At first, we had visions of Easy Rider and wondered if we were about to be bludgeoned by some of the townsfolk
You know, I used to get a lot of places by “riding my thumb” back in the old days….me and my friends hitchhiked all over….we visited neighbouring communities regularly and often headed for the big city of Toronto to check out the hippies in Yorkville….huge numbers of young people used to hitchhike back in the day – girls and boys. And I started my hitchhiking days when I was likely 13 or 14-years-old. It was just something everybody seemed to do when I was young. Well, not everybody – but lots and lots of people.
Then, when the era of the hippie arrived in the mid to late Sixties, suddenly everybody was hitchhiking everywhere. And it seemed everyone was trying to capture the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, where you just stuck out your thumb and sort of tried to find yourself – whatever that used to mean. I’ve spent most of my life trying to find myself, but I’m still lost somewhere on life’s highway and not in any serious danger of finding myself any time soon. So, anyway, I was struck by the wanderlust back in 1971 – exactly 50 years ago this year. Me and a friend were sitting on the back campus of high school on the last day of classes and right on the spot decided to go on a hitchhiking odyssey.
So, for preparation, we headed down to the big city of Toronto to buy WWII army surplus ponchos – which every self-respecting hitchhiking hippie had. While there, we happened to catch Woody Allen’s excellent film, “Bananas”, in a theatre filled people who were pretty busy laughing their asses off. Then, we loaded a few things into our back packs – a change of clothes, a few cans of food, a can of tobacco and rolling papers….stuff like that. And then we were totally ready for the road. I remember I asked my Dad for a little travelling money and he pulled out his billfold and presented me with a two dollar bill. I was pretty excited about that….
Anyway, we set out and headed to Toronto and then Ottawa and then we started across the TransCanada Highway toward North Bay. And the most interesting thing happened to us in Deep River. We got stuck in Deep River along with quite a bunch of other young people and the black flies were eating us alive and night was happening and we were pretty sure we were facing a night in the ditch. Then, just as the sun was sinking into the western sky, we could see a line of headlights coming out of the actual town toward us. At first, we had visions of Easy Rider and wondered if we were about to be bludgeoned by some of the townsfolk.
Instead, they picked all of us up. My buddy and I got picked up by an old widower guy. He drove us back to his place, let us use his shower, cooked us dinner and let us sleep in his rec room. In the morning, he cooked us bacon and eggs and while we were eating, I asked him why he’d invite a couple of very scruffy looking guys into his home like this. He explained to me that people in Deep River had young people who were out on the road, and they had decided to try to help out any young people who passed through their community and hope their own young people would be treated with kindness wherever they went. It was sort of like one of the biggest miracles I’ve seen in my life even to this day….
I’ve often told that story over the years to try to explain to today’s young people the type of trust that used to exist in our societies….I also ask them if they think something like this could happen in today’s world. They mostly just laugh – they know it couldn’t. And that’s the type of world we’ve created. And it’s a damned shame. A damned shame for sure.