Hitchhiking for a Diamond

Welcome to my blog. These entries, which will be posted about once a week, give glimpses of the author behind the books. They will also be posted on my Facebook account, so you can follow me there to keep up with my latest posts.

Teenagers do the craziest things. Teenagers in love do the most craziest things!

In 1953 I was a teenager. A teenager in love.

My girlfriend, a class ahead of me, had graduated high school and enrolled at a religious college in Chicago. I graduated the next year, and started attending Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. We had been “going steady” for a year, and were “serious.” That was the kind of innocent Midwestern small town language we used, and just gradually drifted into the shared assumption that we were headed for marriage, kids, and a life together.

After a year of college, my girlfriend ran into money problems, and had to leave school. She returned to our home town and took her first forty hour a week job as a telephone operator. (In another post, “A Living, Walking, Talking Telephone Switchboard,” I will describe her “number, please” work.)

When she worked the late-night shift, in between her “number please” duties, called me at the pay phone in my college dorm. She plugged me into a long-distance line and we talked for free, until she had to take care of another caller. Then we picked up the conversation where we left off.

I was eager to make our relationship formal and permanent, so I cooked up a plan to give her an engagement diamond ring. Looking back on it now, I have to admit it was one of the craziest things I did as a teenager.

During my sophomore year in high school, I was run over by a car, breaking both bones in my right leg. That’s a story I may tell in another post. Anyway, it’s related to this hitchhiking tale, because as the result of a lawsuit against the negligent driver, I received a $1400 settlement. My folks had always taught my two older sisters and me to be savers. As soon as we kids started working at the family frozen food plant, we received wages, and opened bank accounts.

Mom and Dad advised me to deposit the $1400 windfall from the lawsuit in a savings and loan account in a Peoria bank, where it would draw more interest. During the last two years of high school, I never dreamed of spending any of that money on a big purchase for myself. But when I went to college, as a lovestruck adolescent, I figured that using some of that money for a ring would put it to good use. It would show my girlfriend (and the rest of the world) that we were more than just going steady, much more than “serious.” We would be officially engaged.

The problem was, I attended college in Galesburg, and my savings account was in Peoria, an hour’s drive away. Love always finds a way to solve any problem. I figured that on a Saturday I could hitchhike to Peoria, go to the savings and loan to withdraw money, take it to a jewelry store, and purchase a ring. One Saturday morning after breakfast at the dorm, I walked to the edge of town and stuck out my thumb. So many cars passed me by without stopping that I wondered if hitchhiking was a good idea.

My first ride only took me about half way to Peoria. Then I had to watch many cars pass me by. I thought maybe I should cross the road and head back to Galesburg. I worried that if a crook picked me up, he’d force me to hand over my bank account, and I might lose all my savings. A farmer in a pickup truck stopped for me, saying he could take me to the edge of Peoria.

Making my way across town to the bank, I proudly produced my bank book, and didn’t mind being asked for my driver’s license to prove my identity. After all, I was eighteen years old, and didn’t need a parent’s permission to withdraw money. I had priced some rings, and figured $300 would be enough to purchase a ring that would satisfy me and my girlfriend. I withdrew $350, to be sure I could pay taxes on the purchase.
I was familiar with a particular jewelry store in Peoria from previous shopping trips with my folks. I walked to the store, the $350 burning a hole in my pocket. The clerk gave me a funny look, showing up without my fiancée, but gladly sold me the ring I picked out. She said that if the ring didn’t fit, it could be resized.

On the trip from Galesburg to Peoria, I looked forward to carrying out my daring plan. But leaving the jewelry store with a diamond ring in a small box slipped into my pants pocket, I began to worry. What if someone robbed me, and forced me to empty my pockets? Walking across Peoria, I started looking over my shoulder to see who might be following me.

Reaching the highway, I stuck out my thumb, but cars just sped past me. I began to worry that I’d be stuck on the side of the road after nightfall, and be an easy target for a robbery. Finally, a coupe slowed down and pulled up beside me. I will never forget that car, a light green 1946 Mercury. Opening the passenger side door, I did a double take. Seated in the driver’s seat was a man about half my height. Cushions raised him up enough to see over the steering wheel. The controls had been modified with extensions on the clutch, brake, and accelerator pedals so his short legs could reach them.

The diminutive size of the driver made it difficult for me to judge his age, maybe in his twenties or thirties. With one hand on the open door, I hesitated, not knowing what to say, or what to do. Could I trust my own safety—and my diamond treasure—to a trip with such an unusual guy?

The driver piped up cheerfully, “Where ya headed?”

I stood there awkwardly by the side of the car, mumbling, “Uh, Galesburg.”

“That’s right on my way. Hop in and I’ll take you there.”

I got in, and he jerk-jerked the car into motion, looking at me more than he paid attention to the road.

