On The Road In The 1970's: Part 87

 Being in a campus town, I only had to wait a few minutes on the road that led to the Interstate Highway entrance, before a young white woman hippie-freak, driving on her way to her day job, stopped her car and gave me and my large knapsack a short lift to the entrance of the highway that led south to the Ohio Turnpike. And less than ten minutes after she dropped me off, a van, with a guy driving, who was a long-haired hippie-freak-looking student, and two passengers, another long-haired guy who was a hippie-freak-looking student and a woman who was also a hippie-freak-looking student, offered me a ride.

All three were students at Clarion College in Clarion, Pennsylvania, who had been visiting the campus town I spent the night before in, during the previous week. And all three of the hippie-freak-looking students were already high from smoking the weed by the time they invited me to join them for free in the van on their trip back east.

Since they quickly shared a joint with me in the van, after I boarded it, and the cassette tape player in the van was playing rock music loudly during the whole time it took to reach Clarion College in Clarion, Pennsylvania by the late evening, I can't recall conversing with the three of them much during the hours of riding east in the van with them.

So my only recollection of what happened on this van ride into Ohio, and then east on Interstate 80 into Pennsylvania, is just listening while stoned to rock music as the van moved east on the Ohio Turnpike at more than 65 mph and onto Interstate 80  into Pennsylvania.

What i do remember, though, is arriving at the off-campus apartment they shared in Clarion, Pennsylvania in the late evening. And then quickly sensing that, from their point of view, the ride I htiched from them didn't include any offer for me to crash in their offcampus pad for the night.

So, after we all entered the pad they shared, still all stoned, but feeling an immediate vibe coming from the others in the living room that I was supposed to spend the night elsewhere in Clarion, I quickly snuck out of their apartment and disappeared from their scene, without them even noticing that I was leaving. They also likely didn't notice me disappearing from their apartment because they hadn't really all conversed much with me during our stoned drive to Clarion, Pennsylvania. So they still were not yet even award of my name and it hadn't really registered in their minds that I might be included in their scene for the night after arriving in Clarion.

No knowing anyone in Clarion and needing a place to hide away from any cops in the town during the night while I slept, I eventually headed for one of the buildings on Clarion College's campus.