In my last post, Hitchhiking About 11000 Miles In 11 Months, you will remember that I had just returned home to Yale, Washington after hitchhiking to Sidney, Nebraska. We lived in a trailer since we followed construction jobs and my father was working on the Swift Creek Dam just East of Cougar. When I got home, my father was far from happy with me but I still got a new pair of badly needed shoes.
I stayed around home, , for a few days but I had a taste of "Freedom" and liked it. I was kind of like a tumble weed, it didn’t take much wind to set me rolling. One morning I got up and left, again. It was pretty much the same routine as before. I drove to The Dalles, Oregon and dropped off my car. The reason I drove to The Dalles was because we were so far out in the hills it was very hard to get a ride and I had a place to safely leave my car at The Dalles. I had a little money in my pocket this time so didn’t have to hit Hap Sanderson up for any money. I just stopped in to say hello and ask if I could leave my car. Hap offered some money but I declined. As I was saying goodbye Hap said he would send a letter to my dad letting him know that I had been there. He couldn’t call on the telephone because we lived so far back in the hills there wasn’t a phone for about twenty five miles.
That trip was pretty much just wandering around the North West. It was so uneventful I don’t even remember much of it. I do know I stayed in Oregon for the most part but made sure to stay out of Madras 
. I was sure that very angry father would shoot me if I got anywhere near his daughter. He just didn’t seem to think wandering around the country riding our thumbs was what he had in mind for his daughter.
After a few weeks I made up my mind and knew what I wanted to do. I worked my way back to The Dalles and picked up my car. Hap was very happy to see me. I think he worried about me as much as my dad did. I didn’t mention before but Hap and his wife Dora had three children. One was about my age, one a few years younger and a baby.
After leaving The Dalles I drove to Portland, Oregon and found the Army recruiting office. I talked to them a while picked up the papers for my parents to sign. I was only seventeen and couldn’t enlist without their signature. Then back to Yale I headed. To say my father was angry would be one of the greatest understatements of all time. He met me at the gate of the little fence around our trailer and told me to just keep on moving. As I said before, I wasn’t the brightest candle on the mantle. I should have waited until he was at work and surprised him when he got home . As it was things were very tense for a couple of minutes. Then my mother came to my rescue. Her exact words (or something pretty close to them) were "My Baby. My Baby. Get out of the way. He’s coming in the house." Well, I didn’t care for the "Baby" part but it got me in the house. I didn’t waste any time and got right to the matter of the "Papers" I needed signed. At first they didn’t understand just what papers I was talking about. When I showed them the papers all kinds of yelling and screaming (my mother was the screamer) took place. My father had served in the Army in WWII and had some pretty hard times of it. He didn’t want to sign any papers that would put me in the Army. I said OK, I’ll just wander around till my birthday (that was just a few month away) and then I don’t need your signature. I started for the door and they changed their minds. They would sign.
Now came a major problem. I had to be at the recruiting office the next morning to be in the group that was leaving right away. That was about 50 or 75 miles away with the first 30 miles through some really wild hill country. I mean hairpin curves, no lights, narrow roads, cougars and worse of all, lots of bears in those days. It was getting toward fall and the bears would eat about anything. Including me. We could hear the bear shaking the apple trees just thirty yards behind our trailer. They didn’t bother me in the daylight but I had no desire to meet them along a dark lonely road. The trees were so thick I probably wouldn’t even see one until I bumped into it. Since it was so late already I only had one choice. Leave at about midnight and try to catch some of the traffic getting off the construction project on their way home.
At about 11:00 pm I was back on the road. My father gave me $20, the clothes on my back and sent me on my way without so much as a hand shake. (A short note here; When I got my first pay in the Army (what they called a flying $50 so you would have some money to last until the first real paycheck) I sent him the $20 and my clothes back. Now I didn’t owe anyone anything.)
I won’t bore you with what took place while in the Army except to tell you about the flight to Fort Ord, California. I was on a commercial plane and sitting next to an older man (probably 35 or 40 years old) who was talking about his job. He was a "civilian gunner" for the Department of the Army and just coming back from some cold weather testing of small arms in Alaska. I told him I would love to have a job like that. You know the old saying, a person should always be very careful what you ask for, you might get it. Seven years later I was what they called a Small Arms Repairer and I tested small arms at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. And five years after that I had the exact same job the guy on the plane told me about. It was hard, dirty and dangerous work. Really be careful what you ask for About fifteen years later I was what was called a Maintenance Support Manager which meant that I was the authority on small arms maintenance (my weapons were hand held and shoulder fired small arms) for the Department of the Army.
