VIGNETTE NO. III
Where are those kids going?
Oakland, California
The year is 1943. I am sixteen. My friend of the time was Harold Bohanon and we were eleventh grade students at Fremont High School. Harold’s parent’s were separated with his father living in Reno. So it was that Harold and I decide to hitch-hike to Reno over Easter vacation. We made all the arrangements necessary to our departure like getting someone to carry my paper route, counting up our money, preparing letters of consent from our parents just in case we needed them and packing a small case with a change of clothing. We took the bus to Richmond and stuck out our thumbs. It was Saturday, April 24, 1943 and day one of our ten day vacation..
World War II was raging and gas rationing had taken its toll. Traffic was very light, but at the same time, those who were traveling had a reason to be doing so and most were on a business journey or a trip of necessity. We had not given this fact any thought at all, but when after only two rides, one to Sacramento and the other to Reno on the first day of our travel we were astounded. Our second astonishment came when we were told that Harold’s dad, a traveling salesman, was out of town and would not be back for a week. What now?
We checked into the YMCA, got something to eat and pondered our situation. In one day we had reached Reno. Should we go home, or take in the sights of the “Biggest Little City in America” or perhaps go on to Salt Lake City? Well, Reno, at that time being a town of prostitutes and gambling held nothing for us and going home was certainly not an option, so on Easter morning, April 25, 1943 and day two we set off for Salt Lake City.
The guy who picked us up was an employee of some branch of the U.S. communications systems and had the job of checking out telecommunications repeating stations from Reno to Salt Lake City. That meant on a recurring basis he would drive a few miles off of Highway 40 to a high peak where a line-of-sight transmission tower was located and there do whatever it was that he did which usually took only a few minutes. At the end of our 2nd day we were in Salt Lake City where our ride bought us dinner and a motel room. Life was sure getting easy!!
The next morning, Monday, April 26, our third day since leaving home, we spent touring Salt Lake City and visiting the Mormon Chapel which amazed us with its acoustics. It was, or is, truly unbelievable until you witness it yourself. In the early afternoon we mailed a post card home telling of our decision to go on to Denver. After all, we had a total of ten days vacation, had only used two in getting to Salt Lake City and had seven days left. Not only that, we had only spent a couple dollars.
We were outside Salt Lake City on the side of Highway 40 when the cruiser pulled up and a uniformed policeman got out and asked who we were, where we were from and where were we going? At first, we were scared when the patrolman told us we matched the description of two runaways from the State Penitentiary for Boys. But, it was the note we had wisely gotten from our mothers that saved our day. The officer left and we again stuck out our thumbs.
This time, and again to our good fortune, a traveling salesman on his way to Denver picked us up and drove straight through, arriving early in the wee hours of April 27, our 4th day. Once again, we paid for nothing, ate well and were booked into the Denver YMCA. Over breakfast we talked about what to do next. It seemed impossible that we could be in Denver and sent another post card home to that effect. Now what? We certainly cannot go any farther East and going back the same way we had come didn’t seem right, so after studying our maps we concluded we’d return by going South from Denver to New Mexico and then take Route 66 back to California.
So, we worked our way out of Denver getting short rides and by the end of the 4th day, April 27th, we had only made it to Pueblo, Colorado.. We were finding that our luck of Route E40 had not carried over to Route S87 and our time of standing at the side of the road became longer and longer. For one thing, earlier we had been traveling on an East-West highway on which there was little local traffic. Now, we were on a North-South highway with light local traffic. As a result, it was taking more time between rides and the rides were short.
On this day, Wednesday, April 28th, and the 5th day of our vacation we only made it to Trinidad, Colorado, a distance of about 170 miles. There we got a hotel room and shared the bed. The following day a ride dropped us off at a dirt road intersection in the high desert of Southern Colorado. The sun was scorching hot and we had no water. We could hear a car coming for miles before it ever came into view so we made it a practice of crawling into the culvert until the car was near and then scramble to the roadway waving arms and jumping up and down. Sometimes the antics worked, but mostly, not.
Later, after our return and upon telling our story to a teacher we learned that hiding in the storm culvert was a very risky thing to do on two accounts. One, that’s a cool spot also enjoyed by rattlesnakes and late Spring thundershowers in the high desert produce torrents of water rushing down and through those culverts. But, childhood recklessness worked again. We were lucky.
In the afternoon of our 5th day, our ride turned off Route W66 leaving us by an old shack of a store in the middle of nowhere. Ah, we thought, water! We entered the store and asked the man who was older and more weathered than the shack if we could get some water. We listened in disbelief as the aged, gruff, dirty and ill kept old man explained that there was no water except that water that he hauled in and it was ten cents a cup. Well, by now our money was running real low and ten cents a cup, and a small cup at that, was a lot to pay. Nonetheless, we each drank a couple of cups and without any words returned to the highway and the blazing sun. After a short wait a ride took us into the little town of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Our money was now almost gone and while we had money for food we could not afford a bed for the night and decided we’d try something different. We located the Police Station in Las Vegas, New Mexico and approached the officer with our request, “Can we sleep in the jail?” We felt save in our request since our ID had passed the test in Utah and we did have some money, so we weren’t vagrants. Our request was met with a denial because the jail had just that day been painted and it was still wet. However, the officer after hearing our tale of hitch-hiking and our need to get home by Monday and today being Friday and our shortage of money, offered to plead our case to the manager of the hotel. He did and we stayed the night without charge. We were quickly learning the art of coning.
By the afternoon of our 6th day, Thursday, April 29, we had made it to Santa Fe, New Mexico and had come to the stark realization that we were nearly out of money. We needed to do something, something desperate! We decided on telegraphing my mother for sixteen dollars. Why sixteen dollars? Well, we had four days to go and at $4.00 a day we should make it. Our surprise came when we went to the Telegraph Office on the city square and were told that we could not send a collect telegram asking for money. We would have to pay for our telegram! We counted out the amount needed which left us with a few coins. The telegram was sent and we went back to the city square to wait for the response. Our request for money was not an assured thing, in fact, it was very questionable. We’d wait for an hour, then check. Then a half hour, then another half hour and as the time clicked by and the closing hour came closer our anxiety increased. It not only increased from not knowing if the money was coming, but for the reason of where we were.
The city square had a seat-high stucco wall around it and inside the wall was a grassy area on which a number of men clad in Mexican clothing lay with sombreros on their chests. Others sat on the wall and to us it seemed that all of them were plotting something that involved us. We moved and their eyes followed. We went to the telegraph office only to be told we couldn’t wait there. We had sent the telegram to my mother’s place of work and were now beginning to think that may have been a mistake. We waited, then checked, then waited, moved, moved again, waited some more until finally, the clerk opened the door and waved a piece of paper in the air. We ran for the office. Twenty dollars had arrived!! We headed for the outskirts of Santa Fe and away from those
