Hitching with Truckers

I find that most who make their living inside cramped cabins riding in straight lines begin to wax poetic as they describe home. Home for Tommy, a self-described half-Navajo ex-hippie, was a shack in the country he shared with his son and a half-wild dog, his closest neighbor two miles away.

He's always trying to get me to come over, explained Tommy. But I got 10 acres and I mostly keep to myself.

He gave the distinct impression his interest in companionship with his neighbor ended at the occasional hog roast.

Government once told Tommy and his friends to go and kill Vietnamese. Now it tells him maximum trailer weight and engine braking policy. The "hell no" philosophy of his youth seems to extend to his appropriation of a rural turf.

So he burns swine instead of flags, keeps junker cars on his front lawn and lets weeds lacking psychotropic qualities flourish.

My bus to Chicago stopped at a truck stop in Indiana on the way home. I saw a truck cab with a dreamcatcher hung over the mirror, just like Tommy's. I looked around but couldn't find the driver. I waited by the truck until my bus re-boarded.