story by Steve Vire
local photography by Sam Wilson

Chapter Three: The Old Black Ford Pickup

We were standing there in the morning mist; I guess it was about 6:30AM. The sun was just coming up but there was no traffic whatsoever. We waited and waited for the sound of a vehicle coming down the road. What seemed like ours was really only about 20 minutes. We heard something coming, so we jumped up and stuck out our thumbs as an old black Ford truck, probably about a 1948 model appeared thru the fog and approached us. We could see that a couple of guys were in the pickup. They slowed down and checked us out, then pulled over to the side of the road and waited for us to run up to the truck.  

It was a couple of old fellas in their 60s, looked like farmer types.  

“Need a ride, boys?” the driver said with a grin, missing a few teeth.  “Sure” we said, “We are heading for Fort Myers.”  

“Well, we sure ain’t goin that far now are we,” as he laughed and looked over at the guy next to him in the truck.  

“Naw”, he said, “We are going down to Homasassa Springs, but we can take you a ways, then you can get out and go over to I-75 and go on down.” “Where do you want out at?”  the driver asked.  

Big Chad checked the map; we hadn’t anticipated questions like this, so we had to make a quick decision on the route.  

“How about the intersection of 41 with Hwy 44 down around Inverness, if you’re going that way.” Said Big Chad.  

“Lemme see that map,” he said as he grabbed it out of Big Chad’s hands. He studied the map a minute before handing it back and said, “OK, we don’t usually go that way, but today we will just help you boys out, is that OK with you?” he looked over at the other man, who laughed and said, “We ain’t got nothin’ else to do, why not?”  “Well, jump in the back their boys, and we’ll take you on down the road, I’ve hauled a couple of hogs back there lately, so watch out, it might be a tad dirty.”  

“That’s OK, we’re happy to get a ride, that’s fine,” we said. We threw our bags in and climbed over the tailgate into the back of the old pickup. Sure enough, there was some pig shit in there, but we could avoid that. There was an old spare tire lying in the bed up next to the cab, so we took a seat on that for at least a little cushion, it beat nothing. He had a set of tall racks on the truck to keep his animals in, but the back of the truck was open.  

Big Chad and I just sat back there on the spare tire and enjoyed the clean fresh Florida air mixed with pig shit, as we looked down the road, back at where we had been, makin’ party plans in our minds for Fort Myers. We watched road signs and checked our map to make sure we were on track, the old guys up front in the truck were just talkin’ and  laughin’ and occasionally looked back and seemed to be making some comments about us, but we couldn’t hear thru the glass of the back window. We couldn’t help but notice the gun rack though, with a single barrel 12-gauge shotgun in it.  

After about an hour and a half, Big Chad looks at me and says, “You still feelin’ good about this ride, cause I’m not sure I am.”  

“Yeah, I’m still OK with it, why?”  

“You seen that movie Deliverance?” he said,  

“Yeah, I’ve seen it, that ‘squeal like a pig’ movie?”  

“Right,” said Big Chad, “These guys remind me of those dudes in the movie, and you know they have been haulin’ pigs in here, don’t that bother you any?”  

“Not really,” I said, lying thru my teeth as I started thinking about it.  

Big Chad checked the map again. “We’re getting really close to the intersection where they’re supposed to pull over and let us out, if they don’t stop, I’m jumping.”  

“Hell no, you can’t do that,” I said, “You’ll hurt yourself.”  

“Well,” he said “I’d much rather have a sore foot than a sore bunghole.”  

“Well, I guess you have a point there,” I said. “But we’re not going to have to worry about that, I hope.” 

We watched the road signs and as we approached the intersection, the driver of the pickup made no indication that he was stopping, and instead sped up and ran thru the stop sign as he turned right, taking us away from our desired route and heading into places unknown. Big Chad was standing up holding the racks on one side, poised to toss out his bag and jump, but the truck was going too fast as it slid around the corner, rocks flying, so all he could do was hang on.  

We started getting scared then, and almost panicked as visions of the Florida version of Deliverance flashed thru our minds.  

“I’m still jumping,” said Big Chad as the truck straightened out after coming thru the turn.  “No, man”, I said, “We’re doing 40 miles per hour, you’ll kill yourself.”  “Like I said before, there’s worse things.” he said.  

“No, let’s beat on the windows and make them stop.” I said.  

