I wrote this shortly after hitchhiking through Europe in the spring of 1968, a wonderful trip that took me from London to Jerusalem and back. That trip is recounted in my memoir, Remember Me, excerpts of which are posted on this site. As I recall, the impetus for this story was suggested to me when I met someone at a youth hostel who was very much like the mysterious traveler described here, though, unlike everything else in the memoir, it is largely imagined.

In 1967 and 1968 I had been living and going to college in London, though really what I had been doing was traveling – throughout England and the continent, to Manchester, East Anglia, Paris, Russia and Warsaw. My draft board and my parents thought I was in college, which was fine, but college for me was the road; it was education enough. After a brief visit home on spring break I returned to London to embark on my most audacious travel plan.

I packed a backpack, took a train to the south coast, and crossed the English Channel on . . .