(old, from 2019) First hitchhiking experience!
“Hey sorry but are you headed east?”
“East? No I’m not.”
“Hey are you guys going towards the east side of LA?”
“Oh we just got here. Are about to check in”
I’ve been cost cutting and on this Thanksgiving weekend, after flying in to LAX from SFO and enduring poor internet service when trying to figure out which transportation options would get me home to Arcadia for cheap, I decided to try hitchhiking. On the third ask, I scored a goal. He sounded like a honest, nice guy who was so in tune with his empathetic and social senses that after not being able to come up with an excuse of why I couldn’t come along, decided it’d be too awkward to continue the hesitation for any longer with no valid excuse, so he began mentioning reasons why it might be inconvenient to go with him.
“Umm I parked at a parking spot away from the airport and you’d have to find the shuttle stop with me and ride the shuttle to that parking lot.”
“Ok, that’s alright with me.”
So the adventure began.
In our search for the shuttle stop, he quickly collected his street senses and threw me a few questions to gauge whether I’m an innocuous being with a sane mind. I responded that I was going home to visit the family for Thanksgiving. That I just flew in from San Francisco. That I work as a software engineer. Most notably, he wrapped a request to see my Instagram profile in a question that was crafted to sound like it came out of generic curiosity of my life. After that initial bit, we warmed up to each other quickly and he remarked with a smile that us trying to find the shuttle stop was like an Amazing Race mission.
He was at the airport because his one of his grandparents had just passed away and he flew to Minneapolis for a day to attend the funeral. I felt sorry for his loss and began to talk more about my family. I told him about how I grew up in a town full of peacocks and how my dad is rigidly patriotic about the US. Through our conversation, he eventually revealed that he’s the lead singer for a small country band, had a few small records deals in the past, and is now touring small venues quite often. Two weeks ago, he just had a few shows in Texas, his hometown.
We got to the parking lot and with all the shock my mind had already taken from this choice of hitchhiking, I was numb when I saw that his ride was a big, shiny, very new racing yellow RAM 1500 pickup truck with black racing stripes across the top. It was awesome. I hopped in, he turnt his country music station on which happened to be playing Christmas music to his dismay, he handed me his phone to navigate, and we were on the way to the Hollywood Highland train stop where he’d drop me off.
“I don’t like playing in packed venues anymore. I had friends who were at the Harvest music festival shooting.”
“Oh wow, yea that must change things for you. That’s rough. Do you like LA more than Texas?”
“Hell no. LA has been good to me, but I want more space. I want to move to Nashville and buy some land and have a few horses.”
At some point during our conversation, I asked if I could hear one of his songs, and he humbly obliged. I also realized I still didn’t know his name yet. To respect his privacy, I won’t reveal his name or his band’s name. But his song was great. Their sound is a country rock sound with powerful vocals by the man who was sitting to my left. I really liked it. He then asked me to play a few songs I like. I showed him “Everything” by City of the Sun which I described as a sonic representation of an intense sunrise. In the middle of the song, he turned to me, smiled slightly, and said — wow, you know what, this sounds like a sonic representation of an intense sunrise. Then I showed him “Desert Woman” by ZHU, which he really enjoyed, so much so that he wanted to play it twice. He noted that he liked how dark it was and how it had a lot of minor chords. Towards the end of the trip, he gave me some directions on where to walk since he’d drop me off at a convenient spot in front of a hotel close to the station, and told me never to hitchhike again since it’s dangerous. I didn’t say OK because this experience was such a good one; I was more convinced hitchhiking is a fine thing to do. I felt really appreciative of his kindness and happy that I got to know an interesting person like him. He gave me a tap card for the train that he didn’t need and a bottle of water. I thanked him again and walked onto the streets, wondering what had just happened.
Also published on my substack.
