Daring Duo

It was my freshman year at Michigan State University and being away from home for the first time I was spreading my wings so to speak.  Johanna was a senior and thus my roommates along with me thought her wise and knowledgeable about college life and life in general.  She was unlike anyone I had ever known to be sure.  Coming from a dairy farm outside a village, I was both fascinated by her daring and intimated by her fearlessness. 
 Through her we got to meet most of the varsity football players, she tutored them, and a variety of other colorful characters.  Whenever she was around there was adventure and mischief afoot.  Usually I shied away from her more “dangerous” sounding escapades, but on the evening of this particular memory I was in the mood to live a bit dangerously.  Besides, with the two of us I figured we could handle whatever happened. 
 I’m not sure how the subject came up, but when asked if I had ever hitchhiked before I had to admit I hadn’t as did most of the other roommates.  Johanna proceeded to extol its virtues for fun, adventure, and meeting new people.  Unconvinced, but with my curiosity piqued her and I set out to hitch a ride uptown.  My roommates either had other places to be or just plain chickened out.  Our first ride was a nice elderly couple who gave us a ride to the main drag, all the while warning us how dangerous what we were doing was.  We thanked them politely and pretended to go into a bookstore until they were out of sight.  By then I was warming up to the adventure and ready for our next ride.
 About then two young guys, roughly our ages, stopped and offered us a ride.  They looked a bit rough, but no where near dangerous so into the back seat we climbed.  The moment I sat down I felt something strange and immediately looked to Johanna.  She had felt it to and as we casually checked it out while carrying on a running conversation with the two guys, we discovered that we were sitting on about three rifles.  I nearly panicked and jumped out, but Johanna put a hand on my arm as she calmly told the driver that he could drop us off at the next block as that is where we were meeting our dates.  She casually added that they might know them as they both played football for Michigan State.  The protests that had begun died immediately and they let us out at the point she indicated.
 It was my only attempt at hitchhiking.  This song always reminds me of that night.  Oddly enough what I remember most about it is the excitement and anticipation, though deep down I know it could have been deadly.