ON THE ROAD PUBLISHED
Three of My poems, “Hitchiing Tales, Back of the Bus and Cross Country Travels ” are included in this excellent collection.
IN SEARCH OF AMERICA 1975 – HITCHHIKING TALES
In Search of America 1975 – Hitchhiking Tales by Jake Cosmos Aller
April 30
In Search of America 1975 – Hitch hiking Tales
When I was young and foolish
Broke and stubborn
I hitchhiked across the USA
Started in Salt Lake City
Where my greyhound bus pass
Was stolen
The station manager
Could have helped me
But refused to do so
Threaten to call the cops
When I grabbed my bags
Without the stolen tags
I said
Go ahead
But I am
so out of here
Wondered about Salt Lake City
Went to a bar
Found I had to buy my booze
Next door
And they would
mix it for me
Had to order food too
After a bloody Mary
And a burger
I walked about town
Saw the Mormon Temple
Finally about 3 pm
It was time
to hit the road
Did not look back
Ended up in Cody Wyoming
Got a room shower
Steak beer
Using my rapidly
depleted cash
Spent 25 dollars
Money really went far
Back in those days
A band of professional
Communist agitators
Gave me a ride
To Des Moines
Lots of weed, booze
And politics later
Got off the road
Slept outside
Next day
A beautiful woman
Drove me to near Chicago
In a red mustang
Might have been
The girl in the song
Took it easy
Digging her vibe
She invited home
But was not sure
If her estranged husband
Would welcome me
So I being foolish
And inexperienced with women
Did not go to her place
And always regretted
That I had lost
My chance that day
Then on to Chicago
Several rides later
Visited friends
Hit the road again
A series of uneventful rides
With truckers
And others
And a week later
I ended in New York City
Slept along the way
In cars
In truck stops
In high way rest stops
Always moving
Always going
None stop talking
And lots of free weed
And beer
And conversation
One more memorable ride
Occurred outside Albany
On my return to Chicago
A middle age
creepy looking man
Picked me up
In a brand new Cadillac
He was
he said
a dynamite deliverer
For the Mafia
Went to various places
To blow up shit
He hated a lot of people
Particularly hippies
from California
And Jewish people
Looking at me to confirm
That I was both
I told him
that I lived in New York
And had never been
to California
And although
I might looked Jewish
As I had
what was called
back in the day
A “Jewfro”
I was not Jewish
Many years later I discovered
That I am indeed part Jewish
But then I did not know
And I felt a bit of
strategic misinformation
Might keep me alive
Then I realized
that he was just
jiving with me
And we relaxed
And he pulled
out some weed
And beer
And we mellowed out
But I believe
that he really
was with the mob
Perhaps not a dynamite dealer
A real made Italian
made mafia member
By Chicago
I had enough
I called my Dad
Told him what had happened
Wanted a ticket home
And he sent me a ticket
And 500 dollars
And I went home
I told him I would tell him
My tales some day
But never did
I learned so much
About my fellow Americans
And the strange vibe
That was 1975
And now it is too late
But I wanted to finally
Tell the world
Of my hitchhiking tales
In search of America 1975
In the summer of 2016
We drove across the country
Just the wife and me
10,000 miles
31 states
Three months on the road
I now know
why people don’t live
In South Dakota
Hot, dry dusty
Windy as hell
Black Hills are nice
But after seeing Mt. Rushmore
There is not much left to do
Rapid City did not impress me
Nor did Sioux Falls
Lost money in Deadwood
And wall drugs
Well the free water was nice
But it is a nothing town
In a nothing state
On the edge of the badlands
And the Sioux reservation
There is a reason the Indians live there
No one else wanted the land
And they are warehoused there
So I drove through Rapid City
And thought that it is the heart of Trump Land
The land of the forgotten
The left behind
Just another nothing burger of a State
In the middle of nowhere
Truly flyover country
Wagontire, Oregon
1973
April 6 Wagontire
In 1973, I went on a road trip
With my father
We left Berkeley to go to Yakima
Where my father had a summer cabin
He was a college professor
And had July and August off
And we spent the summers
Every summer from 1968 to 1978
Our whole dysfunctional family
Our annual road trip to hell and back
As we did not get along at all
We decided to drive through Eastern Oregon
Just my father and me
Just for the hell of it
