The Caddie Yard

Why Stop?

2008-12-25T18:51:00.000-08:00

Thousands upon thousands of cars have seen this very picture: me sitting on my backpack or standing next to it on the side of the road. And yet only 125 of you stopped to pick me up and help me on my way. Why? Are you braver? Dumber? More generous? More open-minded? Less selfish? Lonely? Superstitious? In need of company and counseling? An optimist? Indebted to someone else who helped you? Have you hitchhiked before? Are you a traveler?

This site is dedicated to you... who, for whatever reason, picked up a hitchhiker (or simply helped, met or inspired one) and became part of Golf My Way Home. Below I will post your thoughts, comments, emails, essays, poems, pictures, jokes, etc along with a background story (in my words) describing the circumstances leading up to and/or following our "meeting." Thank you for making this experience so much richer and farther reaching than I ever could have imagined. - your new friend, John

Kris and Nicole - Prescott, AZ to the top of Mount Mingus

2008-11-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

I had reason to be discouraged after watching a thousand cars go by for a good part of two days in Wickenburg, AZ, but the magic began when John and his two beautiful children (Tessa, 2, and Scottie, 1) rescued me from the buzz cuts, brass belt buckles and ten gallon hats and drove me up into the counter culture country of the Arizona Mountains. It was here, in Prescott, that hang glider Kris and his beautiful wife Nicole picked me up on their way up to the launch site on top of Mingus Mountain.

I was going to camp up there with the hang gliding crew, but somewhere along the road that day, I lost my cellphone and decided it was best that I hitch down into civilization to try to get a new one (and call my mom so she wouldn't worry.) I caught a ride with Kathleen, the Jerome town librarian, and Klayton, an arctic researcher in the back of their pick up truck. The ride down Mingus Mountain through the red rocks and pine forests to Jerome out in the open air in the back of that pick-up was one of the most beautiful, peaceful and inspiring rides of the trip (see Hole #3 - "Member's Bounce"). And Jerome is one my favorite towns in the whole world: an old copper mining town built on the side of a mountain with narrow streets that zig-zag down through classic turn of the century square stone and brick buildings. These were the hotels, brothels, bars and jails at the heart of this boomtown and they've remained pretty much the same (if you substitute a boutique here for a brothel there) except now they're inhabited by a high energy mix of hippies, artists, bikers and tourists.

On the Sunday afternoon I arrived, Harleys lined the streets and impossibly huge dudes with anvils for arms played pool and pounded Budweisers in the bars along main street. Rock music pulsed out of the open doorways. I spent an hour or so poking around town and then hiked down the long curling road towards the valley. After the straightaway that runs along the ridge by the old high school where you can look back up and see the entirety of Jerome perched on the mountainside, the road narrows into a steep set of switchbacks. My pack was heavy and my feet were walking themselves downhill - sometimes its easier to keep walking than to stop -but I knew better. That sweet, sunny straightaway was the perfect place for a car to pull over and I cursed myself when I ended up further down in the tight shadowy curves where there was no place for a car to even think about stopping and where it was just flat out dangerous to even be walking.

I turned around and hiked back up, sweat pouring down my face and every uneven item in my pack tilting and digging into my shoulders and back. And when I reached the exact spot where I'd been thirty minutes earlier, I slumped down on the sidewalk and half-heartedly raised my "Sedona please" sign.

The very first car pulled over driven by a fellow named Rich Kegley who'd just finished playing drums in a bar on Main Street. He was on his way home to Sedona after the gig. When I told him about my journey and how I was planning to play the Sedona Golf Resort the next morning he said, "I live right down the road from the Golf Resort. You're welcome to stay at my house if you want to save a little money." So just when I thought I'd wasted thirty precious minutes of waning daylight and squandered two dozen potential rides - I ended up with the very best ride. All BECAUSE I'd spent the last half hour stumbling down that stupid hill and hiking back up. Makes you wonder...