“We can’t beat on the windows, because of these racks.,” said Big Chad.  

“Well, then let’s beat on the racks, start yelling and they’ll hear us and stop and let us out.” I said, not really believing we actually managed to get ourselves into this situation.  We started beating on the racks and yelling into the wind “Stop, hey, stop and let us out!”  Nothing happened. They just kept going.  

“This sucks,” said Big Chad, “What the fuck are we going to do?”  

“Only two things are happening here”, I said. “One, they hear us, and they are ignoring us until they get us to where they want to take us and have their way with us. Two, they don’t even hear us, and for whatever reason, they have just forgot we are back here.”  Either way, we might be screwed.”  

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way,” said Big Chad.  

The road began getting narrower and rougher and any signs of civilization were diminishing quickly as it looked like we were driving further into the swampland of central Florida, which we were. We made a plan. As soon as the truck stopped, no matter what, we were jumping out the back and running like hell away from these guys, hoping they didn’t grab that shotgun and shoot at us.  

“If we get out of this, fuck this hitchhiking thing,” says Big Chad, dead seriously. The truck slowed down and rolled to a stop in front of what looked like a little run-down house in the middle of nowhere. Right before it came to a stop, we hit the ground running with our bags. We were setting world speed records going away, when we heard somebody yell, hey boys, come back here, we forgot about you!” 

So, as we stopped and turned around, the driver was motioning to us to come back. We were about 100 yards away, then we looked at each other trying to decide whether to go back or just cut and run again.  

“Let’s go back”, I said. “They didn’t get the gun”. We started cautiously walking back towards them, keeping our distance in case this was some kind of trap.  

The other guy says, “We’re really sorry boys, we just got to talking about things and lost track of time and just forgot you boys were back there. We won’t be here but just for a few minutes and then we’ll take you back to where we were supposed to drop you off.”  

Then the driver said, “We come out here every Saturday morning to this little getaway spot and water the flowers for our wives, you see we both own this little cottage and come out here with the wives one Sunday a month after church just to relax and enjoy the wildlife and flowers and such. You can see this place is right next to a huge wildlife preserve and there isn’t much population back in here, it’s just about like a jungle.”  

We both vigorously nodded our heads in agreement.  

“Well, if you want to help out a little, we could sure use it. Here’s a watering can for both of you, there’s the garden hose, come on we’ll show you where all the flowers and plants are that need watering. We filled our cans and entered the little house, walking all the way thru and out the back door where they had a huge garden area filled with beautiful plants and flowers native to the climate of central Florida. We asked about some of the flowers, and they told us everything we wanted to know and then some.  

Then one of the men said, “Tell us what you were thinking when we didn’t stop back there where you all wanted out?”  

“Well,” I said, “What we thought was you had some kind of plan to take us back in this swamp and do something bad to us and then leave us here, or kill us or something, we had no idea what to think.”  

They both laughed for a minute and shook their heads, “No, no we wouldn’t be interested in anything like that,” they said.  

Then the driver said, “I want to ask you boys a serious question. Are you all Christians?”  Now I’m here to tell you, that took us by surprise to be asked a question like that.  “Yep, we sure are” we said.  

“OK, so what faith are you all?” he asked. We both replied simultaneously, “Baptist”.

Both my family and Big Chad’s family had been members of the same small community church for years since we were babies, and we had been in every church service when the doors were open until we graduated high school.  

“That’s good, boys that’s really good.” said the driver. “Oh, I’m sorry, we never introduced ourselves, my name is Reverend R.C. Carroll, and this here is Reverend Brown, we are both Methodist ministers at two little churches over in Chiefland. I sure am happy to know you boys are Christians, I just want to encourage you to read the Bible and be good to your parents. You seem like a couple of really good boys, and we sure are happy to help you get on your way. Now don’t be afraid anymore, jump on back in that truck there and we’ll go right back out the way we came and drop you off at the intersection we missed on the way down. I sure hope we didn’t delay you boys that much.  I would get Brother Brown to get back there and one of you ride up here if it would make you feel any better, but we’re both going to a deacon’s meeting at church right after this, and I know it’s a little nasty back there. Don’t want him to get his pants dirty.”  

