I was driving on automatic pilot, watching the Susquehanna River off to the right, wondering in whose name the light drowned within it. I knew the road by heart. Fourteen years at Penn Sate--"The Happy Valley". I had driven this sequence of mountains and valleys to the cities of the East Coast, what urbanites call "civilization," for fourteen years. The university car, like the last firehouse horse on earth, headed for Harrisburg, and I had the dangerous feeling one sometimes gets in automobiles of being an observer in a universe which, temporarily, is correctly unfolding.
Up ahead there were two figures with thumbs pointing down the road, thumbs aimed at the future. I do not often stop for such people, and when I do I am never sure why. But I slowed the car and pulled over one hundred feet past the hitchhikers. They moved briskly toward the idling car. Not running, which would surrender dignity and possibly scare the driver. Not a slow walk, which would indicate naiveté and also give the driver time to reconsider, but a purposeful gait.
Both figures piled into the backseat, and the immediate process of explanation began--the basis for all-good hitchhiking. Where are you headed? Where are you from? These questions require assuring answers from both driver and passenger within the first few minutes or a curiosity builds, making for a tense journey. One of the hitchhikers was a young man studying philosophy at the university. He had taken his study seriously enough that he had a case of wanderlust, existential ants in the pants. A kind young man, full of ideas. With him was a little man whom succeeding generations have called vagabond, hobo, tramp, bum, vagrant, and now, homeless person. This progression of labels relates to how much the public accepts wanderlust as legitimate when one is without steady employment. The little man was not presently in the employ of others for money. He was going to Philadelphia to, as he said, spend the winter. Such a decision, when stated aloud, cannot be announced with conviction in even the worst of circumstances.
The young student of philosophy talked with the homeless guy about jobs. There are jobs, he said knowingly, in State College. The town was growing. (The streets were paved with the fool's gold of minimum wage jobs). It was worth a try. "You could stay with me, man." The little homeless guy, Richard, listened with ears that constantly heard the foreign language of those whose universe has a center. Richard was appreciative but declined.
They exchange parting comments, and the student, after one stop and an unsuccessful attempt to phone his brother in Carsle, asked to be let out at an intersection of roads which might get him home with one successful hitch. Richard and he exchanged parting comments, and he departed. Now the journey continued in silence. Professors, of course, love silence; without it talk would have nothing to interrupt. There was only the faint whistle of wind in window cracks, only the tires singing their restless song.
"Where will you sleep this evening?"
"Outside somewhere around here."
It was twenty degrees, and this was not what you were supposed to do. What you were supposed to do was find a chain hotel, give them a credit
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