“What’re you doin’ in Galesburg?”

“I go to college there. Knox College.”

“A pretty good school, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Wish I’d gone to college. Too late now. Me, because of my size, I couldn’t get a regular job, and my parents needed the money, so I grew up in the school of hard knocks, in and out of carnivals. Me—I’m a carnie. They bill me as the midget, next to the seven foot plus “giant,” and the bearded lady. In the summer, every week we travel from town to town, and then in the fall I go home to Iowa. That’s where I’m headed now.”

Although short in stature, he was long-winded, and told tall tales one after another. I didn’t have to worry about carrying on a conversation with him, because he had a non-stop gift of gab. After a while I sat back and listened to him, realizing I had no reason to worry while riding with him. He was so nice he even drove me right to my college dorm in Galesburg.

I hid the diamond ring in the very back of a desk drawer in my room, waiting for Christmas break when I went back to my home town of Havana. It turned into a busy “vacation,” because I was lucky enough to be hired for the seasonal rush at the post office. My girlfriend and I had little time to be together. I worked long hours delivering mail, and she had different shifts at the telephone office.

Finally, we had some time together, and I gave her the ring, which pleased her. We were in a car, so she turned on the dome light to see the diamond sparkle. I didn’t really ask her to marry me, because we had assumed that for some time. You might say the ring did the talking for me.

Although my fiancée loved the ring, my folks were less than pleased. They didn’t like it that I had dipped into my savings account, and even made the Galesburg-Peoria trip without telling them. And hitchhiking! Who could blame them for wondering if two teenagers were just suffering from puppy love, and would never form a lasting union. More than sixty years of marriage to my high school sweetheart prove that some things do last.

Which brings me back to the point of this blog—doing crazy things. As a teenager, I did some wild things, and even after that made some risky decisions. had been impatient to get engaged, and in education, too, was eager to get on with my life. I made a decision to continue my education for a Ph.D. and become a university professor. At the time, the University of Chicago allowed undergraduates to take a graduate entrance exam before they had a bachelor’s degree, accepting them directly into their graduate program. I passed the exam and was accepted into the doctoral program.

My fiancée and I set up a late summer wedding after my third year of college, and we looked forward to my first year of graduate school and our first year of marriage. The University of Chicago is one of the top research institutions in the country. To go there as a college dropout, gambling that I could complete a Ph.D. program, and then manage to obtain a teaching position, was a much crazier idea than hitchhiking for a diamond! Now retired after decades as a university professor, I consider myself very fortunate to have taken that risk, and succeeded.

I once heard a radio interview with a movie celebrity, who was asked to what he attributed his success. “Luck. Pure Luck.” He was in the right place at the right time, getting his first lucky break. I write down some of my own crazy acts and risky decisions, not to brag about my own success, but to recognize that I had a string of lucky breaks that turned out well. A misstep on any of these ventures could have meant disaster for my career plans.

In graduate school I took the risk of learning Japanese while completing a doctoral program. This gamble paid off, enabling my wife and I to go to Japan on a Fulbright grant. To think that a small-town Illinois youngster could bridge the language and cultural barrier and make his way in Japan—now that was a huge leap of faith and daring.

This international transition was accomplished not by hitchhiking, but by a four-engine jet plane. When we approached Japan, the symmetrical triangle of Fuji greeted us. I couldn’t even imagine that years later I would climb this majestic peak, and decades later write a book about the religious and artistic significance of the sacred mountain.

My father had entered Japan at the end of World War II as a sailor by way of the battleship USS Missouri, present for the surrender of Japan in 1945. It boggled my mind to consider the differences between our two experiences: he landed in Japan as part of a military occupation, but I arrived there thanks to an educational exchange. He returned to America with a Japanese sword and rifle. I hoped to make it back to Chicago with a completed Ph.D. dissertation.

To close this post, I return to the theme of hitchhiking for a diamond. A perk of senior citizen status is the right to give advice. One of the lessons I have learned is that it is good to take risks, if the reward is worth it. I took a risk hitchhiking from Galesburg to Peoria, and the reward, in part, is more than six decades of married life.

Taking risks is not only for teenagers. One adventure I had as a teenager was working on a sternwheel river boat. While on that boat I typed out my first short story. That episode will be spelled out in the psot, “A Weenie Burner, Water Scorcher, and Story Writer on a Sternwheel Riverboat.” I mention it here because during a very busy graduate program and teaching career, I had to set aside any creative writing ambitions.

In retirement, I have followed my own advice to take risks, be adventurous, do something crazy. Returning to my teenage love of writing, I have penned and published a series of novels. My latest book is a first-person account of the wartime experiences of our family: “At Grandma’s House: The World War II Homefront in Havana, Illinois“.

I had fun writing these stories, and hope you enjoy reading them.