A few months ago, I wrote a story for CBC Radio’s The Vinyl Cafe. The only requirements are that the story by true and that it be short. The story I submitted is certainly true but it is not incredibly short. Fearing my story will never grace the airwaves, I’m posting it here so it can at least gain some readership.
Dear Stuart McLean,
I’ve heard some of the tree planting stories on your show and, at the behest of several friends, thought I should lend you this story to share; it’s a bizarre tale of coincidence on the open road.
We were exhausted and sweaty, exuberant and rich. We had, at last, planted the final few thousand trees west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. With our treeplanting contract complete, we were finally heading for home. It was the end of June 2005.
I was sharing driving duties with a co-planter on an overloaded and near-decrepit, white school bus named Ducky. Behind the captain’s seat twenty sun-dried treeplanters were wedged tight onto twelve bus benches. Our assorted gear, shovels, tents, and garbage-bagged clothes were all stacked in one throw, filling the back third of the bus.
We had puttered off from Kakabeka Falls at 8:00pm, already a little later than planned. Dusk was falling as we merged onto the Trans-Canada Highway with our nose pointed north and the lights of Thunder Bay finally behind us. We hoped to skirt Lake Superior by midnight, have breakfast somewhere between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury, and then coast into Mississauga by mid-afternoon the next day– all at a top, downhill speed of 90 km/hr.
Just as I gathered speed, an old, grizzled man appeared on the shoulder of the highway with a bag by his side and his thumb sticking out into our headlights.
From the back of the bus came a shout, “Hey, Geoff, pick him up!”
I glanced up into the mirror, incredulous. We were already two to a seat, with one planter sleeping in the aisle and two others making their beds atop the luggage.
“You serious?” I called out, trying to gauge if this was just another crazy idea from Reimer, our crew’s most interesting of characters, or if this was actually the crazy consensus of everybody. I heard some laughter and caught a few nodding heads. After asking where the hitchhiker might possibly sit, I received only smirks and shrugs. I had, by this time, coasted well past the old man, seemingly ending the discussion. Instead, Reimer called out, “you gotta pick up the next one, alright?”
No sooner had he said this when my headlights again illuminated a hitchhiker.
“You’re in luck, Reimer,” I resigned to the mirror as I cranked Ducky onto the shoulder. I opened the doors to a young kid with a backpack; his beige tilley hat pushed down tight upon his head.
“Where ya going?”
“Toronto?” The laugh that followed his response was self-mocking.
I laughed too. “Well, you caught the right bus; we’re heading straight there! But,” I admitted, “we’re hurting for space.”
He shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto the bus; a free, eighteen-hour ride to Toronto was far too good to pass up– seat or no seat. He made himself comfortable by sitting on the top step, using his bag for a backrest. From this position, we made small talk while peering out into the blackness, four eyes keeping watch for wildlife.
John was nineteen years old and from Richmond, B.C. After turning down a construction job, he was off to see eastern Canada for the summer months before starting university in the fall.
“How long have you been traveling?” I asked.
“Only three days,” he answered, to my amazement, “a trucker brought me all the way across the prairies yesterday.”
We ended up wiling away the hours by talking of music. I told him of my brother’s punk rock band, Minute Switch, and he seemed interested, so I elaborated; I described their music, some of their recent venues, and the three band members, who were also good friends of mine.
After an entire night split between two-hour driving shifts and broken attempts at sleep, the sun eventually did rise. We rumbled past Sudbury, overheated outside Barrie, and pushed off half an hour later. Here, John, our hitchhiker-turned-friend admitted that Toronto was only a marker to get him to Southwestern Ontario. His real destination was a friend’s place in St. Marys, near London. We scoured the map and decided upon the best place for him to get off Highway 400 and try his thumb on a road running south west. Around one p.m., my driving partner hauled Ducky onto the shoulder and John jumped out.
It is here in the story that most hitchhikers disappear into the dust or snow of the road. The story, to re-tell later, is about the ride itself and the stories shared amongst strangers. But– not exactly with this story.
Twenty four hours later I was catching up with friends after my two month hiatus in the bush when the lead singer of my brother’s band walked into the house. With hardly a “hello”, he began telling me a story. He and the band’s bassist had been camping in Sauble Beach the day before but they had left in the afternoon for a show that evening in Kitchener-Waterloo. Just outside Listowel, Ontario, they saw a hitchhiker sporting a backpack and a beige tilley hat.
“Where ya from?” they asked as he climbed into their van.
“Richmond, B.C.,”
“Oh yeah? And how long have you been traveling for?”
“Only four days now,” he smiled.
“Wow,” my friend exclaimed, “you mean you’ve made it from Richmond to this field in only four days? What is that, like 4000 kilometers?”
To which, the hitchhiker simply recounted his luck: a trucker had brought him all the way across the prairies and a treeplanting bus had driven him through the night to Barrie.
“A treeplanting bus! A friend of ours drives a treeplanting bus up north. Do you know what the driver’s name was?
“Ah, Geoff, I think.”
My friends’ eyes widened.
“Do you know anything else about him?” asked the bassist.
“Well, he said his brother is in a band.”
My two friends burst out laughing: “Yep,” they roared, “we’re the band!”.
Crazy story!