The rest of the family was already there
My father and I shared a travel lust
One of the few things we shared
This was one of our best trips
We got along
Which was unusual
Normally our relationship
Was fraught
As we were so different
We left Klamath Falls
A real nothing burg in those days
And headed east along highway 395
As we entered the desert of eastern Oregon
We entered a different world
High mountain dessert
Almost no one on the road
Then we saw the sign
Wagontire Oregon
100 miles ahead
99 miles ahead
98 miles ahead
97
96
95
We counted down the signs
94
93 92
91
90
88
87
86 85
84
83
82
81 80
79
78
77
76
75 74
73
72
71
70
Miles after miles
69 68 67
66 65
64
63
62
61
60 59
58
57
55
54
53 52
51
50
49
48
47 46
45
44
43
42 41
40
39
38
37
36 35
34
33
32
31
As we drove into the gathering dusk
We speculated that Wagontire
Must be a giant truck stop
In the middle of no where
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21 20
19
18
17
16 15
14
13
12
11
10
8
7
Gas up ahead
Next gas 150 miles ahead
Dad made an executive decision
We are spending the night
It was about 8 pm
We had been on the road
Since 9 am that morning
6
5
3
2
1
Welcome to Wagontire
Population 2 ½ humans
dogs
20 thousand sheep
We pulled into the town Nothing there but a gas station
Motel and cafe
In the morning
We chatted with the owner
Joe Wilson who was my father’s age
My father had the natural ability
Of a politician to talk to almost anyone He was the sheriff, the fire chief
The owner of the motel, gas station The only business in town and the owner of a ranch as well Which was his real business he said
In any event it was only place open for over 100 miles I asked the Sherriff Say who is the ½ human?
My idiot son!
and we left.
200 miles later
We finally left Eastern Oregon
2016
In 2016 my wife and I drove through Eastern Oregon
As part of our epic cross country trip
10,000 miles
31 states in three months
On the way from Medford to Yellowstone
We drove along highway 395
The signs
for Wagon Tire was gone
And we drove through the town
The motel was abandoned
Nothing there at all
And that sign was gone too
The town had turned
into one of Oregon’s ghost towns
and Oregon has more ghost towns
than any other state in the country
mostly in Eastern Oregon desert
which has one of the lowest
population densities
in the entire world
1 person per square mile
I said I suppose the idiot son
Never took over the business
And we speculated about Wagon Tire
And all other nothing burgs
We drove through that summer
Heart of Trump’s America
True fly over country
Back of the Bus
Many years ago
When I was a foolish young man
I took a greyhound bus trip
Just to see the country
I was trapped
In the back of the bus
Where the young
And restless souls
Gathered together
And drank illegally
And smoked weed
Also illegally
We stayed there
Until Winnemucca
Where I got off
And found my bus pass
Had found another owner
And I went to Salt Lake City
Still trapped in the back of the bus
the Bus – Travels Through America’s Underbelly
I am a bus rider
That makes me unusual
For a white male
From an upper middle class family
Our people are not bus riders
Though some are subway riders
Bus riders are other people
The poor, minorities, immigrants
People who don’t drive
Because they are blind
Or have a DUI
And in my case
I don’t drive
Because I have bad vision
And bad coordination
Just never got the hang
Of the whole driving thing
Fortunately for me
My wife does the driving
But I still take the bus
From time to time
I rode the AC buses in Berkeley
As a child
Line 67, line 51, line 43 F bus
Rode them long before BART came along
And afterwards as well
As an adult seldom rode the bus
But when I did so
I was always impressed
By the sheer diversity
Of the bus riding property
Hundreds of languages
All sorts of sexual orientation
Some were white
Most were not
Most of my fellow passengers
Were nice enough
Some were friendly
And some were lost
In their own thoughts
And a few
Were scary looking dudes
With the look
Of someone who had done time
And were capable of more violence
I also rode the bus
In Seattle as a graduate student
A lot of fellow UW students
And the usual immigrants
Minorities etc
And some white people commuting
And in DC
Over the years
I rode a lot of buses
Mostly to and from the metro
But I got to know
And love the DC buses as well
I also took the greyhound bus
Across the country
Several times over the years
All over the U.S.
