Keep Your Friends Close, Strangers Closer

For the first time in my life, I’m completely self-sufficient. When I wake up in the morning, I think about my 401k and my health insurance, and I can actually feel my chest hair growing. After I’m done basking in my maturity, I start thinking about geography and wondering how I wound up in Lafayette, La. Well, this is that story. I’m writing for my own clarification as much as my readers’.

The journey began in the last week of June. The starting point was Seattle, hometown of yours truly, and the destination was Houston, home of big oil. I’d heard those cowboys in their 10-gallon hats had some oil, and I set out to help them dig it up. My transportation and invaluable road companion was a purple 2005 Kawasaki Ninja 250 motorcycle (christened Donatello after the purple-wearing and mechanically inclined ninja turtle).

I kicked off with three of my closest hometown friends, who came to see me on my way. We jumped a ferry and headed out to the Olympic Peninsula, the only rainforest in North America. We camped on the northern coast with sandy beaches, ocean breeze and all that. Next day we drove around the tip of the peninsula and deep into the forbidding heart of the rainforest; we spent the day skipping rocks, exploring and getting burnt. Toward late afternoon, we headed back to the main highway. When they went right to head home, I went left and traveled south. Just Donatello and me.

That night I suddenly got it into my head to go stay with my buddy Tim in Portland. I’d gotten a late start but I thought I could make it by 4 a.m. or so. I didn’t get anywhere close. Around 11 p.m. I stopped at an abandoned petrol station thinking I could fill up. I couldn’t fill up but I got to talking with a fellow biker. He was a friendly, chatty guy. Introduced himself as Graeme. Realizing I was way too tired to continue, I asked him if there was a good campground in the area. He said I could camp in his backyard, which suited me just fine. Really, that was exactly what I was hoping he would say. Biker code — it’s a good thing. We went back to his three-room house where his wife, Sabrina, had a pot of tea ready and waiting.

Graeme told me stories about his adventures on the highways and back roads of America. After high school, he took his life savings and his bike and set out on an epic journey from Wisconsin down and around the South. In New Mexico, he ran out of money so he stopped in a small town and took a job in a bakery. He worked there for six months before packing up and continuing on.

Listening to Graeme, I wished that I had road stories to share. After tea and stories I went out to set up my hammock. It was at this point that I realized I had lost one of my bags. Included in that bag were my lucky cap, my excessively powerful flashlight and the sunglasses that I had promised my father two days earlier that I would not lose. When I told Graeme what was up, he put off climbing into his warm bed to drive me up and down every street in town and then over to the police station. He might as well have lost his own lucky cap.

Even when we found nothing, Graeme insisted that one way or another the bag would turn up. He was so earnest I almost believed him. Lying in my hammock, I felt more cheered by the generosity of my hosts than disappointed by the loss of my belongings. And in the morning, the nice couple took me for breakfast at their favorite cafe in Astoria, where they insisted on paying. We said our goodbyes and made those vague promises to cross paths again, and I set off on my way to Portland.

One way or another, you have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Strangers run and maintain your world; they make everything down to the plastic tips on your shoelaces. The only question is how willing you are to put your trust directly into their unfamiliar hands.

It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people are not axe murderers. On the contrary, most are desperate to participate in the human community. Some people want it so badly that they recycle, vote and donate to charity. Those are situations in which they cannot even see the effects of their efforts.

As a dusty traveler, you show up in the role of ambassador for the human community. You offer people the opportunity to be remembered for their magnanimous generosity. Of course, it is important to make yourself out as an ambassador rather than a bum. Do not ask for anything; only give them an opportunity to offer. They probably will. Giving a beer to a thirsty vagabond will satisfy people more than drinking that beer themselves. People that wouldn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning friend would peel off their own skin, fill it with air, tie it in a ring and throw it overboard in order to save someone they had never met before. When offered a beer, or a gross, inflated ring of skin, be sure to take it. Accepting that generosity is the only way to complete the ritual.

Just be grateful.

Desmond Rawls is a senior in the College and is taking a year off to work as a mechanic for an offshore oil company. He can be reached at rawls@thehoya.com. Wheelie appears every other Monday on www.thehoya.com.