“No problem,” we said with a sigh of relief, knowing that this could have worked out very differently. We piled in the back again, thanking our lucky stars that things turned out the way they did. Then they drove back to the spot we had selected on the map, the old reverend pulled over to the side of the road at the intersection, stopped the truck and then they both got out. We jumped out of the back; this time we weren’t running away.  

Standing there on the side of the road, both of them shook our hands, and apologized again for forgetting we were in the back of the truck. Rev. Carroll said, “Let’s all hold hands and bow our heads for a word of prayer.”  

The four of us held hands, bowed our heads, and then he started praying, “Dear Lord, protect these boys along their way and watch over them. These is good boys from good Christian families. We ask that you bless them and keep them from harm and let them return safely to their homes back in Kentucky. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”  

“Amen”, we all said. Then as they were leaving, Reverend Brown looked over at us and said, “Now don’t forget to say your prayers boys, and try and stay in church.”  

“We will.” we both said. They got back in the old black pickup and drove off, waving to us, smoke bellowing from the exhaust pipe, leaving us standing there on the roadside next to a sign with an arrow pointing to I-75. We slowly looked at each other, and for a fleeting moment we both silently bowed our heads and, in our minds, I am sure we said, “Thank you, Lord.”  

Chapter Four: The Hard-Core Georgia Bitch

11:30AM: We gathered ourselves up emotionally and prepared to move on down the road.  There really wasn’t what you would call a lot of traffic on this side road leading to I-75, so we decided to keep moving and walk in the direction we needed to go. I don’t know where we heard it, but somebody said if you were hitchhiking, you were more likely to get a ride if you looked lively and moving, like you had a destination, instead of just standing or sitting on the side of the road with or without a sign, waiting for somebody to feel sorry for you and pull over and stop.  

Big Chad had taken up juggling and he had 3 tennis balls in his bag, and he would pull them out while we were trying to get a ride and juggle on the side of the road, anything to make us different or more interesting than other hitchhikers. We walked and turned and stuck out our thumbs when we heard a vehicle approaching from behind, and after about a half hour this mint green Monte Carlo, about a 70 model passed us and pulled over on the side of the road ahead, stirring up a cloud of dust. While we were walking toward the car, Big Chad put away the tennis balls and he and I discussed how to avoid screwed up rides like the one we just took with the preachers. We decided we should be a little more discretionary about who we jumped in the car with, however in the mid-day pounding heat, walking the road was not a fun thing, and any air conditioning we could make contact with made our future lack of discretion a little bit easier to justify.  

We ran up to the car and the passenger side window was rolling down. This blonde woman about 35 or so was driving, with what looked like about a 14-15 year old daughter in the front seat and 2 younger boys in the back, about ages 6 and 8.  

“Where ya goin’?” she asked.  

“Fort Myers”, I said. “As quick as we can get there.”  

“I’m only going as far as St. Pete but hop in and I’ll take you that far anyway. Get in the back, honey and let one of them ride up here and the other one can get in the back with you and the boys.” Then to us she said, “I know it will be a little crowded, but you all will just have to hold your bags in your lap, cause my trunks already full of stuff.”  

The daughter rolled her eyes and gave the woman this “eat shit” look and slowly got out turned, looked at us with disdain, and then turned around to get in the back seat. I would have to say Big Chad was watching her just a little too closely as she bent over to get into the backseat. We had dropped our bags over to the side when we went up to talk to the woman thru the window, so we took a few steps over to retrieve them before we got in the car.  

“Man, that chick is way too young for you”, I said, ‘Now that’s jailbait.”  

“Fryin’ chicken,” said Big Chad with a grin. He knew I was right, but still, what’s wrong with a little joking around.  

“More like San Quentin quail, man.” I said. 

Big Chad said, “Yeah, true. I was thinking, do we really want to do this, I mean get in this car?’  

“I think so, the AC was already feeling pretty good coming out of that window,” I replied.  

So Big Chad opened the door and climbed in the back seat with the daughter and 2 boys, and I got in the front seat and pulled the door closed on all that refreshingly good cool air.  

“We sure do appreciate you stopping and picking us up”, I said, “It was sure getting hot out there walking.”  

“No problem,” the woman said, “These damn kids were about to drive me crazy, I needed somebody I could at least have a meaningful adult conversation with, instead of having to fight with Ashley here and these 2 little rugrats. My name’s Betty. Where are you boys from anyway?”  

“Kentucky”, we both answered together.  