From Bay Area to Stockton
From Bay Area to Clear Lake
From Bay area to NYC
NYC to DC
All over the USA
Taking the Greyhound
Was always an a adventure
Met a lot of interesting people
As people on long distant bus rides
Tend to open up and talk
To pass the time away
Overseas I took the bus
All over
In India, in Barbados
In Spain and in Korea
The Korean buses
For many years
Were difficult for foreign visitors
As the signs were all in Korean
Most have signs
Now in English, Chinese and Korean
And are much more foreigner friendly
Riding the bus
In America
Allows one access
To the underbelly of American society
The poor, the marginalized
The immigrant communities
That many middle-class
white people
Just never see
And for that reason
I am glad
That I am a bus rider
Cross Country Road Trips Part One
I have driven across the country
Five times in my life
Most recently in the summer of 2016
My wife and I drove an epic 10,000 mile road trip
31 states in three months
To celebrate my retirement from the State Department
We started in DC Drove to Florida,
stopped in Virginia, and Georgia
Staying at military bases Along the way
Finding food always a problem
As outside of the metro areas
Few people really knew
How to serve gluten free food
And most of the food we ate
Was pretty ghastly indeed
Was pretty ghastly indeed
Finally hitting Tampa
Where we became a resident
And stayed a week
Checking it out
As a potential retirement destination
Finally it was time to move on
We drove through Florida
Seeing some real poor rural towns
In the outback of Florida
We saw a lot of rural poverty
Throughout our trip
As much of the country
We found resembled
We found resembled
A third world backwater
Shocking to see
How far the country
Has declined
Outside the big metro areas
We stayed in Tallahassee one night
Not that impressed
Then Birmingham, Alabama
Also not that impressed
Ended up in Hot Springs Arkansas
Two nights
Lost money gambling of course
Lost money gambling of course
Then on to Little Rock
And saw the Clinton Museum
Little Rock was a nice town
But not a place for us
And on we went
Arkansas, Mississippi
Missouri flew by
What we could see
From the freeway
Was nothing but rural poverty
Oklahoma welcomed us
With hundreds of Indian casinos
With Hundreds of Indian casinos
But we drove on
And stayed outside of Oklahoma city
Had some decent BBQ
Next day
Drove all day
Through Texas
Thinking of the country classic
Dear god drove 800 miles
Still stuck in Texas
And ended up
In Armadillo Texas
Had great texmex there
Drove by the grand canyon
Of Texas but did not stop
But did not stop
And on to New Mexico
Where we enjoyed two nights
Checking out the sights
Made famous in Breaking Bad
Gambling of course
And eating at the oldest
Restaurant in America
Tried New Mexican wine
Not for the faint of heart
Then on to Arizona
Stopped of in Winslow
To take a picture
Of the guitar player
Of the guitar player
And the red mustang
Where the song take it easy
Plays all day long
24/7 tribute
Finally we went to Las Vegas
Stayed a few days
Visiting friends
Gambling a lot
Deciding that Las Vegas
Also would not be
Our retirement destination
We then drove
To Reno
Spend the night
Lost more money
Not too impressed
Drove Through the Nevada desert
Drove through the Nevada desert
Right by area 51
Stopped by the area 51 alien brothel
Looked at all tourist alien things
Did not buy anything though
Saw by the edge of the road
Area 51 fencing and armed patrols
Everywhere
Hiding whatever they are hiding
Spend the night in Tonopah
Lost money
Snowing in the morning
The next day
The next day
We decided to drive
All the way to Medford Oregon
350 miles
Through some beautiful mountains
Worth a future trip to Lassen volcano
Then past Mt. Shasta
And on to Medford along I-5
We felt we were going home
And perhaps Medford
Would be our final home
But we had to go back in two months
But that is another epic poem
Yet to be written
On the Road
Volumes 1& 2
With over 250 contributions, from 121 poets in 28 countries, and over two volumes, ON THE ROAD is probably one of the largest international anthologies of travel poetry every published! For further details go to OUR COLLECTIONS in the website’s menu, and click on the links. If you have contributed to this collection, you can download a free pdf copy by going to AUTHOR’S COPIES in the menu, using the password AuthorCopies
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