Rich dropped me off at his home directly beneath the glowing red butte of Bell Rock in the Oak Creek neighborhood of Sedona. He introduced me to his lovable, slobbering chocolate lab, packed his car with a new drum set and drove off for another gig later that night. I walked into town under the soft desert stars to have dinner and drinks at a favorite local watering hole. I met a television news producer from Phoenix there who arranged for me to do an interview with their network affiliate in Flagstaff. And just when I thought the day couldn't get any better I logged onto my website before going to bed and found this email waiting for me:

This is to backup you checking your phone messages without your phone. WE have it and are holding it ransom for nothing! Just call and give us a hint where to reunite you and your blackbuddy. I will try to fly to Sedona in my hang glider tomorrow and land on the correct golf course on precisely the hole you are playing. The universe will conspire to make this happen.

- Kris and Nicole

That night Kris and Nicole had driven back to the very spot where they picked me up on the outskirts of Prescott and searched the ground in the glow of their headlights for my BlackBerry. Not only did they find it and contact me, but Kris flew it to me in his hang glider the next day. He landed within just a couple of miles of the Sedona Golf Resort where Nicole picked him up in the "chase vehicle" and together they drove over to meet me. It was Father's Day and we watched Tiger Woods battle through a knee injury and drain a dramatic fifteen footer on the seventy-second hole of the US Open to tie Rocco Mediate for the lead.

Everything about that moment stands out in my mind because not only did I feel that the Universe was conspiring to bless my trip, but the people in the Universe were proving that they were full of heart and soul and would do everything they could to be a part of this blessing. Who would have thought that two seemingly bonehead moves on my part: 1) leaving my phone in the dirt by the side of the road and 2) unnecessarily hiking halfway down and back up a mountain would lead to such an inspiring chain of events. That was when I became sure that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing and the remainder of the trip would be just as magical as that fourth day. I leave you with another email I received from Kris the night after the aerial delivery:

Great day on Earth! Once you've seen one golf course from 12, 000 ft. you've seen them all. An hour and forty-five minutes in the air, seventeen miles, landed way out in the rough. a five mile putt in the Millenium White Cloud (my rusty truck) and down the rabbit hole....par infinity.

-Kris and Nicole

Sonja Hughes - Columbus, WI to Hartford, WI

2008-09-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

Two of my first three rides were with women and when Jeanette King dropped me by the desolate, dusty roadside of Rte 60 in western Arizona her optimistic words rung tantalizingly in my ears, "There are tons of beautiful women in Volvos out there just waiting to pick you up."

It was six weeks and 2000 miles before another one did.

OK, not exactly. Lita Byersly gave me a ride from Mexican Hat, AZ to Moab, UT but she actually drove by me first in Kayenta, AZ on the Navajo Reservation and stopped only after I then passed her in the back of a speeding pick up truck through beautiful Monument Valley. I guess she couldn't bring herself to drive by me again especially after I'd smiled and waved to her as we barreled past with a Navajo grandmother at the wheel.

Still its not every day that I have a chance to lobby a woman twice and by the time I reached Columbus, WI I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that solo women weren't going to stop. I don't blame you ladies. I know many of you wanted to. I could tell by the countless sympathetic smiles, helpless shrugs, and whispered apologies.

I became so accustomed to women passing me by and the little split-second ritual waves and commiserations that when Sonja Hughes actually pulled over I didn't quite know how to react. When I jogged up to her car I think I said, "Can I help you?" But she didn't seem nearly as surprised by the whole thing as I was... partly because I was holding up a sign with her hometown written on it and partly because she'd already passed one hitcher that day without stopping and couldn't bring herself to pass another. Sonja's also a nurse who's accustomed to helping others and I was the lucky recipient of her compassionate discretion.

