Too young for a driver's licence,
I had my sister Birdie
take me to the Pike,
and there in Newton, Mass.,
I stuck out my thumb,
and headed west.

Evangelical preachers,
truck drivers,
a banana bike a nice kid lent me
to cross a western town all the way
to the A and W root beer place,
a couple of guys in a Ford Mercury,
headed to Vegas to kill somebody,
mosquitos at dusk at an interchange in
Fargo, North Dakota,
that I thought were going to kill me.
Stuff like that.

Night and day, late August,
school pretty soon.
I really wanted to see Europe,
but thought I should see my country first.
and summer was almost over,
without learning anything new.

Four and a half days to Seattle,
then up the Space Needle,
nice people there, they might 
have been angels.
Then a night at the Y,
a morning glance at a bit of 
Seattle, then time to start East for school.

First ride, wow, a big one!
All the way back to Coeur d'Alene!
A young man, as I remember, a talker,
who told me why he picked me up.

He had been a tough guy, martial arts,
something called a Black Belt.
This was '64, and that was a new term to me.
Anyway, he told me he trained and trained,
and got different color belts as he got better,
and Black Belt was the top. Which he got.

And one night, when he was walking
a dark Seattle street, a shadowy figure came out
of a dark alley and started to attack,
but Mr. Shadow only got to touch Black Belt's shoulder,
and then Black Belt spun and hit.

Mr. Shadow went down quick, and did not get up.
Then the cops, ambulances, sirens, stuff like that...
the story to the cops, the ride to the hospital,
waiting in the waiting room by the emergency room.
The doctor coming up to Black Belt, saying
"This man is dying. Do you want to see him?"

And Black Belt deciding... yes,
and going in to see the old man on the gurney,
who looked up at him,
and recognized him,
and said to him:
“All I wanted was a light for my cigarette."
and died.

Black Belt told me that he later
took his car out onto the expressway,
took it up to a hundred or so,
and aimed it at a bridge abutment,
and then decided, in the nick of time, that he didn't
want to do that to his mother.

So he decided to try to be nice, and so, among
other things I'm sure, picked me up, 
told me a story, gave me his address and phone number,
(if i was ever out that way again
and wanted some good fishing), 
took me all the way back to Coeur d'Alene,
and dropped me off.