The Autobahn

 At the end of the summer of 1974, with my Eurail pass expired, I took to the highways.  It had been a great summer, but my money was running low, and I needed to reload.  I heard good things about Aberdeen, Scotland.  The North Sea oil boom was in full swing, American companies were hiring for their offshore platforms, and they spoke my language.  Good money, they said.

I left my brother’s house in Tellig, Germany a small village in the Mosel River Valley.  He was an officer stationed at Hahn Air Force Base flying F-4’s.  He, his wife, and two young daughters were my anchor while I stayed in Europe.  I had been in Europe for five months, made the decision to stay, told my parents, resigned my teaching position, and said goodbye to my traveling companion who returned to the States.  When I left my brother and his family, I would be totally alone and on my own.  I hated saying goodbye, but I had to go.

My brother bought beer from a nice old guy in Tellig who brewed his own.  Good beer in returnable liter bottles.  Days before I left Tellig, my brother and I brought an empty case to his house to pick up a full one.  The beer man had gotten to know me and was interested in my plans.  My brother’s German was very good.  He told the beer man I was about to leave for Scotland. 

He knew no English and always assumed I understood his German.  He asked me a question.

“Wie reist du?”

I looked at my brother. 

“He wants to know how you are traveling.”

I looked back at him.   Not knowing the German word for hitchhiking, I stuck out my thumb.

“Ah,” he smiled.  “Tramp.”

I looked back at my brother.  He smiled in a way that told me to let it go.  So, I smiled back at him.

As soon as we got outside with the beer, I said “Did he call me a tramp, like we know tramps?”

Our farm was on an Illinois State highway, Route 9 between Bloomington and Pekin.  The men that traveled the highway on foot, often stopping to rest under our big maple by the road, were definitely tramps.  Hobos.  Bums.  I’d never thought of myself as one of them.

“No,” my brother replied.  “In German tramp is not a bad word.  People who travel alone, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes not, are often called tramps.  To them, the word has an adventurous sort of meaning.”

A few mornings later, my brother let me off with my backpack by an entrance ramp.  He had offered, once again that morning, to take me to the train station in Koblenz for a ride to the Belgium border.  But I declined, telling him I might as well just get started hitchhiking.  He persuaded me to at least let him take me to the Autobahn, like an interstate highway in America on steroids.  We hugged and he drove away.  And there I was, very much alone. 

I walked to the middle of the ramp, stood tall with my backpack at my knees, put my thumb out and started my trip to Scotland.  Before long a black Mercedes slowed and stopped.  I ran to the passenger side and the side window went down on its own.  Early electric windows.  The driver leaned forward.

“You are accepting of rapid driving?”  He had a very heavy accent.

“Yeah. Sure.”

He reached over and opened the door.  I stashed my backpack in the back seat and climbed in.  Soft leather seats.  He instructed me to use the seatbelt and shoulder harness.  Before driving on, he reached into the glove compartment and brought out a pair of fancy leather driving gloves.   Tan with air holes across the knuckles.  He put them on slowly and carefully, pulling the wrist straps tightly. 

Then he revved up his engine, smiled at me, put the Mercedes into gear, and popped the clutch.

And the fastest ride I ever had hitchhiking began.  There are no speed limits on Germany’s autobahns.  They’re well-maintained, nicely banked, and engineered to accommodate high speeds.  The guy beside me had a car built just for this kind of driving.  Every time he shifted I was pressed back into the seat.  He put his car in the left lane and whenever we encountered another auto, he flashed his lights and the slower car pulled over to let him by.   No one passed us.

It was an amazing ride.  We hardly spoke.  He managed to ask me, without looking at me, how far I was going. 

“Oostend, Belgium.”

"So weit reise ich nicht.“

I heard the words “ich nicht” and, knowing them to mean “I not,” said OK.

I don’t know how far we went.  Germany flew by.  I hardly saw anything.  My eyes were glued to the road as were his, thank God.  He was a very good driver. 

He left me at a good intersection far west of where he picked me up.  I thanked him and he stuck out a gloved hand to shake. 

“Good luck.”

At that point, he left the autobahn.  I walked slowly to the next on-ramp.  I felt like I’d been in a NASCAR race.  I’ve never had a ride like it since.