What began as a simple 35 mile ride in a straight line from Columbus to Hartford ended as a bad blonde joke..."How long does it take two blondes to drive 35 miles in a straight line?" Let me just put it this way...the "straight line" ended up looking more like an outline of the state of Texas or Florida (see below) and the "35 mins" became 2 hours.

In our defense it all started with a downed bridge - a result of the catastrophic flooding in the Midwest earlier this year. Having not been to Wisconsin before I now understand how crippling these floods can be. Its not just a matter of waiting for the water to recede and getting to work repairing the businesses, homes and roads. Before you can even get to work you've got to begin reassembling the jigsaw puzzle of broken bridges over the rivers and lakes that are so plentiful here the land seems more like an archipelago of islands than the heart of a continent.

In the end, with the help of the GPS on my BlackBerry, Sonja and I eventually made it to Hartford and she kindly invited me to join her for dinner that night at her parents' house. I'm hoping this is because she was as sad I was to part company after our goofy two hour adventure together, but I'm guessing it's because her dad wanted to meet, "that hitchhiker" she picked up on her way home from Madison.

The direct route between Columbus and Hartford

The "blonde" route

Gary Piercy - Gothenburg, NE to Council Bluffs, Iowa

2008-09-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

I've received several emails expressing feelings of gratitude for being a part of "Golf My Way Home" but none so eloquent as Gary Piercy's (pictured here with his kids Bella and Cooper.) Following the email is the story of where I was when Gary picked me up and the details of our ride together from my perspective.

"John-

I hope this finds you well, and the road has been kind. Life here is returning to normalcy, but I find you and your venturesome journey are never far from my thoughts. It's tough to study another credit memorandum when I keep wondering what cracked windshield you may be looking through or where the road is taking you today.

I was trying to explain our encounter to a co-worker of mine, and he tried to characterize it (somewhat dismissively) as some tired journey of self discovery. What he doesn't get and I was unable to articulate is that this trip is not for you, not even completely for your Dad. It is for people like me, who needed to put a face to what boundless joy for life looks like - what possibilities exist for all of us? what stories might we someday tell? how can this zeal manifest itself in mundane places like Nebraska? (owls in ancient trees, and fireflies dancing in the corn) But mostly, I believe your trip is for all those people that were so close to pulling over and giving you a lift, but just couldn't let themselves live a few moments outside of their comfort zone. What a great few moments they missed, something I hope they learn from your narration of the experience. The best thing about your journey and the hope that radiates from it is the fact that it likely will mean something different to everyone you meet along the way, and I feel blessed to have a part in it.

Well, I'd better get to bed. Tina (my wife) is giving me grief about going on and on about our encounter. But, I think she is smitten with your intrepid spirit as well, as a check of her internet history reveals she keeps clicking back on golfmywayhome.org, so keep the updates coming!

Peace!

GP

p.s. - Here's a pic of me and the kids, Bella and Cooper, so you can get a sense of what motivates ME every day"

Gary Piercy picked me up around noon on a Sunday in Gothenburg, Nebraska on his way to play Wild Horse Golf Club. I'd somehow miraculously made it from eastern Colorado to Gothenburg the previous evening for the sole purpose of playing Wild Horse thereby adding an extra dose of gritty spirit to the journey by exposing myself to unfriendly hitchhiking territory for the sake of good golf.

I stayed at the Super 8 motel out on Interstate 80 and after working on the website all morning began walking the three or four miles across town to the golf course. The skies were threatening rain and I'd had some serious problems getting rides from Nebraskans the previous afternoon so it probably would've been wiser to take a cab, but I hadn't "cheated" (cabbed it) the entire trip... besides I was curious to find out if the locals would override their anti-hitchhiking DNA and pick up a kid wearing a J Crew polo shirt and sky blue Ralph Lauren Bermuda shorts, carrying a golf bag on his shoulder and walking in the direction of the only golf club in town. I was what you'd call an "open book" and if you'd made me bet, I would've guessed I'd have gotten a ride in five minutes/ten cars tops.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I walked about halfway to the course as the skies roiled and rumbled overhead and car after car drove past - the drivers giving me the usual array of facial expressions and gesticulations: sympathetic shrugs, bemused smiles, mistrusting glares, curious stares and, my personal favorite: avoidance of eye contact altogether. Regardless, the result was the same: "Fughedaboudit!"

