It was just after dawn on a darkened Sunday morning, when I set out from motel 6 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was carrying my purse, and had my guitar strapped to my back as I walked the partially lit rural road of I-40 towards my destination of Nashville, Tennessee. Visions of singing on the stage of The Grand Ol’ Opry had been fluttering through my mind virtually since I could crawl. It was gonna be a long haul to walk from Little Rock, but at this point there was no turning back now. I was gonna do anything at this point to follow my dreams of being a country singer.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I bolted after church from my hometown of Conway, Arkansas leaving the farm and my family behind. My father and I would argue a lot in my teen years, and I had just gone twelve rounds with him again this time over college and the prospects of me going to one. He never ever listened to what I wanted though. It was August 1976 and I had just turned eighteen and when I graduated high school in the spring as far as I was concerned, I was done with classrooms. I wanted to sing. So, on the spur of the moment, I waited for my parents to leave the farm that morning, and I grabbed my guitar and just left. ‘Fuck him!’ I thought, ‘This is my life.’

I walked all day Saturday from Conway to Little Rock which took me about 17 hours on foot. Stupidly, I was still wearing the clothes that I had on, which consisted of a light-blue button up blouse, and a just above the knee dark-blue skirt. I was also wearing nude-colored stockings and a pair of black heels. We had just returned from morning church services and my parents dropped me off then went into town to handle a banking matter.

When I was eighteen, I was a modest 123lbs. about fifteen of it my 38DD’s. I had long dark brown hair down to the middle of my back and a waif-like thin body frame. My legs were shapely but besides my boobs I really didn’t have many curves to me. My face was cute though and I always got boyfriends in high school. Apparently, my sizeable sweater-ed knockers gave some of my classmates plenty of spank material during their adolescence.

As my heels clicked against the asphalt of the road, I cursed myself for not changing my clothes and shoes into something a little more comfortable. It was too late now though; these were the clothes I was gonna must deal with until I got where I was going. When I arrived in Little Rock, I used the last 140 dollars I had on me for food and drink, and a motel room for the night. I slept completely nude so I could wash my clothes in the bathroom sink and put them all up on the shower curtain rod to dry for the night. It’s a good thing most motel rooms have an iron in them.

The road was desolate for a while, nothing passing by, and my feet were starting to hurt right away after starting out. They were still sore from the 17-hour trek from Conway the day before and I started to regret my decisions. I ended up taking my shoes and pantyhose off and just walked barefoot. It was then that I made a promise to myself that I would hitch a ride with the first car that drove by. Hitchhiking was always instilled in me as something too dangerous to do but I was getting desperate. Besides, it was the 1970s, hitchhiking was done a lot. It was safe. Then the Ted Bundys of the world ended all of that. Thirty-five minutes passed without anything on the road then finally I heard a car engine off in the distance way behind me.

I stood on the side of the road waiting for it to approach me. From far away it looked like a truck but as it got closer, I realized that it was a white and blue SUV with what looked like three people sitting in it. The truck got closer and while I waited, I started to panic about whether it would stop. I remembered seeing an old movie once where a girl was hitching, and she put her sexy leg out for the driver to stop. So instinctively, I did the same putting my left leg out in the road, smiled and raised my left thumb up in the air which is the universal ‘I need a ride’ sign.

It wasn’t until the vehicle got within forty yards of me, I realize that the three people inside were all very large black men. They were all dressed in orange and the three of them were smiling. I quickly pulled my leg back in. As they pulled up aside me, my smile turned to a look of surprise when I realized who they were. The side of the SUV door read Federal Correctional Institution. These men were convicted felons, and only a few hours earlier, the three of them escaped from their prison and had stolen an official car and were now at large and on the run. They pulled up beside me.

Thad: “Well looky what we got here!”

Karmel: “Sheeet! It must be Christmas!”

Mac: “Sweetheart what you are doin’ walking way out here all by yourself?”

Cynthia: “I’m trying to get to Nashville.