"Thumb!"

I used to hitchhike a lot.  From the time I was fifteen 'til I turned twenty-one, I figure I covered over 3,000 miles.  Day trips from my parent's house in Andover to Salisbury Beach in Summer; Adventures with one of my all-time favorite girlfriends, Robyn Parker, or just home because I was too cheap to spring for a cab after a night out.  When I was nineteen, I hitchhiked to Florida from Massachusetts with $20 in my pocket.  I usually had access to a car after I turned 16, but if I didn't, I'd thumb.  The first time I ever hitchhiked was when I was nine years old.

Now, I know lots of people talk shit about how young they were the first time they got laid, "I fucked my babysitter when I was six then sent her out to get me pizza and a juice box." or when they joined fucking Mensa or when they robbed their first liquor store.  Memory is a funny thing and remembering precisely when shit happened, especially from childhood, is not an exact science.  But here's the thing:  My family moved from Somerset to Andover when I was nine. And this shit went down in Somerset.  Case closed.

My oldest brother, Steven, of whom there are many tales to tell, was seven years older than me so he would have been fifteen at the time.  My other brother, Joe, was thirteen.  It was Summertime and the two of them wanted to go fishing at Lewin's Brook, though no one called it that.  People called it Swan Finishing, after the name of the business located in the old mill next to the brook.  It was just upstream from the Swansea Dam which was home to a popular swimming hole in which I had nearly drowned (my brothers, again) a couple years prior.  Anyway, my mom was taking Steve and Joe to Swan Finishing to go fishing. I was bored and always wanted to do stuff with my brothers so Mom told them they had to let me tag along.  They protested.  I pleaded.  They insisted (correctly) that I would quickly lose interest and want to go home, ruining their day by having to listen to me complain for the duration.  There were no cellphones in those days so changing plans was not always easy.  I promised (incorrectly) that I would not lose interest and I meant it.  (As would often be the case for years to follow, my sincerity at the moment of making a commitment had little bearing on future results.).  That day, I got my way, so my brothers ( :[  ) and I (:-) ) piled into the car and my mom drove us to Swan Finishing.  

When we arrived, I was very excited.  I don't know about you, but for me as a kid, playing in and around water rushing over rocks was a blast.  And I was hanging out with my big brothers and we were going to catch a bunch of fish!  

I'm not sure how much time had passed since my mom dropped us off or how long it was going to be until she came for us but I'm pretty sure I lost interest within that first hour.  Steve and Joe were having a blast (they had pretty much ignored me the entire time) and were not interested in hearing me whine/complain or interacting with me at all, for that matter.  With lower-lip pooched out and pretty close to tears, I let out a pitiful, "I wanna go home."

Nothing.  The two of them were fishing and talking and laughing.  I was a ghost.

"I wanna go hoooooooome!"

Crickets.

"I  WANT TO GO HOME!" I wailed.

"Thumb!"

I'm not sure which one of the geniuses said it, but the smart money is on Steve.

Thumb.  Ridiculous.  Aside from the fact that everything I knew about hitchhiking I learned from cartoons, it was hella-far.  I'd been walking to and from school since second grade, but that was less than a mile each way.  I didn't know how many miles home it was from Swan Finishing, but I knew it was WAY farther than from Chace Street School, which we had driven passed on the way.

"I will!"  I threatened.

"OK," they responded, half listening.

Could I?  Would they really let me?  The impossible seemed possible all of a sudden, albeit unlikely. I remember the thought of hitchhiking gradually moving from the part of my brain reserved for notions like:  If I concentrate hard enough, I can levitate to the part of my brain where ideas like: I bet I can eat an entire apple, core and all, in three bites reside.

"I'm serious, you guys!"

"Bye!"

I started to walk away.

"I'm leaving, now!"

Nothing.  They had been acting like I left since we first arrived.  I'll show them.  And so I walked to the road and began my journey home.

I wasn't really planning on hitchhiking; again, I wasn't sure exactly how.  My plan was just to walk.  I had walked with my brothers to the penny-candy store on County Street many times, but I knew it was farther than that.  A lot farther. Once, when our dog, Diamond,  had run away I walked to the A&W where she used to bum fries off people eating in their cars (Me and my dad once saw her in action, with her front paws up against the side of a car and the driver feeding her.  It was her hustle.  I still think of her whenever someone hits me up for change at 7-11.).  I'd walked lots of places by myself, but this was by far the longest distance attempted, to date, and I had underestimated just how far it was.  I was already feeling worn out and my school was still a long way off.  So, I kept walking and stuck out my thumb.

Cartoons are not a reliable source of information.  Of course I knew this.  I wasn't going to stand by the side of the road, wearing a gigantic prosthetic thumb while holding a sign that read, "257 Connecticut Ave or bust!"  I had a vague notion that you could continue walking while hitchhiking, but I didn't know you were supposed to walk backwards-  Whaaaaaaaat?

I'm pretty sure I was still on Stevens Rd (nothing to do with my brother, Steven), walking forward with my arm extended and my thumb pointing behind me, when a teenaged hippie chic yelled at me from a second story window, "Stupid kid!  You don't even know how to thumb!"  She offered no instruction beyond that and I could feel the color rush into my cheeks.  Being embarrassed is a million times worse in front of a girl!  Now I felt foolish as well as tired.  And a little anxious.  I'm doing it wrong; that's why no one has stopped!  I walked awhile without thumbing.  Eventually, fatigue trumped embarrassment and, again, I stuck out my thumb.  I noticed that if I walked backwards, my thumb was pointing in the direction I wanted to go.  Could this be right? I wondered.  How the hell am I supposed to know where I'm going?!  At first I kept looking over my shoulder but I soon found it surprisingly easy to stay on course by looking at the road behind (in front of) me.  This did feel right.  I was sure I had stumbled on the correct way to hitchhike.  I wished that girl in the upstairs window could see me now.  I remember thinking even though I was just a kid that she would like me and maybe even want to be my girlfriend.  I wanted to go back and stand on her lawn and sing to her as she smiled down on me from her window.  And so I sang as I hitchhiked: I've got a pair of brand new roller skates, you got a brand new key....

A man picked me up shortly after that and drove me most of the way home.  When I walked into my house, Estelle was surprised, to say the least.  "How did you get home?  Where are Steve and Joe?"

It told her the whole story including the part where it was their idea that I hitchhike home.  I thought I was gonna get it.  She was really mad.  Her lips were pursed so tightly, she looked like she'd just eaten ten lemons, but most of her anger was directed toward my brothers who had signed off (kinda) on this little adventure.  She hustled me into the car and we picked the two of them up.  They were not at all surprised.  They had been bluffing and assumed I would turn around and come back pretty quick.  By the time they realized this was not the case, their only logical course of action was to keep fishing until Mom came for them, which they knew wasn't going to be very long.  They were laughing when we got there.  They were not once they got in the car.  Dufuses.