A Scary Experience

It’s close to Halloween, time to think about scary things. It’s fun to bundle up and watch a not-too-scary movie or listen to ghost stories in a dark room. That’s a thrilling sort of thing to do on a windy, stormy night. Though there are no ghosts or goblins involved, the following was an experience I had which was a bit on the creepy side.

I look back when I was a young adult; my friends and I used to love to drive all around the Los Angeles freeways late at night just exploring. Sometimes we would look for celebrities’ homes (or so we thought!) or explore the hills and twisty roads searching for so-called “haunted houses.” One time we searched for and found the home used in the Beverly Hillbillies, at least for the outside shot. As a now older and hopefully wiser adult, I would be scared out of my gourd to let one of my children go driving around the entire county of Los Angeles late at night these days! That would truly be a scary experience!

I think about a time that, looking back, I came close to a very bad situation. While it was happening I somewhat realized it, but now I certainly do!

Back in 1975 our Young Adult Church group decided to go camping on the beach. I lived in South Pasadena at the time and the beach decided upon was Port Hueneme way up north in Ventura County. We had a fun time visiting on the beach, making s’mores and goofing off. It was too cold to wear swimsuits and go into the water, but we had a great time none the less.  I remember waking up in my sleeping bag the following morning soggy from the ocean mist. After a simple breakfast my best friend Niki Coop and I decided to catch a ride home with Eric Palfreyman in his clunker of a car.

As we drove along the old highway, the car starting acting up and making noises. Eric slowed down and suddenly the entire drive shaft fell out of the car! Luckily we weren’t at a high speed or there would have been a terrible accident.

We started hitchhiking along the highway, being the geniuses that we were. We were in the boonies, no houses or businesses anywhere. A highway patrolman stopped and told us we weren’t allowed to hitch rides there, so we headed for an off ramp which led us down an old side road in the middle of nowhere. After a while a scummy young man in a beat up old car picked us up. He had marijuana decals on the dashboard and was probably a bit high at the time. Eric sat in the front seat and Niki and I sat in the back, wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into. He could have driven us anywhere. Eric finally told him to let us out, which he thankfully did.

Onward we walked along the deserted area. We had no idea where we were. After about twenty minutes a car came towards us… it was the same scummy guy coming back! Now my heart beat faster and I started feeling a little more fear. He pulled over several feet away and motioned for us to come over. Eric, being our protector, went to see what he wanted while Niki and I stayed put. Eric soon came back and the car took off.

“What the heck did he want?!”

Eric explained that the guy wanted Eric to go with him and ditch the girls. I was dumbfounded! So Niki and I weren’t the targets of this scummy character, it was Eric he wanted! We should have been protecting him! We laughed it off and kept walking. Something inside told me we had averted a bad situation. A nice older gentleman soon picked us up and took us to civilization. From there I have no recollection of how we made it home, but we certainly did and my parents never knew about my experience with hitchhiking.