summer after that one,
We rode motorcycles from northern Indiana all across the country down through
Mexico and ended up within six hours of losing both of our motorcycles and having
(01:14:36):
to find our way home without our without our wheels.
So that's what I but I just I'm having trouble getting up the the sort of the
focus, the determination to do it.
So I don't know if I actually will write that book or not, but that's what's
(01:14:57):
percolating in the back of my mind.
Well, there seems to be always something percolating in the back of your mind.
And we've been fortunate enough to get to hear some of the stories.
It's always a pleasure to hear about your writing. And really,
this book is on Amazon for those listening.
(01:15:19):
You'll be able to order that. It's already available.
And, you know, I can't wait to just sit down and read it. And well,
one thing that I have to warn you, I don't quote Matt in this book.
Well, you know, I think I have yet to get my quote.
(01:15:42):
Well, if you would have picked me up when I was driving through at their writing,
hitchhiking through Appalachia, you'd be in the book.
Yes. When I was eight years old, I sure was.
This cute little eight year old girl picked me up.
Yeah hey we could have been a team we could
(01:16:03):
have we could have been something i would
have had some good music too so um there
you go i'll bet yeah i'll bet well hey well well i just i want to say i want
to yeah i wanted to say to you though cat good luck with your next project i
hope that turns out fingers crossed for you yes see that's better than getting in the book matt,
(01:16:27):
you get mentioned on your own podcast as
i recall that
chapter didn't show up in the book until the second printing it wasn't the chat
it was the table of contents oh you got out of that yes that's right yeah no
yeah you you you were in there from the beginning that so No.
(01:16:54):
See, he's never happy. I would have been like, oh, I'm in the book.
Well, yeah. And Matt, how many fan letters have you gotten as a result of being
in that almost New York Times bestseller?
Let me look at the I have a spreadsheet here somewhere.
(01:17:15):
Yeah, it was exactly. I think Kat was the only one who sent me a fan letter.
Oh, no. No, well, even when I'm like slided, I feel like very nice and caring and the right thing.
You are like Jesus in a Ferrari.
(01:17:37):
She's like Mary in a van.
Yes. Just like that. Yeah. Mary in a minivan.
All right. Jeff, thanks for coming by. We really appreciate it.
And great stories, you know. Well, thanks for having me, you guys.
(01:17:57):
And I always enjoy talking with you. And I hope we'll make number five in the
future. I'm thinking we will.
So write that motorcycle book.
That's right. With Mary and the minivan showed up, we'd be down on being number five.
Yeah, well, that could at least be a short story that I could write. Yeah, why not?
(01:18:21):
I'll take it. I'll take a poem, anything, really. There you go.
All right. Well, thank you again. We really appreciate your time.
All right. Take care. You too. Bye-bye.
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