The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Hitching to Fenway was an adventure
Forty-five years ago, a friend and I did something crazy and stupid. And if I could turn back the clock to 1972 and be 19 once more, I would do it again.
My pal Brian and I decided it would be cool to hitchhike to Boston to watch the Indians play the Red Sox in Fenway Park in a three-game series in early August. We purchased airline tickets for the return trip, but did not have enough cash to fly both ways.
It was an adventure to end all adventures. I recall this most often when the Indians are in Boston, as they are now for a threegame series beginning July 31.
We needed two rides just to get from Chester Township to the Interstate 90 on-ramp by Lakeland Community College. We stood there, one holding a cardboard sign “Boston” and the other reading “Fenway Park,” each with a pathetic looking duffle bag at our feet.
It seemed like we were standing there forever before finally a car with New York license plates pulled over. He said he was going to Rochester, N.Y. It was dark by the time he pulled off the exit. We still had nearly 400 miles to go and one day to get to Boston.
We had little money in our pockets. Our driver was kind enough to drop us off at a cheap motel within walking distance to the highway on-ramp so we could continue our journey east the next day.
After an uncomfortable night’s rest on a mattress filled with corncobs and broken crockery, the lady behind the counter advised we could get a fine breakfast at the diner just a block down the road.
The restaurant owner’s version of air conditioning was to prop open the front door with a cinder block. Insects thought it was an open invitation to escape the sun that at 9 a.m. was already promising
a scorching day.
I remember eating scrambled eggs and sausage with one hand and shooing away flies with the other.
“Can I get you anything else?” our waitress asked kindly as we were finishing.
“A flyswatter,” I answered.
We were back on the road, thumbs and signs out, about 10 that morning. Nothing could have prepared us for what happened about an hour later.
A white car with rusted fenders, this one with Illinois plates, pulled to the side of the road just before the on-ramp. The driver leaned into the passenger’s seat, rolled down the window, and told us to hop in.
“Where are you guys staying in Boston?” he asked.
“We’re not sure,” I said, because we had no idea.
“I might be able to help,” he said. “I go to Harvard. The dorms are mostly empty at this time of year. You can stay there.”
So he pulled into Cambridge, Massachusetts, the evening of Aug. 6, a Sunday. I don’t remember the name of the hall in which we stayed, but it was free. I do remember walking around the campus and talking with some of the students who were still there. Some were studying law, some medicine, some philosophy.
“My major is interplanetary communication,” I told them, and they nodded.
Harvard is a five-minute taxi ride from Fenway, but we took the subway to Kenmore Square. We emerged from the subway to street level, and there it was over our shoulders — Fenway Park! We made it!
The Indians won the first game of the series, 6-2, and we let the fans around us know we were from Cleveland. Most of the early innings we just looked around and admired Fenway.
Everything was going fine until the third day. For some reason we took a different route to Fenway and had to cross a street to get there. We had to run to get in before the first pitch. That was when I got hit by a car. A big blue car with a really hard front bumper.
The driver stopped, but I stood, waved him on, and limped to the ballpark. By the third inning my knee stopped bleeding. I had a rip in my jeans before it was stylish.
The next day we took the subway to Logan International and flew home.
It was the end to a week I’ll never forget.