Well, I was in college. I belong to the Rovers, a super outdoorsy group. At one of their meetings,
they had a sign-up sheet to go by van with eight others to Panama City. That whole sense of
exploring and getting to know people from other countries was more and more getting into my blood.
I started from my hometown of Buffalo, Minnesota in December of 1973. We went through all the
Central American countries and then to Bogota, Colombia, and from Colombia to Ecuador, Peru,
Argentina, and Brazil. From Brazil, I worked my way on a ship to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
I traveled the main countries of Western Europe as well as Yugoslavia and Hungary.
I grew up in a small town. We had one police officer and that police officer didn't have
any formal training. It was just that he was tall. So to go from that to, you know, being this
world traveler, someone who traveled 40 countries during this trip, it's really quite amazing.
When I was in Bogota, I was thinking, you know, I remember studying about the llamas of Peru.
So that was my destination to go to Peru and see the llamas. And I also found out about Machu
Pichu. It was at Igua Su Falls. I tried to keep to about three dollars a day. You know,
I was young. I was 24 when I started the trip. It was a combination of being adventuresome,
courageous, somewhat naive. The first day that I got to Bogota, I was walking down a street about
11 o'clock in the morning and I had just bought a new Pentax camera. And all of a sudden, there
were four or five young guys that converged and cut this camera from me. They had clubs and they
had a machete. I started running after them. Fortunately, I didn't catch up to them. Being
on my own after leaving the Rovers was a little difficult. But then I, you know, moved on and
I met a fellow from Sweden, Anders. And Anders and I hitchhiked together for all three or four
days. I think the third night we asked at a police station if we could stay there and they
wouldn't let us. So we went to the fire station and about six o'clock the fire alarm went off.
From my bed, I heard him try to start the fire truck and they couldn't get it going. And I was
thinking the poor people who are having a fire. I spoke to a woman up in Machu Picchu. She said,
at Santos, some of the ships need workers. And I started putting together more of my trip to go
to Santos, Brazil. I literally would take one bus after another. Some of these bus trips were
like 31 hours. And then I would, after I got off the bus, I'd say, oh, where's the bus to, you
know, wherever. And they'd say, oh, it's there. It's leaving. If you run, you will catch it. Okay,
so I would run and catch this bus. I felt, you know, like the Ironman bus rider. Finally,
I got into Santos. And I found out that one of the possibilities was working with the Humberg
Sood line. And so I, you know, spoke to the one of the fellows on the Cops on Augustine,
I was able to sign on. They remember talking to this fellow Juergens from Germany. And I told
them, I've always dreamt about working on a ship. And I'd paint her pound rest or clean walls.
This work was extremely tedious. And Juergens said to me in a very deadpan way, is this what
you've always dreamed of? With hitchhiking and with buses, it could be very dangerous. I was
always on guard that somehow I was going to be ripped off. And so I would cling, you know, to the
few possessions that I had. For me, my backpack, you know, a tent and sleeping bag were extremely
important possessions. And so here I felt safe, you know, on this ship. One of the rovers said
to me, John, if you ever get to Europe, make sure you see Leo, whose stage name is Willie Hill.
Leo gave me a tour of the World Peace Palace. And I went up to Amsterdam. But he said, you know,
there's someone I'd really like you to meet, you know, after you leave our home. And he was really
an unusual fellow. He'd would get together with students from the university and meet him, you
know, in a local pub and talk to him. He said, oh, you really need to go to Tisey. That's, that's
really a great place. It's in southern France, near Clooney. And I think there were 20,000 young
people from 43 countries. And it was part of the Council of Youth. You know, many of them are
searching for meaning in their life. But it was such a wonderful, cross-cultural event that had a
deep impact on me. From Tisey, France, we went into Italy. Visually and artistically and culturally,
it was, you know, just such a rich experience. And then, of course, to see some of the ruins.
Think back of how people were tortured and put to death because, you know, of their faith. We
also traveled to Florence and Venice. I remember standing on a bridge, you know, at one point,
just looking and really being amazed by, you know, it just being so culturally different.
I graduated from the University of St. Thomas in May of 1971 with an English degree. The school
was always, you know, like crammed for this and crammed for that. Get up at four o'clock in the
morning, you know, to study for an exam. So to be able to go on a trip and really enter into the
people's lives, the art, the music, it was just such an enriching opportunity. And I wanted to
keep, you know, my mother and dad abreast of where I was, how I was doing, what was happening.
Because here I left Buffalo in December of 1973. They weren't going to be seeing me until August of
74. There were times of loneliness where you need to call for your inner strength to continue on.
I really longed for some contact. And it's not one of those things of going from point A to point B,
but rather keeping open to various timelines and just how to experience the people and the
culture and the places. It really was, you know, as the wind sails. From Rome, we went to Israel.
We connected with people. For example, I'd meet some small kids, you know, some children, you
know, and because I had the backpack and I looked kind of like interesting for whatever reason,
you know, they'd be open to me. It's a sense of really being fully alive with people of various
countries and different cultures and different ways of life. And there's a richness in that. Each day,
I kept a journal of what was occurring and what we'd see and different people we met. As I've
reflected on that journal, it just brings me back to what I was experiencing, where I'd sleep at
night, you know, in a cow pasture. And then in the morning, we'd be awakened with cows surrounding
our tent. Cows are very inquisitive. I didn't know that. You learn strange things. On this trip,
I traveled by foot, by cars, trains, buses, motorcycles. At first, I would become impatient
if I would have to wait for a ride. But then gradually, I began to trust that the right
ride was going to come along. It was either someone I needed to talk to, or a short ride
leading to a long ride, or something like that. It's placing one's trust that things are going
to work out, that things are going to be fine. Hitchhiking is a cumulative experience, a never-ending
happening of unknown factors, not just the chance to say that you've been to a place,
but the feeling that at one time, even if only for an instant, you become a part of the land
through which you traveled.