“Oh yeah, well I ain’t never been to Kentucky, but I’ve heard it is a real pretty place. I’ve lived in South Georgia all my life outside Valdosta, got married too early, had a kid, got divorced and remarried twice and had them 2 boys by another man. I was married for a total of 14 years, and I’m done with it. That marriage shit is for the birds, I’ll tell ya. Let me ask you this, do y’all hate in Kentucky like we do in Georgia?”  

An awkward silent pause filled the car while she waited for one of us to answer this question. For one thing we didn’t know how much they hated in Georgia, we hadn’t ever even BEEN to Georgia except in a tractor-trailer truck, so we weren’t sure how to compare the relative degree of Kentucky hatred, or if it even existed as far as her scale of hate was concerned. So, I decided just to answer the question as safely as I could.  

“I can’t say that everybody in Kentucky hates ‘em or don’t, I mean some people probably do, and others probably don’t. Where we come from there’s what you might call colored people, then there’s white trash and if you were blind, you probably couldn’t tell much difference. What makes you hate so much, if you don’t mind my asking?”  

“Because they’re a bunch of no-good low-life motherfuckers you can’t trust, they are  theives and double-crossers, they’ll steal you blind given half a chance, stab you in the back, and shoot you just for the hell of it if you don’t like it. The reason I am going to St.  Pete is to get my things, or what’s left of them. Then I’m goin’ back to South Georgia to my momma’s place. I was living with this man I thought was a good man and he was good to my kids and all, and I came home one day after work and all the furniture and TV was gone, my momma’s silver was missing, and the son-of-a-bitch didn’t leave me a note or nothing. It’s been three weeks, and I haven’t been able to locate him, so screw it, I’m just going to take my kids and move on. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, you all better not try any bullshit on me while I’m driving, cause I don’t trust anybody. Don’t even think about pulling out a knife or gun or anything and trying to rob me, cause look here.”  

She reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a pistol.  

“This here is a police issue .38 special, loaded with hollow points and if anybody wants to fuck with me, this here is what they’re gonna get.”  

I looked at Big Chad in the back seat, he was just as dumbfounded as me, cause this was a new twist for us. Nobody had actually pulled a gun out on us yet. I am sure we both questioned this whole hitchhiking thing at the same time, but there was no getting out of the car until it stopped. We weren’t in any position to challenge her, either. This was even worse than being in the back of a pickup, at least you could jump to your death, if you so desired. The cardinal rule of trucking suddenly came to mind. I wondered if it applied to cars as well.  

“No ma’am, we don’t have any weapons of any kind, so you don’t have to worry about us pulling anything, OK?” I said. “We are just trying to go to Ft. Myers and see my cousin for a couple of days, and we don’t want any trouble along the way. If you don’t feel comfortable with us, just pull over and we’ll get out, no harm done.”  

“No, it’s not that I don’t feel comfortable, I just wanted you to know that you can’t pull anything on me, and that I’m armed and dangerous in the right situation. Some people would call me a hard-core gun-toting Georgia bitch, and that’s fine, especially of one of them try to come up and open my car door at the stoplight, try to take my car or something, I’ll damn sure let him have it.” she said.  

“Oh, I’m sure you would,” I said.  

About this time the boys started fighting in the back seat, the 14-year-old daughter was popping bubble gum in Big Chad’s face, they were all crammed in that back seat like sardines.  

“Damn it boys, stop fighting right now or I’m gonna pull this car over and whip your asses right here on the side of the road!” she threatened, but it sounded more like a promise than a threat, and something that had probably happened more than once before, because they shut the hell up and sat real still.  

After a few miles, we started hearing some weird noises from under the hood of the car and a red light came on the instrument panel. The engine was overheating big time.  

“What the fuck is this?” Betty said and quickly swung the car over and off the interstate and into a Kmart parking lot.  

They had one of those automobile repair shops that was part of a Kmart so she kinda  coasted up there to the side and shut the car off. Steam and smoke rolled out from under the hood, as we all started piling out of the car into the midday heat. I got out and opened the hood so the engine would cool off a little quicker, but it was so damn hot it was going to take a while. I mean quite a while.  

“This is just great, Mom, look what you’ve got us into.” said the daughter, who easily gave new meaning to the words “teenage brat”.  

