Zivo

The first years of the forties saw a decline in the need of the impoverished to travel seeking employment: travel was left to those seeking adventure. The legacy left over for our young people by those travelers during the depression was one of high adventure. Trucking was taking hold in the transportation industry. Rail travel (freight hopping) was declining, giving way to an active thumb and willing truckers. The hobo jungles were no longer tolerated, other means of survival evolved, the Salvation Army and the Travelers Aid Society welcomed travelers in need. Young adventurers coming home related tales of the immense expanse and beauty of our country. Tales of gaining employment in the wheat fields of the Midwest, to Georgia and Florida following the harvests, as seaman or stokers on freighters on the great lakes, the terror of rough seas, tales of still nights and inspiring heavens, to full moons engulfing half the horizon; All these tales held us with mouths agape, and fueled in us a need to depart. Pete and I were the recipients of those tales which finally sent us on a three thousand mile adventure. My story starts in early 1940. I and Pete were playing hooky we went to a burlesque on forty second street in New York City, after the show we decided to take the ferry to New Jersey. Ten cents was the fare, it took all the money we had. That was the start of our adventure. Leaving the ferry it was easy to put out our thumbs and take off. Our first lift took us to Camden New Jersey. We found work at a bowling alley that first evening, earned two dollars twenty five cents apiece. A meal of cheese and crackers with a coke left us with eighty cents, a fortune. Picked up by the police in Philly, released, found work in a chicken factory in Delaware, jailed in Carolina, cloudburst in Savannah, disappoint-ment in Florida, no work. Long road back, Salvation Army staves off starvation, panicked by a chain gang. Bed bug and roach infested Salvation Army in Petersburg Virginia, to a spick and span Sally in Washington D.C. Employment in a restaurant on Columbia Avenue. Promotion there from dishwashers to countermen, back to dishwashers again. Missing person's catches up with us, into a house of detention (Jail). Then home. All the people we met enriched us. A character, Andy, in the town of Delton Delaware, introduces us to gin, and his common law wife entices Pete. Harry and Cy two locals challenge the city boys. Sitting in a car on a railroad crossing a train coming in our direction, unnerves all as the car stalls. Truckers run a full spectrum of personalities. A dilapidated plantation is protected by a shotgun wielding black woman. Racism in the detention center brings back memories of a tyrannical father. The experience and contact with these people left both of us with a new perspective on life. Tears, fears, and paranoia dominated at times. Then at other times a small bowl of oatmeal or a cleansing rain fall made us alive again. A mundane life style is set aside as all our senses became acute. The beauty of it all, that grand feeling of being alive ruled.