700 Miles and a Thumb

700 Miles and One Thumb

Cottonwood is so small it doesn't make the map!

So there was Lewis, he'd just not kissed his sweetheart goodbye at the train station, he'd waved goodbye to his friend Dunn, who was headed for high adventure in New York City, standing by the side of a lonely highway ready to thumb his way to Texas. He was not off to a good beginning. He waited over five hours to catch his first ride, and then, it was only for eight miles. Not a good start.
Not a good start at all. I looked it up on Google Maps. By today’s 78-years-later highways the same route Lewis took, it’s about 740 miles and an estimated twelve or so driving hours. But on bad roads at eight mile stretches, not a good start at all. But things got better. 

  "At that time it seemed I could not continue toward Texas, and I was too far out to walk back to Columbia.     But I waited, then walked along. Pretty soon a Chevy came along and brought me about fifty miles to the junction of Highways 40 and 65."

 [Lewis was very much a typical young man--of then and now. He reports on the rides he catches, not so much (with a couple of exceptions) with the characteristics of the driver but of the kind of car he's driving. Don't believe he mentions a single woman driver, and, best I recall only one specific woman passenger. There is one truck "full of people" sex not specified. I'm guessing that then, like now, most women were disinclined to pick up riders.]
He got one good ride, and then things turned down again. So he did what apparently was for him the obvious. He started a card to Dottie. About then, a University friend appeared in the "biggest Chrysler." It was off for Springfield, and quickly. Lewis doesn't say where he spent the night [I'm betting not in a hotel.] Up early the next morning he grabbed a quick breakfast and hit the road at six. The first ride was "with a medicine show man . . . (Make me think to tell you more about him when we are in Ft. Worth)." [I hope it comes out in a letter.] Then he encountered in close order "a Chevy," "some sort of big car," and "a new Ford."
The Ford got him to Veneta, Oklahoma and let him off at a "roadside lunch room for a bite to eat." Instead he got a bit of adventure and got very hungry. [No, question. It was worth it.]
"Then is when I saw a keen looking Reo rolling down the road. I waited for it, and the driver stopped and asked me to ride. I did.
I soon learned that he was going to Oklahoma City more than 200 miles. Gee! I was hungry, but I did not tell him. I wanted to ride. We did.
When we were about half way to Tulsa, he invited me to lodge with him that night. I consented."
It worked out. It worked out more than well. The fellow--he never gets a name--explained his wife and son were in Chicago, and so they were on their own. They went to the store for steaks and the fixings. Had a lovely meal. Then "a bath and a shave and a bed that contributed much to a night of comfort." The next morning after a big breakfast, the fellow offer to loan him some money (declined) and drove him to the highway. Lewis was off on the next leg of his adventure.

The first letter

TO BE CONTINUED.