Peaks and Peek Skills - I

The August, 2009, trip from North Carolina to New York was like a pilgrimage.  My last trip up those roads was in 1980 when I was 21 years old.

In 1980, I'd made the trip at Christmastime.  I was going to Connecticut from North Carolina by way of New York.  In New York I was stopping to see Luke; he was at his parent's home on Christmas relocation from his in-residence Way Corps training. In Connecticut I was picking up my guitar that I had left with my Word Over the World (WOW) Ambassador family. My other stuff had previously been shipped to North Carolina.  Either I didn't want my guitar shipped or my WOW family had overlooked shipping it; I don't recall.

I was grateful they had shipped anything; I had AWOLED on them, broken my commitment, left them high and dry.  What a sorry excuse I was for Way Corps, for the "It is Written" standard.

God how I wish I could recall more details about that 1980 fall day when I AWOLed from the WOW field in Connecticut.  I recall it was light out, late afternoon. It was October; the fire maples were aglow with autumn richness.

I recall I had to get away, from what I am not sure; I felt a desperation, a panic. And I had to catch a ride before anyone that knew me saw me. Not many folks in Torrington knew me. But it was a small city; what if one of the believers saw me?  I didn't take my backpack.  If anyone I knew saw me thumbing with a backpack, they'd know I was going on a long haul. I didn't want anyone to know; I wanted to just disappear. I had to get a ride quickly.

This past year, in 2009, my 18-year old son pulled that backpack out of storage.  It still had the 1980 bus station shipping label on it from Torrington, Connecticut, to Hickory, North Carolina.  My WOW family had shipped it to me after I had AWOLed.

I recall I got a ride with a trucker; I think it was a long ride.  It's difficult to recall specifics of my various hitchhiking trips.

A couple years ago, in 2007, I tallied my hitchhiking miles between the years of 1976 and 1983. They totaled at least 5000 miles as the crow flies. On most of those trips I had a hitching partner, but not the 1980 AWOL trip from Connecticut to North Carolina;  I'd gone solo.

Now in 2009 I was driving north again, not in a 1970-something car but in a 1999 Ford Explorer.  I wasn't going to pick up a guitar from Reverend Steve's home in Connecticut or to see Luke at his parents home in New York.  On this 2009 trip, I was going to New Paltz and Woodstock and Bethel, New York.  I was going to peek a bit more into myself, into my past.  I was going to connect with others who share a similar passion of re-discovery; others who think outside the confines of my once held fundamentalist mindset.

Yes, this trip felt very much like a pilgrimage, back in time.