Finally when I got to the outskirts of town and felt like I should be nearing the course, I came across a guy washing his truck in his driveway. I asked him how much further it was to Wild Horse.

"Oh a good two miles or so." he said.

Then I asked him if he thought it was going to rain and what the odds were that a local might actually pull over and give me a lift. He answered, "Not very likely" to both. Out of guilt or karmic obligation or just plain goodwill he offered to drive me the rest of the way himself. I thought about it for a second (it was tempting), but decided to keep hoofing it and see what happened. I genuinely wanted to know if a local would pick me up... and one finally did. Well, kind of.

Gary's from Omaha - over two hundred miles from Gothenburg - so I was still able to gripe about the stingy, sequestered, scaredy-cat locals. And it was funny because when I asked Gary why he picked me up he told me he was worried that if he didn't pick me up it might cause him bad luck on the golf course .

Now that is exactly the kind of thinking I can relate to! Forget about bleeding hearts and cultural biases...what about the cold, hard trickle-down economics of karma? Pick up the kid or suffer the consequences! If only everyone thought this way.

And there was another bonus: my determination to hoof it to Wild Horse and test the mettle of small town Nebraskans instead of accepting the ride from the guy washing his truck also earned me a lift all the way across the state to Omaha after the round. In fact, at midnight Gary went over an hour round trip out of his way to drop me in Council Bluffs, Iowa where I would be near a Best Buy (I needed to buy a new video camera) and the I-80 on the east side of Omaha (so I wouldn't have to hitch through the city in the morning.)

In short, I never did find out the true extent of the anti-hitchhiking sentiment in Nebraska because Gary got me out of the state in one fell swoop. But all I heard about from the Colorado border to Gothenburg (three rides...one with a black, broke Vietnam Veteran who'd run out of gas and money at the Big Springs Truck Stop) was meth, murder and mayhem... the breakdown of civil society and the inability to trust our fellow man. Apparently crystal meth is running rampant over the state and there'd recently been a highly publicized murder trial in North Platte for a teenaged girl and her boyfriend who'd killed her mother and baby sister. (I'm not sure what that has to do with hitchhiking or me...but...) And Henry, the black vet, referenced some other double or triple murder that was, in his words, "Like some Jeffery Dahlmer shit...boiling bones and everything."

My feeling is that Nebraskans are not alone. There are probably quite a few states where people are having a tough time feeling the love...especially for hitchhikers who remind them of exactly the kind of down-and-outers and freeloaders who are part of the damned problem! (Hmmmm...) And its not really fair to compare them to Coloradans (no Boulderized anti-Huskerism, I promise) who are used to seeing backpackers and adventuring hippies all over the place. AND its probably just a coincidence that the next day in Iowa I got two rides clear across the state without waiting ten minutes. In fact, when I got the second ride I hadn't even gotten out of the first car yet when a kind fifty-something-year-old man named Gerald Edgar asked, "Where are you headed young man?" and proceeded to give me not only a ride, but a tour of beautiful Mason City - the "River City" of Music Man fame and home to a surprising wealth of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and an old bank that was famously robbed by some Bonnie and Clyde-style Chicago gangster.

During the "tour" Gerald's wife called and asked where he was and why he was late. Gerald happily reported, "Oh I'm just giving a tour of Mason City to this nice hitchhiker I picked up....." All I heard on the other end was, "Whaaaaat?"

Finally, it really doesn't matter whether Nebraskans are jaded or provincial or prejudiced anyway because they've got Gary Piercy and he's good enough to make up for the rest of them. That is my "black and gold" two cents. (chuckle) - John