Let’s fast forward to about January 1959 and get back to the hitchhiking. I was on a post on the East Coast. Well maybe not on the coast, it was Fort Benning, Georgia. I had just received orders to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey after taking a thirty day leave and they gave me travel pay to Fort Dix, a whole sixty dollars. By now my family had moved to The Dales, Oregon. I wanted to see them before I left for Germany for two years so I headed out. Remember, it was January. The weather wasn’t to bad in Georgia but it would certainly get worse. I had the Rockies to go over and real bad flat lands on both sides of it. I was wearing my class A uniform, low quarters (shoes not boots) the small army cap, an over coat and gloves. I carried a small overnight (AWOL) bag and everything else I sent to the bus station at Fort Dix to pick up later.
My first ride was with a Sergeant that was heading to East Saint Louis, Illinois so I got a rid that far pretty easy. As we approached East Saint Louis he gave me some advise. He said "Don’t walk near any alley entrances. Walk in the street whenever you can. Don’t try to help anyone if they yell for help. Don’t let anyone get close to you except a cop. Above all, don’t take any rides from anyone." He had my attention, to say the least. He let me off in one of the worse areas in town and pointed the way to Saint Louis, Missouri which was across the Mississippi River. It was about 11:00 pm and there wasn’t much traffic so I didn’t have to worry about taking a ride. I walked for miles and finally got to Saint Louis. I walked through Saint Louis to the West side of town and finally just couldn’t take it anymore. I was cold, tired and very sleepy. I found a phone booth so I could get out of the wind for a while and settled down for a few hours sleep. After about an hour I just couldn’t take the cold anymore. My ears were freezing and I couldn’t keep my hands over them and get any sleep. Then I noticed a building across the street and it had a large antenna in back. That must be a radio station. There has to be someone in there. Maybe they will let a poor soldier in out of the cold. I walked across the street trying to keep the wind from blowing me away and went in the front door. I should have seen all the signs on the way in but I didn’t. When I walked in the door I knew it wasn’t a radio station. I was in the State Police Headquarters for Saint Louis.
I told the desk Sergeant my story and asked if I could get a few hours in out of the cold. He told me to sit at a table and get some sleep if I wanted. I sat down and was asleep as soon as my head hit the table. In the morning, when their shift changed, he woke me up and gave me some coffee and doughnuts to eat. He called in one of the patrol men and told me he was going my direction if I wanted a ride. He took me quite a ways but I’m not sure how far. Probably about 50 miles and I was on the road again.
I don’t remember much about the rest of the trip to Denver but when I got to Denver another State Police picked me up and said it was real tough getting around Denver so he would give me a ride. He advised me to head for Cheyenne, Wyoming if I wanted to get across the Rockies because highway 30 was the only one open right now and he wasn’t sure how long it would be open. He let me off a way North of Denver and off for Cheyenne I went.
By the time I got to Cheyenne highway 30 was closed to all traffic except trucks and busses so I bought a bus ticket to Ogden, Utah to get across the mountains. The rest of the trip to Oregon was without any problems. That is until I got to Pendleton, Oregon. I was just West of Pendleton and about 95 miles from home when a young, I’m going to be a hard ass, State Police officer pulled up. He told me that hitchhiking was against the law. I explained my problem to him and that I only wanted to get home before going overseas but he didn’t care. The first thought in my mind was "Damn Civilians" but I kept my cool. That Ahole read my complete orders over the radio to his HQ. He had to, he was to stupid to understand them. They told him it was his call so he told me no more hitchhiking. If he caught me hitchhiking he would arrest me. Now that was a problem.
I figured I would just take off walking and he would go on his way. Wrong. I walked and when I got out of sight, he would pull up a way. That Ahole kept me in his view. About a half hour later he was still there. Didn’t he have anything else to do? Probably not since in those days there wasn’t a speed limit in Oregon so he couldn’t have his fun running down old ladies that were going 2 miles over the speed limit. I was getting desperate and very, very mad. Finally I had to make my move. Here comes a car, I’ll try to hide my arm so the cop can’t see it but the driver can. Oh No, the car didn’t stop and the cops red light is on. I’m going to jail for sure this time.
The man in the car was a salesman heading for Portland. He saw me hitchhiking and didn’t want to take the time to stop, until he saw the police car with his light on and coming my direction. He quickly figured out what was going on, screeched to a stop, backed up and yelled "Get In". I did. Away we went. I’m not sure how fast we were going but the cop didn’t want any part of it so off we went. When we got to The Dalles he dropped me off right in front of the trailer court and I was home.