“Just shut up Ashley and take the boys inside Kmart to the bathroom while I figure out what to do. Do you boys know anything about cars?” she asked us.  

“Not really, except that with it so hot, you may have blown a radiator hose or something or maybe broke a belt that drives the water pump,” we said.  

We really did not want to get into trying to fix somebody else’s car on the side of the road at Kmart, because time was passing us by, and we had to get to Ft. Myers before dark or we would be sleeping on the side of the road in the ditch. Who’s going to pick up a hitchhiker at night, or who the hell wants to be picked up by somebody who would pick up hitchhikers at night? The thought scared us considering what we had already seen in the broad daylight.  

Some Kmart mechanic came out and looked at the car, he said it would be at least an hour, maybe two before they could get it inside the garage to work on it. Betty was just crushed.  

“Damn it,” she said, “this is just my luck after my old man stealing me blind and taking everything, I had, now this. I better go in Kmart and find my kids, what are you boys going to do? If you want to wait for the car to be fixed, you can go on with us to St. Pete, but if you don’t want to wait, I understand. I just don’t know what to do, I need to stop and think for a minute.”  

We sat down on the sidewalk outside Kmart, and she sat down beside us. It was blistering hot in the Florida sun with all that concrete everywhere, you could have fried an egg right there on the blacktop of the parking lot. Big Chad and I decided we would give it about 30 minutes before we had to move on. We talked with Betty about what she was gonna do when she got back to Georgia, she had been a hairdresser when she was living in St. Pete, and she talked about trying to open up her own little shop back home when everything settled down. We wished her luck.  

Big Chad pulled out the map of Florida, we determined that we were in Clearwater Beach right now, and we loosely plotted a route to take us on down thru St. Pete and Tampa and on into Ft. Myers. There was a pay phone outside Kmart, so I thought now would be a good time to call Kenton and tell him where we were and estimate a time of arrival, that is assuming we could get rides all the way down without a lot of time in between. I gave him a call and estimated we should be near Ft. Myers by 7 PM if we were lucky. He told us if we got within 30 miles, to call and he would come pick us up. I hung up the phone and checked the coin return just in case it spit my dime back out to me. No such luck. 

After what seemed like hours had passed, but really only a few minutes, Betty said, “Where are those kids, they should have been out of there by now, but my daughter is probably hanging out at the jewelry or makeup counter looking around, she is starting to get into that kind of thing, considering her age and all ya know.”  

Right about then the daughter came out of Kmart with the two boys following her. She seemed to be in a rush for some reason. She said, “C’mon Mom, let’s go to the car”, and started walking that way over toward the Kmart garage.  

“Hold on, here Ashley, I want to talk to you,” Betty said, but the daughter kept on walking. Big Chad and me, we’re still sitting on the sidewalk with our bags, watching and listening to the family dialogue play out. Then all of a sudden, two men in plainclothes come running out of the Kmart store in pursuit of the daughter who was starting to run away, but they grabbed her, and she starts yelling and crying while they spun her around and started emptying her pockets of earrings, lipstick, makeup, etc.  

Betty is hollering, “Ashley, what did you do, what did you do?”, while the daughter finally relaxes and is just standing there in handcuffs with her head down saying nothing.  

Betty says, “Damn it, girl you don’t have to steal, why didn’t you ask me, I could have bought this for you. Here, guys, let me just go in and pay for this stuff and we’ll be on our way.”  

“No, not so fast ma’am, that won’t be happening”, one of the guys said, “Kmart takes crime seriously, and we take all shoplifters downtown to be booked, we don’t put up with stealing here at Kmart.”  

I looked over at Big Chad. We were both thinking the same thing This ride was over.  We didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Betty. It didn’t matter anyway. She was crying, shaking her head and begging the plainclothes security guys to let her daughter go, but it wasn’t going to work. She had her hands full, and we were the last thing she needed to deal with. We both stood up, hung our bags on our shoulders, and headed for the highway.  

I hope she got things worked out with her daughter Ashley and Kmart. I hope she got her car fixed and got her things and went back to Georgia and setup her little hair salon she talked about. I hope nobody tried to open her car door at a stoplight anytime soon.  

“What do you think of that, Big Chad?” I asked as we started walking across the parking lot and headed for the main road to start the process all over again of getting a ride.  

