Category Archives: hitchhiking

APRIL 15, 1981 – HITCHING TO FLORIDA – JOURNAL ENTRY

April 20, 2023 – 12:41 pm

I walked our of the Mudd Club at dawn. The gray skies promised snow. I had my bag in hand. I headed to the Holland Tunnel and stuck out my thumb. I was hitchhiking to Florida to meet my friends, the Bertonis, in Key West. The first ride took me to Philadelphia. I wasn’t on […]

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BAD MOTELS – BAD POETRY September 1978

March 26, 2023 – 2:56 am

Crossing the country I mostly slept in speeding cars Huddled against the door Hoping the driver wasn’t a murderer. Or that his destination lay beyond the dawn. Sometimes the ride ended nowhere a few hours after midnight. Out in the Nevada desert wthout a motel in sight. I stood on the highway The crunch of […]

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AMONG THE REDWOODS by Peter Nolan Smith

October 2, 2022 – 2:42 pm

The noon sun shimmered off Monterey harbor. The moored sailing boats bobbed with the light breeze and hundreds of pleasure craft wavered on the wake of a departing fishing boat. A middle-aged man took a photo of his wife before a large trawler tied up to a forlorn dock, while I walked toward Cannery Row. […]

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DOWN THE COAST By Peter Nolan Smith

October 1, 2022 – 2:43 pm

Skyline Drive crested a hill and the bright California sun crowned the hundreds of identical houses snaking up the streets of Daly City with a golden nimbus. Smoke from sizzling meat floated above countless backyards, as suburban families celebrated Memorial Day with holiday barbecues. I longed for a seared hamburger and a beer, but tramped […]

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HITCHHIKING PROHIBITED by Peter Nolan Smith

July 8, 2022 – 12:12 pm

In late-August of 1972 my college friend Ptrov and I were bound for Boston to start our second year of university and we crashed a night with a trio of carpenter gypsies constructing a rest stop on the new interstate through Montana. Bulldozers had churned the dirt highway into a muddy bog for the passing […]

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