Every Little Bit Helps: An Odyssey Full of Adventure as Two Young Men Hitchhike Around the Country

By Stuart Landersman

Stuart Landersman is a retired Navy Captain with thirty years of service. He grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He was an Eagle scout, president of his high school class and active in sports, particularly basketball which he played also in college. After college he went into the Navy and served in destroyers, frigates, cruisers and amphibious warfare ships and commanded a number of destroyers. He had thirty months of combat action in the Vietnam conflict including duty on the staff of Commander Seventh Fleet. He had a tour of duty as aide to Superintendent of the Naval Academy, attended the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval War College and National War College and has a Masters degree and a Master Mariners license. After retiring from the Navy he worked for the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, served as a Convoy Commodore and taught ship handling in simulators. He has written a number of articles on naval matters and has published a novel, SHELLBACK, and an autobiography, STU’S SEA STORIES.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669860464

Stuart Landersman

Stuart Landersman is a retired Navy Captain with thirty years of service. He grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He was an Eagle scout, president of his high school class and active in sports, particularly basketball which he played also in college. After college he went into the Navy and served in destroyers, frigates, cruisers and amphibious warfare ships and commanded a number of destroyers. He had thirty months of combat action in the Viet Nam conflict including duty on the staff of Commander Seventh Fleet. He had a tour of duty as aide to Superintendent of the Naval Academy, attended the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval War College and National War College and has a Masters degree and a Master Mariners license. After retiring from the Navy he worked for the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, served as a Convoy Commodore and taught shiphandling in simulators. He has written a number of articles on naval matters and has published a novel, SHELLBACK, and an autobiography, STU’S SEA STORIES.

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Copyright © 2023 by Stuart Landersman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 02/08/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1.What To Do This Summer

Chapter 2.The Albany Post Road

Chapter 3.Starting Out

Chapter 4.Nut Crackers

Chapter 5.Utica - Syracuse

Chapter 6.Rochester-Buffalo

Chapter 7.Cleveland-Toledo

Chapter 8.Chicago

Chapter 9.On The Road West

Chapter 10.Yellowstone Park

Chapter 11.On The Road Again

Chapter 12.To Oregon

Chapter 13.Portland

Chapter 14.California

Chapter 15.Freight Train

Chapter 16.Chicago Again

Chapter 17.Homeward Bound

Chapter 18.The Final Story

Foreword

Every Little Bit Helps is mostly autobiographical, that is most of it is true, but mostly means not all, so the book is part true, part fiction. A few days after graduation from high school, Stu Landersman and George Monroe actually did hitchhike around the United States the summer of 1948. That’s true.

This book is about that hitchhiking summer.

Historians won’t tell us when or where hitchhiking started. Maybe they don’t know or, more likely, they don’t care. So, if we’re interested, we’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves.

The most famous Roman road was the Appian Way between Rome and Capua, built in 312 B.C.. But it’s too far back, too hard for us to imagine a Roman citizen thumbing for a ride on that road and being passed by four white chargers pulling a decorated chariot. Well, there’s no room for a passenger, anyway. Maybe the ancient Greeks? No, probably not. Not the Greeks, either.

Many centuries later we have horse drawn wagons on dirt roads in North America. Now we can use our imagination, aided by a number of scenes from motion pictures of the Old West, and we can picture a cowboy holding a saddle and signaling the stagecoach to stop for him. Clearly, he has lost his horse and he needs a ride to the next town. The stagecoach stops for the cowboy. He has hitchhiked a ride.

Stu and George didn’t carry saddles to convey the lost-horse gimmick. They did use a more timely sort of gimmick, though. They dressed like college boys, hoping that the approaching driver will think, Ah, here’s two college boys looking for a ride, and he will stop for them. And it worked pretty well.

We don’t see hitchhikers very much these days. Stu and George did their summer travel in 1948 and this book has been put together almost 75 years later. Back in 1948 hitchhiking was more common than it is today.

The history of hitchhiking can be pretty much told as a 20th century phenomena that first became really common with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many men were out of work and many of them tried to go to places that might give them jobs, even temporary jobs.

The approaching World War Two brought the Selective Service Act, the Draft, and many service men took to thumbing home on leave or to their next duty station. The Depression ended and war came in the 1940s, so hitchhiking was at its’ maximum over that twenty year period; 1930s and 1940s.

Hitchhiking was not the only means of travel for men out of work during the Great Depression. Many took to riding in freight trains. They were called Hobos and they developed a culture of their own, a culture that was at it’s peak through that same twenty year period as hitchhiking; 1930s and 1940s.

What happened to hitchhiking? Why don’t we see much of it now-a-days?

Two reasons.

One: The economic condition of the nation has so greatly improved since the 1930s-1940s time that thumbing is no longer needed. Nearly everyone has a car.

Two: The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways has often been called, One of the greatest public works project in history. It gave the nation a highway system that made travel by cars and trucks faster and easier than ever before. But it made hitchhiking a thing of the past.

Riding freight trains has also become a thing of the past. Why?

Two reasons.

One: Creation of a new system of packaging freight has been created. Fifty three feet long box-like containers are now in universal use. There is no more break-bulk cargo, no more railroad box cars for hobos to ride. All cargo that used to move in box cars now travels in containers, so there are no more hobos.