“Well,” he said, “I find it kinda ironic that the bitch could be so full of hate and threaten to kill anybody who she caught stealing from her and then look what happens. Her own flesh and blood ain’t no better than the people she talks about hatin’ so much.” 

“Yeah, what a bummer though,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was 1:40PM and we were hoofing it again, turning and thumbing vehicles which were coming up the ramp and getting on the main road. Big Chad got out the tennis balls and started juggling. We just kept on walking and thumbing and hoping somebody would stop.  

Chapter Five: The Funeral

We waited about 20 minutes and watched hundreds of cars go by, some ignoring us, some laughing at us, and some giving us the Florida single finger salute. Right at 2:00PM this big shiny black Buick went by and then pulled over to the side and waited for us as we ran up to the passenger’s door. The driver was alone, and motioning at us to come on, get in. Big Chad opened the door, and this time pulled the seat forward for me to get in the back.  

I put my bag on the seat, and he gave me his bag and I put it beside me in the back seat as well. Then Big Chad climbed in closed the door and the guy started driving off. He was dressed in a black three-piece suit and tie, and I thought ‘What is this another preacher ride?’  

“Where you guys going?” he asked.  

“Fort Myers,” answered Big Chad. We always tried to engage the drivers or passengers in conversation to learn what we could about them or let them talk about whatever they wanted to. We were interested in the human nature aspect of hitchhiking, learning about people, who they were, where they were going, their jobs, anything they felt comfortable talking about with 2 total strangers that they would never see again. We also would ask hitchhiking questions to see how they felt about picking us up, and what would help us get quicker rides in the future.  

“What made you stop to give us a ride?” asked Big Chad.  

The man looked over and said, “I’d never seen a juggling hitchhike before. I’m only going to the other side of St. Petersburg, it’s only about 10 miles and won’t help you much, but it’s at least on the way and you guys looked like you were really hot and really determined to get somewhere. I stopped because I wanted to help you. See, I am on the way to the funeral of my best friend in the world, a co-worker of mine we worked commercial construction together for 8 years. He was a really good person, he always believed in helping people and if he hadn’t helped me, I wouldn’t have had a job for the last 8 years, I guess. He was 57 years old, dropped dead on the job site a couple of days ago from a massive heart attack. You just never know when your time’s up. He always said that. He also said that while you’re living a person ought to take the time to do good deeds for others if they could. He practiced what he preached, cause he was good to me and did a lot of good things for a lot of other people that knew him. I owe it to old Jack and his family to go pay my respects, and I want to try to carry his good deed philosophy forward. That’s what I was thinking about when I saw you guys hitchhiking, about Jack and how he would have said, “We ought to stop and give them guys a ride.” So that’s what I did. Jack used to say it made him feel good to help somebody in need, even if it was in a small way. I’m coming up on my exit here, where do you want me to let you guys out?”  

“Just go ahead and let us out at the light and we’ll cross over and hit the on ramp on the other side,” said Big Chad.  

“Good luck to you.” the man said. We said thanks and shook his hand. 2:10PM and still in St. Petersburg.  

“What about that dude?” I asked Big Chad to see what his take was on this guy that had just given us the shortest ride so far.  

“I think he was a sincere guy, he just wanted to help us a little bit, like his old friend helped him. It’s almost like he was doing it in memory of Jack, that is giving us a ride.”  he said.  

“Yeah, seemed like a nice guy to me too.” I said.  

Chapter Six:  The Electricians

The on ramp was a long one, and we would walk a little, stop for a while and beg for rides, then walk some more. About 2:35PM this car stopped, looked like a Plymouth Roadrunner muscle car, couple of long hairs inside. We both piled in the back seat with our bags, and they took off peeling rubber on the way. One of them said, “You guys don’t have any reefer you can sell us do you, or share with us?”  

“No, but we were fixin’ to ask you the same thing,” I said with a laugh. “You never know when the cops are going to stop and check you out when you’re standing on the side of the road, so we’re too paranoid to carry any on us.”  

“Well, that makes sense. I wish I did have some though, and if I did we would be hittin’ it right now, wouldn’t we, Joe?” he said and playfully aiming a fake punch at the driver, who dodged expertly out of range.  

“We’re on our way to a jobsite, we’re both electricians and got to go finish wiring up a new house and just looking for a little something to take the edge off this afternoon.” said Joe as he was weaving his way in and out of the St. Pete traffic. “You all goin’ to Tampa?”  

