The Rub

an old one

This reminds me of a story.  In the summer of 1970 I hitchhiked with a friend to California from Wisconsin.  Lots of stories, good and bad, but one will always stick with me.  Coming home through the SW a crazed looking hippie picked us up.  This was good we thought because we found out at a gas station in Phoenix that the cops were looking for two "hippies" with orange packs.  We were parked right next him almost but he couldn't see the packs.  Ok we dodged one there.  While riding up front we noticed a huge blood smear on the drivers door.  It went from the steering wheel to the back bottom of the door.  Just as if someone had been killed or whatever slumped against the door and fell out when the door was opened.  The crazy looking guy noticed that we saw it.  He blurted out, this my BILs car, and he butchers sheep.  Yeah right.  We were ready to jump out.  Thankfully he picked up three more hitchhikers (to pay for gas) and we felt less threatened... we still had to get out of Arizona.

After we picked up the guy that had just got of prison the car broke down on an Indian reservation at night.  Someone got the big idea to walk to this motel we could see in the distance.  One guy would get the room and everyone else would sneak in.  I thought, this is dumb idea.  We got about two hundred yards when a pickup truck came toward us and flashed on the brights.  As it passed we saw two huge men in the truck, with these huge tall cowboy hats.  It stopped a hundred yards in front of us and turned around.  We all thought this was not going to be good.  We all made sure any weapons we had were readily available.  The truck stopped next to us, the window rolled down and this Indian (not sure what tribe) said "you guys better get in the back of the truck, the Indians around here are crazy."  We figured he knew what he was talking about.  He gave us a ride over the State line where we slept at an undeveloped wayside.  We made it to Albuquerque that next day where some friends lived.  The temps hit 112 degrees F or four or five days.  We were done hitching.   This is the light version, there was more "scary" and weird stuff about that ride....but no time for a novel.

Back from one appointment, headed out to another.