I met Ol’ Waynard outside the McDonalds where the I-5 and CA-46 intersects, just northwest of Bakersfield, California.
Waynard has been hitchhiking for the last 15 years. Non-stop. Imagine that. He’s 71 years old, and crushed his ankle in an hit-and-run maybe 50 years ago. He still struggles with his injury.
He had a map of the USA, where he had marked all the roads he had hitchhiked with a yellow marker. The map was full of yellow lines going crisscross over it.
Sadly I was going in the opposite direction, so I couldn’t give him a ride. Now, I regret that I didn’t take the extra six hours to give him a lift to whereever he was going. I’m thinking, a guy like that, has to be great company.