“No, we’re going to Ft. Myers, I’ve got some relatives down there we’re just going to drop in for a visit,” I said. 

“Well, I’ve been there a time or two. I kinda hate that fuckin’ place, just the asshole of the world as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Well, we gotta get of here at this next exit and go to the job site, you all take care.”  

“Yep, we really appreciate the ride,” said Big Chad.  

I didn’t bother to tell Joe that my cousin’s father was President of the Ft. Myers Chamber of Commerce and I would be sure to pass on his evaluation of the place to him. We crawled out of the back seat of the Roadrunner, tossed our bags over to the side, and started surveying the best possible place to take ourselves to get in a position to get another ride as soon as possible. We were getting really hot and tired, and it was getting  more difficult to keep moving and looking lively like we wanted to.    

“Later, dudes,” we said, and the longhairs took off in a cloud, throwing rocks and gravel all over the place as they spun out onto highway.  

“Pissed, I guess because we didn’t have any reefer,” I said as I was fanning the dust away from my face and Big Chad was knocking the gravel off our bags.  

“Probably,” said Big Chad. “They think they’re the fuckin’ Dukes of Hazzard that’s for sure, don’t they.”  

Checking my watch, it was 3:05PM. We were getting rides but not getting any mileage out of them. I was starting to get worried we wouldn’t make it before dark especially if we didn’t start getting longer rides. We were still in the business district part of St. Pete which was not good for hitchhikers. We walked over to a gas station and almost drank the water cooler dry. Man, that was some good cold water. We must have looked a little rough because the guys who worked there kept giving us the evil eye, like we shouldn’t be drinking their water without buying gas or something. I looked around and bought some “nabs” and a grape drink so they might lighten up on us a bit. We hurried it up a little so we could get out of there and back out on the road and into that miserable heat.  We shared the crackers and grape drink on the way back to the ramp to the interstate.  

After 55 minutes of waiting, this guy pulled over and offered us a ride. Looked like he was just getting off work and heading home, businessman type with dress shirt and tie.  

“Hey, jump in boys, I’ll take you over to the toll bridge, I’m not going over it but at least I can get you to it. You guys look so hot and tired, I just felt sorry for you out there in all that heat. Maybe this air conditioning will give you a little break,” he said as he cranked the fans up on high to blow as much cool air on us that he could. Man, that felt good, too.  We were only in the car for about 10 minutes, but we absorbed all the cool air we possibly could, knowing it was only temporary.  

“Well, here you are,” he said, “The bridge is right over there, you sure don’t want to walk over that thing cause it gets really steep in the middle and it’s a long one, too. I guess that’s why they call it the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, it goes over part of the Gulf of Mexico there where the ships come thru to Tampa Bay. Hopefully you can get somebody to pick you up and at least get you over the bridge, good luck!”  

He let us out about a half mile this side of the bridge, but we could see what he was talking about. That bridge rose up out of the water a long way there in the middle of the shipping channel. We had terrible thoughts of having to walk it, and if we did have to, we would never make it to Ft. Myers by sundown.  

Chapter Seven:  Good Humor

By this time, we are almost delirious from the heat. The traffic was getting heavier I guess from people rushing to get home, go to early dinner, whatever. But these short rides made us think we might have to consider asking the drivers how far they were going, and either taking the ride or turning it down. But that made us look and sound like assholes if we turned down even one ride that was trying to help us. What a situation we were in here. Checking the watch, 4:30PM. We were walking toward the bridge when we heard music coming from somewhere like a damn merry-go-round playing and bells ringing and everything. I thought I was hallucinating when I turned around and a friggin’ ice cream truck was pulling over to the side right where we were now standing. We hadn’t even had our thumbs in the breeze, and the ice cream truck pulled over anyway.  

“Now this is just fuckin’ great, isn’t it?” said Big Chad. Looked like 2 hippies riding hanging out the open doors of the van, and some old bald-headed dude driving the ice cream truck. One of the hippies jumped out and walked toward us.  

“Hey, we don’t need no ice cream.” yelled Big Chad at the dude, “Thanks anyway.”  

“No, man” he said, “We’re not trying to sell you any ice cream, we’re offering you a ride over the toll bridge.”  

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” said Big Chad, “I thought you just wanted to sell us some ice cream, which would really be good if we could spare the money, but we can’t”.  

