Tag Archives | hitchhiking

Veterans Day: The Lost Soldier I Met at the Baltimore Bus Station

Baltimore Sun, November 9, 2018 On Veterans Day, I remember ‘Bobie’ from Baltimore by James Bovard Veterans Day is a time for parades and tributes to those who served in America’s armed services. But most celebrations ignore the human carnage that inevitably follows when politicians send their fellow citizens off to foreign wars. Considering the […]

Continue Reading
ADN-ZB-Stöhr-4.12.1961-In der Nacht vom 3. zum 4.12.1961 wurde begonnen, an weiteren Abschnitten die Staatsgrenze der DDR zu Westberlin zu festigen. Auf unserem Foto die Panzersperre am Kontrollpunkt Friedrichstraße.

My First East Berlin Escapade

MY FIRST EAST BERLIN ESCAPADE By James Bovard This is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – one of the most glorious moments in the modern history of freedom.  I first passed through that wall while hitchhiking around Europe in the summer of 1977. After camping in West German woods within […]

Continue Reading
jpb-podcast-hitchhiking-trust-me-11-13-2018-Picture-226

Podcast: Hitchhiking to an Antiwar Awakening

Here’s the 7 minute story of how my hitchhiking follies led to my antiwar awakening via a drunken Vietnam war vet in a desolate, dicey Baltimore bus station. I welcome critical feedback on how to notch up future podcasts. Just a little overlap between the video and my oped last week in the Baltimore Sun […]

Continue Reading

Busted in Barcelona (Almost) 1977

I heartily support Catalonia’s referendum on secession even though I was almost arrested the only time I visited Barcelona. I hit Spain as the next-to-last country in a 5000-mile hitchhiking jaunt in the summer of 1977. Within 10 minutes of getting dropped off south of the French border, I realized that my two years of Spanish […]

Continue Reading
JPB-Antiwar-Hitchhiking-story-collage

FFF: Antiwar Awakening From a Baltimore Boozer

Future of Freedom Foundation Anti-War Awakening on a Bus Trip from Baltimore by James Bovard August 17, 2017 In the summer of 1975, I took off hitchhiking from the mountains of southwest Virginia to visit a college girlfriend in New England. Less than 300 miles into the trip, my thumb lost whatever magic it once […]

Continue Reading
1970-jpb-cropped-sharpened-only-img_0001_new

FFF: Boy Scouts and the Love of Freedom

Future of Freedom Foundation, Boy Scouts and the Love of Freedom by James Bovard October 18, 2016 Some of my anarcho-libertarian tendencies arose thanks to the years I spent as a Boy Scout. Joining the Scouts was an easy decision, since my father was a Scoutmaster. Even without the family obligation, I might have signed […]

Continue Reading