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Mar. 4, 2011 On March 9, 1967, inspired by something I read in the library, I started walking down Ogden Avenue, Highway 66, in Chicago, at 5 PM, without a penny in my pocket. I walked 12 miles and slept in the snow in the woods. I walked the next day and the next, stealing apples from a tree. On the third day, someone offered me a ride to St. Louis, dropping me off there at some coffee house, where I worked for a day or so. They gave me $2 or $3 and I started walking Highway 66 again, continuing 2 or 3 more days, until someone else offered me a ride to Oklahoma City. And so it went, till I reached Los Angeles, about a week later. From Los Angeles, I went to San Francisco, took LSD, started acting odd, got arrested and landed in jail. I knew someone in San Francisco who bailed me out for $25, saying he didn't mind if I jumped bail. Just before the trial date, I entered Mexico at Tijuana. My Spanish was and is good. In Tijuana, a man who distributed religious tracts invited me to his office for a sermon and a free lunch. Later in the afternoon, a truck driver had me help him load his truck, and then drove me as far as Mexicali. A kind soul, he put me up in his little adobe house with his wife and children. They were poor, but not desperate. I saw desperate poverty the next morning, when, walking down the highway, I passed a seemingly endless succession of huts, shacks and hovels. I recall huts made out of beer cans and chicken wire. After 3 or 4 jalopy rides, I got to San Luis, opposite Yuma, about nightfall. It was hot and dusty, the earth like flour. I slept on a piece of rubber I found. The next morning, the highway patrol would not allow me to enter the Sonoran Desert on foot, hitchhiking. Instead, they put me in the back of someone's truck, instructing them to hand me over at Sonoita to the border patrol. The men in the truck ignored the instructions, and when they opened the back of the truck, I found myself in San Antonio, Sonora, far inside of Mexico. San Antonio was a modest but pretty town, with stucco houses, dirt streets and lots of flowers. The police ordered me to leave, but some children told me to come back after dark, giving me a bag of food and leading me to a place where I could board a freight train. The railroad detectives caught me in a town called Pitiquitos and put me off the train. I got lucky hitchhiking in Pitiquitos. Two men in a truck picked me up, saying they were going to Guadalajara, nearly 1000 miles south. First, we stopped in Hermosillo, where we loaded drums of suet. There was only a small space left in the back of the truck, and they picked up two others, so we lay all over each other, trying to sleep. We passed through Guaymas, Mazatlan, Culiacan and finally made Guadalajara after 3 days. I helped unload the truck, and the men gave me 30 pesos. I stayed around Guadalajara 2 or 3 weeks, sleeping in the park opposite San Juan de Dios Market. My diet was 3 or 4 bananas from the 30 pesos. Guadalajara was beautiful, with fountains, colonial architecture, sidewalk cafes, flower-strewn sidewalks and medians, statues and a triumphal arch. I was a witness to all this, not a participant. Finally, I went out on the highway, intending Mexico City, but the first ride offered me was in the opposite direction. So I ended up in Colima, a very humble town with a statue of Indian Chief Colima at the entrance. The cab drivers around there visited me one after the other as I sat in the plaza. They gave me food and presents, and when I left a couple of days later, they had collected 30 pesos for me. I took the bus to Manzanillo, a port on the Pacific. In Manzanillo, I went down in quicksand, but I managed to rescue myself. I passed back through Guadalajara. At one point I walked in the desert, 105 degrees during the day, for 24 hours without water. A man with six donkeys gave me a ride of about 10 miles. He delivered firewood every day, returning the donkeys at night, earning $1 for 12 hours. I fell in an irrigation ditch when I got off the donkey. Another man came by the next day with two horses, and gave me a ride. In another town, the children stoned me, but later they relented and led me to a pool where I could bathe. In that town, men gathered broom plant in the desert, carried it to town on their heads, and made household brooms, by tying the bristles to sticks with strips of prickly pear. Such a broom cost a nickel. This was abject poverty. On the highway to Mexico City, I got caught in a torrential rainstorm and asked the local police to let me sleep in jail. They obliged me. In the Rockies, it was cold at night, and all I had on was a sleeveless sweater, so I had to build fires at night to stay warm. I passed through Uxmajac, Tecolotlan, Zamora and Zacapu. In Zacapu I slept on the ground in a huge patio, where 100 strawberry pickers also slept. They each made $1 a day for 12 hours in the field. In Zamora, some teenagers asked me to sing American songs. Obliging them, I received about 50 pesos in tips. Finally, I got to Morelia, another beautiful city, with colonial architecture, fountains, flowers and cobblestone streets. A policeman put me up in his adobe house for about 3 weeks. He lived there with his wife, brother, mother and children, modestly but not desperately. The owner of the local radio station dedicated two songs to me on radio--Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White and Guantanamera. He had written a book about the US called La Cloaca de Oro(The Golden Sewer). I read his book. He claimed that the US was overrun by drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, unwed mothers, etc. When I set out for Mexico City, the policeman's brother took me in his panel truck, in which he was delivering flowers. First, we went to a little promontory, with rows of spruce flanking a road that led to a white stucco house with red tiles. There, a lovely senorita in an embroidered blouse and a red skirt brought out masses of flowers, which we loaded on the truck. This was a beautiful spot, with a large stone head on an island opposite the promontory. Finally, I got to Mexico City, at an elevation over 7,000 feet. It was too cold to sleep at night without cover. After I was there a week or two, when I was sleeping in the Alameda Central during the day, I was arrested for vagrancy and jailed for a week or so. By this time I had lost much weight. I was a skeleton and a fright. I was glad to get the beans and bread they served in jail. There were 12 men in a two-man cell. All the other inmates liked me. I was a novelty. Finally, I was handed over to immigration and deported. I was flown at the expense of the Mexican government to San Antonio, Texas, From there I hitchhiked back to Chicago in a week or so. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written five books: ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR and A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction); A TALE OF UNG, THE ENNUNMENT and GVAGMA (fiction). I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com
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