“So, what.” said the old man. “What do ya want, I’ll buy it for you. Take your pick, you guys gotta be burnin’ up out there.”  

“Ok man, that’s great. Really nice of you.” said Big Chad. “You got any of them orange sherbert pushups with the stick in the bottom? One of them would really be good right about now.”  

“Yeah, I got that,” the old man said. “What about you?” he asked as he looked over at me, while diggin’ in the freezer. 

“Fudgesicle,” I said, my mouth already anticipating that cold icy chocolate treat. He pulled out our requests and handed them over to us.  

“Enjoy!” he said, and sat back down in the driver’s seat and took off.  

When we were younger, maybe about ten or eleven years old, Big Chad and I used to  walk or ride our bikes about two and a half miles to the Stubenville, Ky. grocery and  feed store where we could open up a big chest freezer full of ice cream bars of all kinds,  give them our 10 cents, pick one out and sit on the front porch of the store in the shade,  slowly enjoying every last melting bite and trying to cool off in the stifling Kentucky  summer heat before jumping back on our bikes, or taking off walking back toward home.  That heat was nothing, by the way, compared to the heat here in Florida, traveling on this huge hot concrete and steel bridge. I think that made this ice cream worth so much more, but due to the kindness of the ice cream man, our cost was nothing. That made it better too.  

The toll bridge was about 6 miles long over the water. They had the doors open on both sides of the ice cream truck to let whatever air was available blow thru. We sat in the floor and ate our ice cream with the 2 hippies that looked like Cheech and Chong in the movie “Nice Dreams” hanging out the doors. I swear, the only thing missing was the weed and smoke rolling out of the ice cream truck, and of course half-naked chicks. I figured at least one of these hippie dudes had some stash on him, and they had already been partaking before they stopped to give us a ride. They seemed really mellowed out for some reason. Maybe it was all that ice cream, who knows? Anyway, we said nothing because we didn’t want to offend the old man who gave us the ice cream bars. Pretty sure he didn’t smoke. Didn’t look or seem like the type at all. Reminded me more of a Sunday School teacher at church I once knew. But that was in another life.  

The sun was delivering a glancing blow to the surface of that vast expanse of water, water everywhere, wow, it was all we could see for miles as we crossed over into the Tampa Bay area. The shimmering light effects were really beautiful, with all the boats out in the bay going in every direction. Everybody moving. Going somewhere, nowhere, or anywhere. Business and pleasure mixed together on the water, but for sure they were involved in one or the other or both. Instead of being in one of those huge $100,000 yachts, here we were sitting on our asses in the floor of an ice cream truck eatin’ ice cream going over a bridge. I wondered if their ice cream in those yachts tasted as good as this. I doubt it. After we cleared the toll gates, the old man pulled over to the side and let us out.  

“Hope you enjoyed that ice cream boys,” he said with a smile. “Be careful on the rest of  your trip.”  

“We will, and thanks again,” we said. The hippies flashed us a peace sign, while we made joint toking motions with our thumb and forefinger held up to our mouths. They both laughed and gave us the “thumbs up” sign as they slowly pulled back out on the road, heading for the “Somewhere Subdivision” where little kids would come running out of expensive houses over beautifully manicured lawns to go get ice cream from the Good Humor man while the circus sounds blared out of the speakers mounted on top of the van.  Kinda sounds like how an ice cream commercial should look, don’t it.  

It was 5:00PM now. We both made a notation in the little yellow notepad. Big Chad wrote, “Big Chad is getting worn out.” I wrote, “So is the Gypsy Cowboy. Ugh, it is HOT.” I drew a little picture of the sun beating down and the face of a guy frowning with sweat running off his forehead and down his face. Now it was getting to be crunch time. If we didn’t get a really good ride now we weren’t going to make it to Ft. Myers. We would be doomed to spending the night out in the open and sleeping in a ditch somewhere along the road. I was not looking forward to that. We refused to talk about where we were going to put down for the night in case we couldn’t get that ride. We just didn’t want to admit that it was a real possibility. It took all we had in us to keep walking, looking lively and smiling, turning to face the oncoming traffic with our thumbs out and heads held high, but we did it and the ride we needed most passed us by and then pulled over to the side and waited for us to run up to the pickup truck…  

To be continued….