Getting Hitched

I don't often pick up hitchhikers. For one thing, you don't see them too often around here -- at least not when I'm traveling. Every once in awhile, tho, the timing is right, and today was one of those times.

The owner of the thumb was named Ben. I guess some would characterize him as a hippie. Some might even call him a "Dead head" because he has spent a lot of the past two years hitchhiking around the US (crossing it twice) while catching a lot of Grateful Dead concerts. He explained that he spends a lot of time camping, sometimes around New Paltz, often spending a month in the woods on a self-imposed retreat. I didn't get the impression that he is a stoner or someone who is avoiding life. Rather, he struck me as a younger version of a good friend of mine who spent many years figuring out what he wanted to do before finding steady work, getting married, and having two kids. I mentioned this to my new friend with the undertone that perhaps he, too, would satisfy his wanderlust and find a way to conform... just a bit... to society at large.

During our conversation, I realized that no one in my family has ever taken permanent work in a business office. I used to teach, and now I tutor, so the closest I've come to office life is when I met with colleagues at my old school. Shirra owns a shop, and before that, she spent most of her time chasing after three kids. My brother is a composer and pianist who has, of late, been touring with the Paper Bag Players. I can no more imagine him working in an office than I can imagine him growing a second head. Shirra's brother is a teacher. My parents are psychiatrists. Shirra's parents worked as teachers and actors. Going back to earlier generations, we find rabbis, business owners, musicians, doctors, salesmen... but no office workers.

Somehow I don't think that this is a coincidence. For one thing, our family is fairly eclectic. Office work seems to require a certain level of conformity that I don't possess. Teaching requires it, too, but to a lesser extent, and even that was difficult for me at times.

The closest I came to working in an office was when I had to dress up nicely in order to work a few weeks in a doctor's office for a summer job in college. It was a sweltering summer and the office was only mildly cooled, so I arrived sweating from my bus rides and stayed warm throughout the day. It was around this time that I decided to avoid any job that mandated tie-wearing or mass transit. This was in 1986.

I once tried my hand as a telemarketer when I was looking for summer work back in my college days. I lasted two days at that job. I have worked as a waiter, house painter, busboy, Barbie Knit-Magic displayer, flier distributer, tanning booth operator, research assistant, and probably a few other jobs that I've forgotten. My teaching posts allowed me to express myself somewhat in my clothing choices (as long as I wore long pants rather than shorts), and I biked or unicycled to work for over a decade. I guess that some people would characterize me as a hippie. Right on, man.