Hitchhiking and Stuff….
I was talking to Daddy tonight and he told me, as he had in times past, of hitchhiking home from Auburn. When he wanted to go home, he would hitch from Auburn to Berry - a distance of about 225 miles. These days, we cannot even fathom hitchhiking. It goes against everything we’ve been taught. “If you hitch, only bad things will happen to you.” So it takes some real thought to imagine your parent doing just that 50 odd years ago. Daddy told me about this one particular trip where he got a ride from Auburn to Montgomery (with a “real nice lady”) rather easily and a ride from Auburn to Prattville just as easily. He said in Prattville he waited for hours for the next kindly stranger. Three or possibly four hours. When he found a ride, it was only to Tuscaloser. Once in Tuscaloser, he called his Daddy who, along with his uncle, came to pick him up. Daddy got home late on a Friday night and had to leave early on Sunday morning to catch the bus back home. Why come home for such a short time? In a nutshell, because he was homesick!
I asked why he didn’t hitch back, and he said that he just rode the bus. I suggested that maybe he took the bus because his parents gave him money and he agreed that it was probably the answer. We talked about him going to Auburn and how his parents afforded to send 4 children to school on a minister’s salary. He says that to this day he still doesn’t know how they afforded it, but they did. They paid tuition, room, and board. Room and board in the dorm at that time was 145.50! And that included three meals a day! WOW how things have changed!
I love the talks I have with Daddy. I must get back over there and have more garden time, as we have great “garden talks!”