On the Road Again (heading east) #5

 Josh - the driver of the small red Toyota- was a young man who was having a good time with his life. He was spending the summer travelling from music festival to music festival, not performing but hanging around the performers, developing his craft. For him the best part of the festival was playing his music and jamming with others around the campfires once the concerts were over. During the winter months he headed south to spend his time in warmer climates. Last winter he had been in Mexico attending a music school learning about rhythm and how to play what I think was a sort of jazzy Spanish rhythm type of guitar.

Josh had followed this pattern ever since graduating from high school; take the summer to hang around western Canada, earn some money in the fall and then visit a different country every winter. He could not imagine a better education and quite frankly neither could I. However he was getting tired of the life and not having a sense of permanence. He was thinking that this might be his last year of traveling. He loved his life of freedom and learning new music. He didn’t want to be restricted or tied down. He also knew however that he would benefit from a more formal musical training both in terms of the contacts that he would make and the skills that he would develop. The thought however of going to university and being in his words - forced to learn about subjects for which he had no interest - was more than he could bear. We talked about community college as a more hands-on experience that might be more useful for him. He had never really thought about it before. He had always assumed that university was the only option. It continues to amaze me that high school guidance people direct bright kids to university and less bright kids to college regardless of what their interests are. He hadn’t wasted the past few years, but there had been other options and he had never been encouraged to think about them.

Part of his problem in deciding what to do was that he had met a young lady at a festival and had become (although he didn’t easily admit to it) completely and absolutely entranced by her. They had played music together and at least according to Josh their musical styles were very compatible. He wanted to stay in BC so they could get to know each other better. The young lady happened to be from Salt Spring Island (and in fact he had heard her talking about Sally). There was no doubt in my mind what he should do. I am hoping that when I go out west to Salt Spring next summer, I might get to meet him again. He was a kindred spirits in some ways. He might have been one of those people who would never quite fit into the world the way people thought he should. He had more courage than me, or at least he had learnt it earlier then I did. At any rate he seemed far more comfortable with whom he was than I had been at his age.

It was another great ride with good conversations about politics, music love and a host of other topics. I even considered traveling with him to the music festival, it would have been fun but I decided not – I still had 4000 kilometres to travel and while the rides had been good, I could not be sure that the good luck would continue. I thought that if I had time to play, perhaps I would wait until Golden or Canmore where the hazy smoky sky would clear and the mountains would once again be visible. He got me to Kamloops in good time and let me off in a reasonable location.
Just down the road from where Josh let me off were two young men hitchhiking. Seeing anyone hitching had been a rather rare occurrence this year and I was glad to see them. I of course threw the pack up on to my shoulders and started to walk past them so that they would remain first in line. As I walked by I said “hi how is it going”…. they answered “o.k”. They had a strong Germanic accent and looked far too young to be so far away from home. They were not standing a particularly good spot and I tried to explain to them that they might do better if they were just the other side of a set of lights. Lord knows there are enough lights on this section of the road. I didn’t bother to explain that I thought it might be still illegal to hitch along this section as we were technically still within the city limits. I didn’t think they understood me as they stayed where they were. I kept on walking until I got further along and until I was on the other side of the next set of lights. About 30 or so minutes later, they walked by me heading out of town. I worried about them. I am not sure if they had hitched before and if they would be safe, but short of calling the police and reporting all of us, there was not much that I could. There are times where I wish I could give better advice – but we hitchhikers are a weird lot. If we took advice easily we probably wouldn’t be on the road in the first place.