I wander America on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, sleep on couches and in fifty-dollar motel rooms, eat at Waffle House and Main Street cafes, and have conversations with people whose politics I might not agree with. These are our stories.
The Soft Smell of Citrus
I got out of the Army in March of 1978 and stayed in Europe. It was cold in Germany and I hitchhiked south. I met Clayton at a campground in San Sebastián in northern Spain. Tall, skinny, scuffed leather-soled wingtips with no socks and food-stained khaki shorts, Clay...
The Louisville Slugger
Have you ever had a conversation truly free of consequence? People pick up hitchhikers because they feel sorry for them standing in the rain, the blowing snow, the bitter cold, the cruel sun; because they’re bored; because they’re shitfaced and need somebody to grab...
Driving West
We left Valentine at 5:30 Sunday morning headed west driving Nebraska Highway 20 which runs along the state’s northern border. Good road, cliffs and buttes and curves in unlikely juxtaposition to movie-set ranch scenes and vastnesses where the prairie meets the horizons all around. It’s a beautiful, beautiful part of our country.
The Robe Shop
I grew up in Del Mar, California, a little beach town just north of San Diego. I was born in 1956 and so was just gaining consciousness in the late sixties, early seventies. The Monkees are on my sound track.
Jimmy Beam
As a young man just out of high school, I rode my thumb across this country. That was 1974.
American Motorcyclist
Bessie Stringfield, a Black woman born in Jamaica in 1911 (or North Carolina in 1912, depending on your source), made repeated solo motorcycle trips across the continental United States.
Broken Michael
Michael went to jail for the first time when he was fourteen. Since then, he’s spent almost five years in detention or jail. The girl he had a crush on when he was a freshman in high school was shot in the face with a shotgun at a house party.
Shattered Patella
Monday, Jane fell and broke her right patella and right arm and I’m home in Minneapolis (for those who don’t know me personally, Jane’s my wonderful wife of 29 years).
Ever Wild
The hair, the tie dye, the dirt and dust, the incense and pot smoke, the tents and sleeping bags, the costumes and clothes (and lack of clothes), the music, the energy, the raw sensuality; it was 1973 and I was just seventeen.
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