Chapter 1

“Your homework for your first day of English class, due tomorrow is one on your summer vacation,” said Miss Bales.

This should be interesting I thought should I tell the truth or make up the usual crap, as we went to the beach on Lake Erie or to Columbus to the zoo.

I guess I should explain why I am even thinking of making something up. I have proof of what happened, but I don’t know if I want all the nonsense that will go with it when it comes out. It will become public anyway after that last bit in Philadelphia, so I might as well go for it.

It all started late May of last year. I had just finished 8^th grade, and my dad Jack Jackson and I were discussing what I would do for the summer. Dad was a child during the great depression and had been in the Civilian Conservation Corp, as a youth out in Idaho, killing coyotes. He was in the Army during World War II, where he met my English mother. I think I was the reason they got married but this wasn’t discussed, but I could do arithmetic.

My name is Richard Edward Jackson, known as Rick or Ricky; I am large for my age at five-foot-ten inches and one hundred seventy pounds. From my Father, Cousins, and Uncles’ sizes, I still had a lot of growth left. I am fourteen years old, turning fifteen in October. I am known as Ricky to friends and family.

Anyway, Dad said, “By the time I was your age, I had been all around the country. Hell, when I was twelve. I ran away with the carnival, but your grandmother had the Sheriff chase me down. Later, she swore she should have just let me go.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I traveled around a bit?”

“Not at all, but your Mother might care.”

“If I mention it to her would you say it is okay?”

“That would be better than running your paper route and sitting around reading all the time.”

Now, Dad was happy that I worked and had been doing so since the fifth grade. He didn’t mind that I read all the time, which was easy because the library was a stop on my paper route. What he minded was me sitting on the porch swing for hours at a time reading and getting a little pudgy.

Taking my life in my hands; I broached the subject at dinner that night. My two younger brothers and sister had not acted up, and Dad hadn’t gone on a toot (what he called a drinking spree) for a while so there wasn’t any tension at the table. Additionally, money must have been okay, because Dad had moved up from the extra board as a switchman on the railroad to become a conductor.

This wasn’t like a conductor on a passenger train. His job as a supervisor was making up a freight train by having the cars put in the correct order. The switchmen and brakemen had to take their direction from him. This irked two of my Uncles, who did those jobs.

I asked, “Mum would you care if I saw a little of the country on this vacation?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I only go up to Indian Lake, about ten miles, with you and Dad. Would you care if I rode my bike or even hitchhiked up there?”

In those days, hitchhiking was quite common and not considered a bad thing.

“I might even get to Cincinnati to see a ball game!”

“That sounds ambitious; I doubt that you would have the nerve for that, it is one hundred miles there.”

“I won’t know if I don’t try.”

Mum looked at Dad and asked, “What do you think?”

“Well I sort of put it in his mind, so I am okay with it.”

Mum then gave me a look and said, “You can do it. Now tell me what you really have in mind?”

I should have known I wouldn’t get anything past her.

“I would like to hitchhike out west and see as much country as I can during the summer.”

“I thought it was something like that. Actually, I don’t see anything wrong with it. You have the size, seem to have common sense. I certainly did more adventuresome things when I was your age.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well you know we lived in Grays, a small town on the Thames River between Dover and London. We used to make rafts to cross the river. You don’t know fear until an Ocean Liner is blowing its horn for you to get out of the way when you are on a homemade raft. So I do understand. Just be careful of who you take rides with.”