After hanging up the phone I knew I had to make my move right away before I lost my courage. So I left my biological dad’ in Massachusetts and with a backpack full of all my belongings I started walking down the road. I really didn’t feel I could go back to the farm in Pennsylvania with everyone thinking I was crazy. My step dad knew where I was coming from but you can never just go and physically be with him. In order to reach him, you have to expand your consciousness to his level. And that was exactly what I planned to do or die trying. So I started hitch-hiking to up state New York which is about 300 miles from where I was standing at the moment. I had heard there were lots of apple orchards there and I felt it wouldn’t be hard to get a job picking fruit. After all I was carrying around this official crazy label now so chances are I wasn’t going to make it big in the corporate world. Besides I had done some fruit picking and really liked the purity of the job. You just get paid for the amount of fruit you picked, no fancy resume required.
So I started hitch-hiking and got a ride right away. But by this time it was getting late and the driver asked if I had a place to stay for the night. I told him I had a tent which I could pitch just about anywhere. But he insisted I come home with him and eat something and then he would take me to a beautiful beach where I could pitch my tent. Of course I was scared, but figured my life was in the hands of God at this point so I agreed. So true to his word I found myself in his house, just me and him, eating a meal. I wasn’t really afraid of him or what he might do to me. I’m really good at picking up where people are at and he was just a normal guy. But to my surprise, I found myself very upset because I was lost. I didn’t know how to get back to the main highway and it was freaking me out. I really couldn’t tell if this guy was going to bring me back to the highway again. But he did bring me to the beach as promised, and it was a beautiful site to pitch my tent. I finally got rid of my fear of being lost by realizing my destination of picking fruit was pretty flimsy at best, so I decided I would rethink my destination in the morning if he didn’t show up and bring me to where I could continue my trip.
He did show up the next morning and took me to the entrance of the toll road I needed to take in order to get to the orchards I was traveling to. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow hitch-hikers on the toll road so I had to try to hitch a ride in front of the toll booth where people had to pay to enter this highway. I was standing in back of a sign where someone had spray painted the words,” No rides out of hell hole.” At first I thought it was amusing but after about 5 hours of thumbing, with night time setting in, I understood exactly what the author of this message was telling me. I found some bushes near by and pitched my tent and hoped for better luck in the morning.
But the next day was the same. No ride after another 5 or 6 hours. Finally I snapped and started hitch-hiking in the opposite direction with absolutely no idea as to where I was going. Now I figured this is insanity taking me over again and driving me over the edge into the abyss. Then a truck stopped and I got in and the driver asked me where I was going. That was the most difficult question anyone has ever asked me up to this point. He could see I was having trouble answering him so he told me he was going on the toll road but in the opposite direction that I was trying to go in. So I asked him if he could just get me past the toll booths so I could start hitching from the highway itself. He said sure and after paying his toll, he dropped me off on the road and I crossed over to the other side to continue my journey to find God. If a police car happened by, I would be picked up and made to pay a fine, but instead a car stopped and picked me up and brought me all the way to where I wanted to be,
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