Hitchhiking Adventures – Part 16

We spent the next six hours with the old city Indian. It almost landed us in jail. He offered us a joint and, while smoking, a policeman came by on a motorbike. Right in front of us, he drove at walking speed, looked at us and waved. That could have been the end of our journey. Instead of the police, the old Indian led us through half the night to a home for elderly people, where at 5 a.m. sharp, loudspeakers in two trees in front of the building began to play a birdsong. He had wanted to show us this, so we had walked with him for half an eternity through Manhattan. After listening to the birds singing out of the speakers for a little while, he said: “White people are crazy.”

In between, he asked us how long we wanted to stay in the city. We said that we wanted to leave slowly and go to the countryside. He asked if we already had a plan. We didn't have one. “Then I have one for you, you might like it. You hitchhike to Bethel, where the legendary Woodstock Festival took place almost 25 years ago. There are some guys there who want to organise a big revival festival. They're planting vegetables on a grand scale right now, and when the festival takes place, everyone can help themselves and eat carrots and stuff. There's supposed to be an outdoor kitchen, right by the field, where volunteers cook and everything is free.”

Wooodstooock, of course we knew that. We had seen so many photos, we knew the music. The idea sounded great, so we agreed immediately.

“So, then, go to Bethel and ask for ‘Little Shit’ and you can stay at his place.”

Two days later we set off. We took the bus to get out of the city and then we hitchhiked on towards Bethel.

That worked out well and by the evening we were there, in this rather small place. But where was Little Shit? We went to the only pub in town. There were a couple of guys with baseball caps and long moustaches, some even with cowboy boots, at the bar. It felt a bit strange asking the tough guys for help because we didn't know where we could find someone called “Little Shit”. We could have asked the old Indian for Little Shit's real name.

The men laughed and told us that Little Shit wasn’t there at the moment and that he would probably come back the next day, and then asked us what we wanted from him. We briefly told our story. One of the men at the bar said that he had a place for us to sleep and that he lived directly opposite.

One of those famous yellow school buses was parked next to his house and that one was his. He had converted it into a snack bar and that was now our home for the night. We made ourselves comfortable and were almost asleep when his son came by with dinner for us. He was almost through with school and asked us what the universities were like in Germany. He couldn't believe that studying in Germany actually costed nearly nothing. He was very worried that he wouldn’t be able to afford the costs.

The next morning, his father came to us with great breakfast and said that Little Shit wouldn't be home until afternoon and that he had the day off and would drive us around a bit. One of the nicest people I had met on this tour was a prison guard and that day was his day off.

We drove around the area and he proudly showed us the big meadow where the legendary festival had taken place almost 25 years ago, in the so-called Summer of Love.

Afterwards, we walked through the small town and picked up some stamps at the post office. Sliding the stamps through the small slot, the old man at the counter asked us: “Guys, do you have any idea where you are?” Then he slid a book with lots of photos from back then behind him and said: “Boys, take a look at this first.”

Back at our snack bar, our prison guard father and hobby snack bar operator came up to us and said:

“Little Shit will pick you up in a few minutes.”

We stayed for a few days and tried to help with planting vegetables. And it was interesting to get to know the people that tried to awake the old spirit of Woodstock and to make the world a better place this way. But it didn’t really work out. It was all in all too chaotic and there were also too many drugs involved. In the end, we heard that the revival didn’t take place.

When we left, we felt pretty sad.

Andre and I, we now had different ideas, so I hitchhiked alone towards Montreal in Canada.