A work by Irv Thomas in 23 chapters, 126 printed pages and 130,000 words.
In 1991, at the age of 64, Irv made a truly amazing trip through Europe, much of it by power of thumb. He chronicles that trip in this very expertly produced book. Irv has a flair for the literary and writes in a comfortable and readable style. He presents his story more or less as it happens, one week to a chapter. The presentation is a stark contrast to Marty's ( The First League) though none the less interesting, if anything a little easier to read.
One of the gems in this book, for me, is at the very start, the story of Irv's hitch down the West Coast of the United States. A gem purely because it is the strongest and most current account I have seen that hitching is still alive and well in America. All the stories I found (for this series of reviews) relate to European hitching, even this book for the greater part, and I am consistently exposed to rumours that hitching has died in America, something I steadfastly refuse to believe. Well you can imagine that I take heart at Irv's account of it.
Like Marty, Irv uses his book as a playground for presenting his philosophies, and rightly so. Such is the bent of many a hitch-hiker, with much time and cause to think about how we all relate to one another. Unlike Marty, neither Irv's focus nor his theme is primarily hitch-hiking. Hitching to Irv is less the topic for discussion so much as a given facet of his whole persona, which is (the topic for discussion).
Irv's greatest passion is Providence. Irv's Providence is essentially Jung's Synchronicity and Redfield's First Insight, the idea that what we call 'co-incidence' and all too readily dismiss as happenstance, can carry meanings and messages. Like Jung, Irv has a passion for the Chinese book of changes the I'Ching. To Irv, the driver who stops is not a random selection of the passing traffic, it is the meaningful selection of Providence.
Irv has a parallel passion for seasons, his metaphor for the cyclic nature of everything around and within us. That we can live in harmony with those cycles, to our benefit, is a firm conviction of his. He uses the four seasons metaphorically, to describe the cycles of our own spirit. "Winter," he says "is a season that resides inside of us -- as they all do."
Irv lives by his creed. In his 40's he resigned his position as a computer professional, turned his life over to Providence to live in harmony with the Seasons. He's been living on the edge ever since, touching poverty on occasion. One of the major themes to this book is how he managed to pass the summer in Europe on less than $100 a week!
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