Two: Maybe there are no more hobos, but there exists now many people of that same separatist individualist mentality as was the hobo. Today they are called, homeless people and they exist in more number and in more places than did the hobos of the past.

So, Every Little Bit Helps explains how two young men toured the country, utilizing a number of travel systems and taking advantage of at least two methods of travel that are no longer in common use today. They met some interesting people, had a number of adventures, worked a little, played a little, romanced a little, and learned a lot and overall had a very good time.

It’s a short read but, Every Little Bit Helps.

CHAPTER ONE

What To Do This Summer

What to do this summer? That was the question nagging Stu Landersman as his senior year at Arlington High School was coming toward completion. Arlington was a suburb of Poughkeepsie, New York.

There would be the senior prom, the graduation ceremony, a few parties, and some trips across the river to another county where the bars stayed open ‘til three.

There was always the work with his uncle as an electrician’s assistant; good money and he knew the work well. He could search for a different job. Doing what? Where? Why?

In September he would be off to college. He had been accepted at Clarkson College of Technology in Potsdam, New York, where he intended to study Mechanical Engineering. But what to do this summer?

In the book Two Years Before The Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., the author describes his 1834 experiences as a sailor in a merchant ship and this had a considerable impression on Stu. A merchant ship! Why Not! He talked it over with his parents and with his buddies at school. Mother thought it too dangerous. Father thought it great. Friends thought it interesting and one, George Monroe, wanted to join in.

So how does one go about getting a job for the summer as a sailor, a deck hand, on a merchant ship? No one at Arlington, or in the next door City of Poughkeepsie, seemed to know. Stu had to find out.

Stu learned that merchant ships were owned by shipping companies, and many of them had offices in New York City at an area called, The Foot of Broadway. Also, the U.S. Coast Guard office that dealt with U.S. flagged merchant shipping had an office in that area as did the Maritime Union. So it was to the Foot of Broadway that Stu and George Monroe went.

A shipping company: We don’t do any hiring. The union sends each ship anyone they need. The Coast Guard gives them appropriate licenses or papers.

Coast Guard: We don’t do any hiring. We give licenses or papers to individuals that qualify as appropriate.

Maritime Union: We do all the hiring. You pay your entrance fee and your dues. Then you take your place on the seniority list and wait for your number to be called. Right now, because of the large number of seamen from the war, looking at many fewer ships, we don’t need any newbies, but we’ll be glad to take your membership and dues money.

And so, if there was a way to get a job on a merchant ship for the summer, Stu and George couldn’t find it.

What to do this summer?

Driving back from New York to Poughkeepsie, Stu and George talked it over. Clearly the merchant ship thing wasn’t there. Was there something else they could do?

George came up with an idea. This car, your car, we could drive it across the country, stopping at a few places. Maybe work for a couple of weeks here and there. Earn a few bucks to carry on. Meet some people. See the sights. What d’ya think?

Hm, yeah, not a bad idea. We could throw in my pup tent and a couple of blankets and save some hotel/motel bucks. Maybe, huh? In a park or something.

George went further with the idea. And remember, I’ve told you a dozen times, if you get a job at a restaurant or diner it’ll include meals, usually two a day. That’s what I’ve been getting for most of the last years at Howard Johnson’s.

And you’ve been following that most nights with a fourteen mile hitchhiking trip, huh? They both laughed as George agreed.

A few moments of silence and Stu asked, Have you ever thought about, have you ever totaled how many miles you’ve hitchhiked in all that time?

A few more moments as George thought, then replied. Damn it! Now you made me think about it.

They both laughed.

Let’s see. George started thinking aloud. It’s fourteen miles and most weeks I do it, say, five times a week. That’s seventy miles a week. I think I need a pencil and paper.

Look in the glove compartment.

George opened it, found what he needed, and was writing some figures. So, seventy miles a week, let me see, say 36 weeks a year.

Stu interrupted, Whoa! Where did you get 36 weeks a year?

Out of thin air

They both laughed.

George continued. Thirty six times seventy is two thousand five hundred and twenty. Call it twenty five hundred miles per year, three years is seven thousand five hundred miles. That’s my hitchhiking.

Both were quiet for a while. Both were thinking as the car ran on.

Stu spoke. A trip across the country, New York to California, would be about 3500 miles, with a few wiggle miles. Over and back, maybe 7000. With just a little more wiggle that’s 7500, same as your hitchhiking.

So what are you thinking, George asked.

I’m thinking, no, I’m saying that during your high school years you’ve hitchhiked the equivalent of a trip all over the United States, with some wiggle room, of course. Stu laughed.

George smiled, hesitated. So, would you be hinting, no, suggesting, that we spend the summer, not driving all over the country, but hitchhiking all over the country?

Stu also smiled. That’s what I was suggesting.

They both laughed and George said, Sounds great to me.

CHAPTER TWO

The Albany Post Road

U. S. Route 9 runs from New York City north, along the eastern side of the Hudson River all the way to Canada. The road goes through dozens of cities, towns and villages, through the counties and over the many streams that feed into the great river. The lower, or southern, portion of the road is known as The Albany Post Road and it runs from New York