Mom was happy to see me and even dad was somewhat nice. I spent two weeks visiting with them and my friends and it was time to head East. I had earned a few dollars while I was there and mom had given me a little for gas while I was home. I had a little money to start the trip with but not enough to get over the Rockies. This could be a problem. It was time to leave so off I went heading East. It seemed like it took me longer to make the round trip than the time I actually spent at "Home".
It is now early February and the weather in The Dalles, Oregon was pretty nice. However, I knew that just after I got up out of the Columbia River valley things would get pretty bad, pretty fast. The Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains could be a live or die situation. At this time of year they were killers, if you weren’t careful.
I had pretty good luck getting to Boise, Idaho but didn’t look forward to meeting the "Women From Hell" again (see previous post) and I was very hesitant about getting through Boise. I had a bad experience here before. Anyway, I hadn’t walked very far and a car pulled up to give me a ride. In the front seat was a VERY BIG, VERY MEAN LOOKING black man and a beautiful black woman. At first I was hesitant to get in and then I noticed something hanging in his back seat. It was a uniform. He was a SFC in the Army. This guy was safe. No "Women From Hell" this time. The SFC was being sent to Germany and they were on their way to Fort Dix, just where I wanted to go. The only problem was, I had a girlfriend in Kansas I wanted to see and I wanted to stop in East Moline, Illinois to see my Grandmother. I decided to just go to Eastern Nebraska with them and then head for Kansas.
It was cold but I got to Kansas without a problem. I saw my girlfriend and she was as pretty as always. I only stayed there a couple of days and I headed for Illinois. There was a lot of snow on the ground and another storm was heading our way. I managed to make it to North Western Iowa before the storm really hit me but things were looking very bad right then. I arrived in some small town early in the evening but didn’t want to get snow bound there so I kept on hitchhiking. A young couple picked me up on the way out of town and before I got in I made sure they understood that I didn’t want to get dropped off at some crossroad. I needed to get to a truck stop or all night restaurant. They assured me that there was a "All night Truck Stop" at the crossroad where they would drop me off.
A few miles out of town we arrived at the crossroad and I got out, walked over to the "All night Truck Stop" and was in for a real problem. It was all locked up. It looked like it hadn’t been open for a long time. I tried to get a ride but the snow was getting pretty deep and not many people were on the road. After a couple hours I was getting pretty cold and decided to walk back into town and try to find a police station or anything to get me in out of the cold. It was very cold in South West Iowa that year and the snow was getting so deep cars were going to have a problem getting around the next day. I started thinking maybe I should have went straight to Ft. Dix with the SFC and his wife. To late now. Just have to keep on walking.
I must have walked a mile or two when a car stopped. It was the same couple that had taken me out of town to the truck stop. I told them it was closed and I was heading back to find a police station or somewhere to get warm for the night. They would have no part in that. Her brother was in the Army and she hoped that if he was in my place someone would give him a hand. They took me to their house, fed me and she cleaned up my uniform while I took a shower. I got a good WARM night sleep in a very nice bed and was ready to head out now that it was morning.
At breakfast they explained that they had relation in Rock Island, Illinois and had been planning to visit them so they were going to make the trip today. They would take me to within a few miles of my Grandma’s house. That trip was uneventful and when getting close to Rock Island they offered to take me to East Moline but I told them I knew the bus was running and I didn’t want bother them any more than I already had. I want to say here and now, If the couple that gave me that ride read this, Thank You Very Much. You may have saved my life. Please contact me.
I stayed a few days visiting my Grandma and the rest of the family and was getting ready to head for Ft. Dix when my Grandmother gave me an envelope. Times were tough for all of them right then but they took up a collection and got me enough money for a bus ticket to Ft. Dix. I tried not to take it and explained that I had already crossed the worst the country had to offer and had enough time to hitchhike but she would have no part of it so I took a bus the rest of the way.
Upon arriving at Ft. Dix I picked up my bags and reported in. That was THE END of my hitchhiking days. I got married in Germany and my new wife didn’t look like the type that would appreciate hitchhiking all over the country. Even though she don’t like hitchhiking, I Love Her just the same
I hope you enjoyed reading about my trips and that I didn’t bore you too much. Every word I wrote in this short series is the truth. I expanded on nothing. In fact, I left out a lot because I’m getting Old and just can’t remember all the details anymore. It was fun. It was hard. It was Very Dangerous. I don’t recommend it to anyone. That said, I’ll tell you one thing for sure, I would do it all over again. I wouldn’t miss a single mile or hardship. I loved it. In fact, I have almost convinced myself to take off when it gets warm and try it all over again. I’m only kidding. My wife would have me committed, she don’t even like tent camping. Can you imagine that.
Have a Great Day and I’ll see you along the road.
Bob Jones
