2 more bullet points

• Delightful Thanksgiving visit with Danielle and Michael and one of the cutest two-year-olds ever.

Brendan had Thanksgiving with his fiancee’s cousin’s wife’s mother’s husband’s parents and their extended family. We played obstacle football with a regular ol’ half-brother and an aunt’s boyfriend’s children. If we pretend that fiancee-hood and boyfriend-hood can be the same as in-lawness, that would make those kids Brendan’s step cousins in-law^3. Or, as Wes would say, his shirttail cousins.
We had deliciousness and played dominoes at the Thanksgiving feast. We watched the Seahawks get creamed by the Dallas Cowboys (we were in Dallas, so groans would have been ill-advised).
The next two days were spent enjoying the pleasant company of Dani and Michael and Andrew and Kalab, and the last night produced these delights:

Stina is thinking about writing a story titled The Boy in the Clock.

• Recovered dedication! Ride from Dallas to Houston with construction worker who was very hesitant at first, asked us if we had any weapons, specified that I (Stina) sit in front, but by the time we got to Houston was showing us pictures of his family.

After being dropped off Sunday morning by Danielle and Michael at a nice south-of-Dallas freeway exit, the blustery wind suddenly began to cut right to the bone. We decided to trudge to the next exit which we could see was in a bit of a valley and near a gas station so we could get out of the wind. We had sudden worries of Chicago hhiking. We trudged the mile or so and discovered two dogs very eager to become our friends at the gas station. Just as we were kneeling down to play with them, a Dodge Ram pulled up and rolled down his window. We hadn't even stuck our thumbs out yet, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but Vincent asked if we had any weapons, asked where we were going, and told us that Stina had to be the one to sit up front (I imagine he was worried Brendan would grab the steering wheel from him and run off with it). Once we were settled in and didn’t try to kill him, he told us that he had seen us walking as he had gone to get gas and had prayed over whether to pick us up or not. He told us God must be with us ‘cause he doesn’t usually pick people up.

Bullet Point 1 Filled Out

* Ride from New Orleans to Jackson, MS from roofer who'd just gotten out of jail for a traffic violation and was on his way home for Thanksgiving.

We waited until Tuesday to leave because we thought we might have a ride all the way to Carrollton, TX, which is very close to Plano. We’d posted an ad on Craigslist rideshare, and this is part of what I mean by lack of dedication to hitchhiking. We were trying to find an easier way, and we could always try and find easier ways, but that isn’t the point. The point is to get out there and hitchhike, trusting people so that they will trust us back.

The ride fell through, so we set out Tuesday morning. We took the streetcar to the edge of the city and a highway entrance, and then we held out our “Dallas” sign and put out our thumbs. Within five minutes, we had a ride with the roofer. He was going all the way to Jackson, MS, and he thought we might have an easier time getting from there to Dallas. Since it ultimately shaved 150 miles off our journey, we went with him to Jackson.

The roofer had gotten out of jail at 1:45am that same day. He’d been in since Friday night and said it was for a traffic violation, but he also mentioned cussing out the cop. He said the New Orleans jail was one of the worst he’s ever been in, and he’s been in and out of jail and prison since he was 26 years old. I think he said he is 39 now.

He was born and raised in Louisiana, but his parents had moved to Mississippi several years ago, so he goes back and forth between the two states for work and visiting. He’d been hitchhiking just before Thanksgiving one year ago when his current boss picked him up and asked him if he needed a job. He is in between roofing jobs right now. His boss has a cocaine addiction, and sometimes his addiction comes before paying his workers their full wages, so he (the roofer) is thinking about looking for work in Jackson until his roofing boss calls him for another job.

He’s got a girlfriend in MS. He said he met her on a job. She is friends with one of his co-workers and she came by to see her friend, and the roofer was introduced to her. The way he recounted their meeting was matter of fact. She told him she needed a man around. She left but came back another day and he asked her if she really needed a man around and she said heck yeah, she needed a man around. So he went over and they ended up watching a movie together and now she’s got a man around.

He drank two beers over the course of the drive to Jackson. At first this made us wary, never having been in a car with someone who is driving and drinking, but he sipped them very slowly over three hours. He loves his beer. He said he doesn’t mind working hard all day as long as he can have his six-pack afterwards.

It was a very interesting ride. There is a category of people who pick up hitchhikers in order to have someone to talk to on a long ride. A 19 year old girl who gave us a ride from Bellingham to Everett back in September fit this category, and so did this guy, though they live utterly different lifestyles. It took very little prompting on our parts for him to tell us so many details of his life, and it is one of the things I love the most about hitchhiking.