A Flashback Friday presentation from May 30, 2021:
It’s been a long while now since I got where I wasn’t going. But it happened all the time when I was younger. My friend Bill and I’d be dropped off from a ride in some small town by whatever driver responded to our stuck-out thumbs. Typically we’d find someplace to get coffee, review our map, and ask about good places to get a ride.
For those who do not remember a pre-digital world, broadband, or wi-fi, our maps were printed and non-interactive; if you asked a question, the only voice answered back was the wind.
It had happened a few times to us: the local kid in the coffeeshop would wonder at our map and be amazed that his town didn’t show up, or the shop owner would suspiciously examine our dollar bills.
We learned fast that in those cases. It was wise to depart before other discrepancies showed up. Bill had an experience with a gal who claimed a relationship. An effusive long-lost relation appeared; signs were in strange fonts, movies played in cinemas with quirky titles. He was not tempted to stay. I, on the other hand, was easy to seduce. More than once, I got dragged out of a coffee shop and onto the road. These detours were transitory; we’d just find our way back to Boston’s Beacon Hill, the Harvard Gardens, and our digs at the Folkie Palace.
I still have a fascination with places that appear as non-listed off-ramps. You know, to sites where Harding is not on the fifty-dollar bill. Or where Starbucks doesn’t serve the best ice cream around. And where DC is not the fiftieth state, and Alaska is not a territory.
Sometimes I miss the old days.
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That was a long long time ago for me, those days.
So! you do remember! Good times, Right?
Oh my but this brings back memories. I never lost the wanderlust- just found more expedient modes of travel.
Yeah, more expedient especially at two a.m. on a rainy Sunday with the wind hollering up the back of your coat, and the rain dripping the down the back. Shit yea!
I miss the regional diners in the small towns that used to line the highway that vanished when the Interstate went through. “I don’t know, Bill. Is it any good?” “Well, I like it, Helen, but it might be a little spicy.” Eggs and chilis.