| Life in the hive |
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I opened the door of the idling 18 wheeler I had spent my last two days in and jumped with purpose from the lip of the frame. As I descended I scanned my surroundings and visualized my exact position on earth as it would appear to a great eye in the sky. On landing, a quick thought about how small I really am and how nothing really means anything anyway rips quickly through my head. It is dark, only the outline of a grand Eastern deciguous forest is apparent to my still adjusting eyes, I gave a This new territory was intriguing it smelled like hasty progress, commotion and struggle. As I branched away from my home in the trees I was repeatedly stung with the reality of my new surroundings, I was an integral part of a hive that makes your local East coast truck stop one of the most interesting microcosms known to man, Ha Ha Ha! hitch hikers, truckers, prostitutes, cops, beggars, shoppers, thieves, attendants and hustlers. The dynamic is mind boggling, everyone looking for something different in this mad max mecca of debauchery. My attempts to avoid the mayhem reminded me of my childhood army games. Of course this time around I wasn't carrying my trusty squirt gun and my long unused hide and seek tactics only worked most of the time. When they failed the experiences were most definitely not easy to forget. Exploring the East coast via hitch hiking was honestly one of the more difficult tasks I had undertaken since the beginning of my adventure. My rides came almost exclusively from truckers or police. The number of times I found myself in really bad neighborhoods was about five too many, of course I survived each time so maybe my badness meter was off a little. Equally scary were the times I found myself in neighborhoods far too decadent for the likes of me, these situations often leaving me on the brink of arrest due to the lethality of the tripod I carry with me. According to Ben my friendly New York police officer, it supposedly drew far to close a resemblance to a modern day rocket launcher? Alas, it was not all that bad, just challenging! I felt greatly privileged to be exploring a region that has over the decades helped spawn so many new degrees of freedom for “all” the people of America. Visiting the old world structures full of so much history and perseverance, engaging countless numbers of people, all of which were absolutely electric with the prospect of possibly electing a president that defied so many of the monotonous traditions we associate with modern politics. I can admit, I was actually feeling a little patriotic as I wandered through city after city full of historical significants. Seeing people doing! Not so much talking, but off of their couches working together to accomplish a unified mission. Kinda cool, politics aside. Set as favorite Bookmark
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Hey Michael, I've been wondering about you from time to time since I dropped you off in Pennsylvania and it's great to get updates on you from this site. Hitchiking around the country, taking my time to climb a hill if I felt like it and meeting all kinds of folk when I was younger make for great memories. I've been back in Minnesota for a few months taking care of the house and yard it's near the truck stop where I picked you up where you were after the Republican Convention fiasco. Is that me, the trucker that you were talking about in this blog? Any way sure was cool to get time to get to know you and learn about this project, which is waaay cool. Good vibes to ya, Mark |
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