BOOMERANG - Before And After Thumb Out
The story of how I ended up hitchhiking 10,000 miles and what happened after I got back
Boomerang spans the decade of the 1970s and tells the stories of that led to Surfing The Interstates: 1973 Hitchhiking Memoir and what happened afterwards. Unlike the cinematic, present-tense storytelling style of the hitchhiking odyssey, Boomerang uses a reflective, 74 year old voice that recounts the turmoil, struggles and pivotal moments that turned me into a transcontinental yo-yo for an entire decade, ending up back where I began, finally freed of my mistaken ambitions.
Table of Contents
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PART ONE: BEFORE THUMB OUT
1969-73 - What led to my 1973 hitchhiking odyssey
Chapter One: Purple Barrels - University of Pennsylvania (1969-71)
Chapter Two: Fish Out Of Water - Park Avenue, New York City (1971-72)
Chapter Three: The Band That Never Played Out - Greenwich Village, New York City (1971-72)
Chapter Four: Finding An Escape Hatch - Ledge Acres (July 1973)
PART TWO: AFTER THUMB OUT
1973–1980 · Chasing the wrong dream until the right one finds you
Chapter Five: Caught In The Light — Coming home to a home that's already gone (September 1973)
Chapter Six: Together Brothers — You can't put the genie back in the bottle (1974-75)
Chapter Seven: The Grind — A fresh start with renewed energy (1976)
Chapter Eight: The Rug — The pursuit and the betrayal (1977)
Chapter Nine: Hitting The Big Time — Inside the gates, outside the dream (1977-78)
Chapter Ten: The Factory Floor — Like putting hub caps on cars (1978-79)
Chapter Eleven: An Entrepreneur Is Born — Working for myself makes me happy (1979)
Chapter Twelve: The Summer Of S.H.I.T. — My father tries to bring his three sons together (1980)
EPILOGUE
Finally understanding my father (2026)
The Man Who Had To Win — How Daddy became “Ducks Ass” and ultimately “Dux”
The book begins with a man who has nowhere to go and ends with a man who has nowhere to go. The story is everything that happened in between.