Eric Stewart strummed his guitar serenely as he sang Simon & Garfunkel’s “America,” a song about two people hitchhiking across the United States.
Soon enough, people in the room started to join in on the chorus, and more and more voices sang out the story of two people who’ve gone out to “look for America.”
The song resonated with the audience at the Granville Center for the Arts on Monday, July 8 because they’d just listened to Frank O’Brien-Bernini read excerpts from his new book “Thumbs Up: Hitchhiking Across America, Fueled by the Kindness of Strangers.”
“Thumbs Up” tells the tale of O’Brien-Bernini and his friend Greg Roberts’ hitchhiking trip across the US during the summer of 1974, before O’Brien-Bernini’s freshman year of college.
He and Roberts had planned their trip a year in advance after Roberts brought the idea up in their highschool cafeteria in Springfield, Massachusetts. O’Brien-Bernini still remembers the meatball grinders that they were eating that Friday while agreeing to the trip.
He reminisced that one year was a “teenage eternity.”
But eventually that year passed and O’Brien-Bernini and Roberts set out on their adventure. While on the road, they met exceptional people, people that washed away his preconceived notions and introduced him to new ways of living.
And they relied a lot on the kindness of strangers as they met people that they never believed would pick up two strangers traveling across the country.
“People from all walks,” helped out the pair as they hitchhiked, O’Brien-Bernini said. Some even let them stay at their homes and take part in their meals.
At one point, O’Brien-Bernini and Roberts found two days of work at a strawberry farm in Washington, a venture that only landed them $18 combined.
O’Brien-Bernini told the story of the kind-hearted workers that shared their food with the boys, a much needed respite from all the strawberries they were eating. The workers were fascinated and asked plenty of questions about the trip and O’Brien-Bernini was “blown away by their compassion and generosity.”
The lessons he learned on his trip and the memories he made informed his interests throughout his life in college and in his career.
His time staying on the Yorty family farm in Pennsylvania taught him about the importance of sustainability. While attending North Adams State College, O’Brien-Bernini became involved with the Center for Resourceful Living, which focused on the idea of homesteading and living off the land — values that are still important to him to this day.
O’Brien-Bernini described the summer of ‘74 as a time of “uncertainty,” “transition,” and “shifting attitudes.” And as he introduced the book, he looked back on what life was like during this time period, referencing President Nixon, the Vietnam War and the energy crisis, as well as popular musicians like Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin.
During the book release, O’Brien-Bernini was accompanied by musician Eric Stewart, who played the soundtrack to his hitchhiking adventure and songs that were popular on the radio during the summer of ‘74.
And in his book, O’Brien-Bernini connected all of these songs to different places he visited on the trip.
Stewart strummed his guitar and sang “California Girls” by The Beach Boys as O’Brien-Bernini told tales of speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway in a Volkswagen bus with the sliding door open to admire the beautiful beaches.
He played “Rocky Raccoon,” by The Beatles after O’Brien-Bernini told his story of traveling through Black Hills of South Dakota.
And of course, Stewart ended with “America.”
When asked why he decided to write the book now, he simply said “if not now, when?”
And now is as good a time as ever, since O’Brien-Bernini recently retired from his role as chief sustainability officer at Owens Corning, where he worked for 39 years.
2024 is also the 50th anniversary of the trip, which is partially what inspired O’Brien-Bernini to put pen to paper and write down everything he could remember from that summer.
Roberts did the same and they compared notes, informing each other about places and people the other had forgotten about.
O’Brien-Bernini said it’s been nearly two decades since he last saw a hitchhiker.
“In general, people have an outsized view on the danger of hitchhiking. That outsized view comes from [how] when something happens anywhere in the world, we all hear about it,” O’Brien-Bernini said.
“Back in 1974 there was local news and if something happened in your town, you heard about it but if something happened on the west coast, you’d never know, so I think we end up with a statistically incorrect view of the danger.”
The book ends with a list of recipes from the trip and includes everything from meatball grinders to shoofly pie — all recipes that remind O’Brien-Bernini of his travels that summer and some of the delicious food he ate.
O’Brien-Bernini donated all the money from the book release back to the Granville Center for the Arts. If you want to hear more about the myriad of adventures that O’Brien-Bernini embarked upon, make sure to pick up a copy of “Thumbs Up: Hitchhiking Across America, Fueled by the Kindness of Strangers” for yourself.
Ellie Owen writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.