I left Rolf in Wilton, Pennsylvania, and began my tour of life. A matron in a cream-­colored sedan stopped for me, and when I got into the front seat, she asked my destination. I thought for a moment and realized I had no answer. After a hesitation, I asked where she was going, and she said she was off to Columbus, Ohio, to visit her sister, and I was welcome to travel the distance with her. She seemed nice and smelled clean, so I agreed.

We rode together for five hours. At first I was loath to talk of myself, but as she shared of herself and her family, of their difficulties and their joys, I came to understand some of her feelings. She had been widowed the year before, and she felt an anger about the desertion that we discussed in depth. I was no stranger to desertion by death.

We parted in the early afternoon on the outskirts of Columbus. She suggested I might enjoy traveling in the South, so she left me at the freeway interchange, where I could get a ride going down through Tennes­see.

I’m sure more than two hours passed before my next ride stopped for me, and in that time I thought much about families, desertion, death, and this jour­ney of mine. I had been on the road for less than a day and my joyous exuberance had already turned to introspection. This adventure was a learning experi­ence, and I would pay close attention. I wanted to see the whole range of life during this time, from normal­cy to lunacy, from safety to trouble, and everything in between. And I did.

Trouble remained elusive, in fact, for an entire year—until that terrible new-­moon night when a demon named Earl Foster, fueled by the wildfire of alcohol, tried to damage me. In retrospect, I’m sure I could have avoided the entire situation, had I taken time to think for a moment before acting. But I didn’t, so perhaps the whole experience was inevitable. That was after a year of ceaseless roaming, however, cease­less, priceless learning.

For over a year, I lived as a transient. While I tried to do nothing illegal, I exercised some very naive judgment. I learned about bulls in farm pastures and the perils of climbing fruit trees. Naive indeed. Young and impetuous.

I traveled without direction, without hurry. I graciously accepted rides with whomever offered them, and our lives merged for the miles we spent together. I felt no remorse in asking to be let out, nor did I feel like an imposition if our companionship was valuable and I rode with them to their final destina­tion.