School Bus Hotel

 

I remember I was about 18 years old, hitchhiking, and found myself in this tiny little town in northern Missouri, where it was the home base for a traveling county fair/carnival that I came to know of the summer before, but that's another story. So, I came to this town looking to get hired by the carnival and travel with them for the summer. I needed a place to sleep for the night and I'm walking down this street downtown. There's a line of little kids waiting to get into the movie theater. I asked one of the kids if there is a motel in town or someplace I can sleep. He said no but I could sleep in their clubhouse which was an old, converted school bus. One of them broke away from the line and led me to old, converted he showed me this his old school bus in the back yard. He assured me his parents wouldn't mind me sleeping there. A couple hours later the kid and several of his friends came back from the movie and thought I might be hungry for something to eat. They all chipped in and got me popcorn, a candy bar, and a cup of soda pop. I'm thinking that's pretty cool of these kids to do this. And their dad comes out a little bit later and kind of checks with me and says his kids told him some guy is sleeping out here and just wanted to see what's going on. I explained to him that I hitchhiked here, and I was going to go to work for the carnival the next day and there's no other place to sleep. He said it's cool. So, I slept there and got up the next morning and changed my mind. Turned around and hitchhiked home again.

The Only Place To Sleep

 I did a bit of hitchhiking in my mid to late teens. It was the thing to do in those times. One particular time while hitchhiking to California, I wound up at a rest area, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in pouring rain. My first thought for shelter was to hunker down under a picnic table, but apparently, some other hitchhiker had the same thought and beat me to it. With no other option for refuge from the rain, I reluctantly took to the floor in the men's restroom. In the far corner of the restroom, on the floor, by the door of the last stall. Thoughts of the countless things that could happen to me that would be a good premise of a good horror flick, but too tired to care, it didn't take me long top fall asleep. I don 't know how long I slept or what time it was but I remember waking up to someone using that last stall. I remember hearing the grunting sounds and the smell, but still worried he might be one of those weirdos you hear about when sitting around the campfire telling scary stories. I pretended to be asleep. It kept the boogie man away when I was a young child, maybe it will work again. It did.

Valuable Top-Secret Load

I did a lot of hitchhiking back in the 70's when I was much younger. It was the thing to do in those days. I remember hitchhiking west on I-80 and reached the I-80/I-76 split west of Ogallala, NE. about sunset. I jumped a nearby farm fence and hiked a ways back into the grassland to set up camp for the night. Got my little camp fire started when another hitchhiker showed up asking if he could share camp with me for the night. "Sure", I said. The rest of the night was uneventful. Small talk then into the sleeping bag to sleep. I woke up at sunrise the next morning - I'm guessing around 5:30-6:00. Packed up my gear and started hiking back towards the interstate when I saw a large military semi-truck with jeeps and personnel carriers in front and behind it and a helicopter flying overhead. To this day, I wonder what was so valuable/secret that it required that much protection and security.

Almost Busted

I remember when I was 19, I lived in Ft. Worth TX. for a winter. I hitch-hiked to Alabama to spend Christmas with my parents who were visiting my grandparents for the holidays. I then hitch-hiked to Lebanon, MO. to spend New years Eve with an old friend I hadn't seen for a while.I remember being dropped off near a small all-night diner/truck stop in the wee hours of the morning in Little Rock, AR. Just as the waitress brought my food, 2 state patrolmen came in, looked around, then came to my table and asked me to come with them outside. I asked if I could eat my meal first but they said, "now!" I went outside with them and they proceeded to pat me down (for weapons I presumed) then put me in the back of their patrol car. As it came to be, a man fitting my description had just robbed a taxi at gunpoint. They radioed in for more information and learned the gunman was missing several front teeth. When I heard this, I opened my mouth and wiggled my teeth saying, "my teeth don't come out. They're real." When the officers saw that, they let me out of the car and released me. Man, talk about an awkward feeling when I went back in the diner to eat my meal with everyone staring at me. I simply said, "Wrong guy".