That’s the problem with hitchhiking. You really take your chances.
You never can tell if the next motorist who picks you up is some kind of psychopath. Or maybe he’s the leader of the free world.
U.S. Marine Pfc. Harold D. Payne, 20, was attempting to thumb a ride home to Akron in December 1954 on a weekend pass from Camp Lejeune, N.C., when a caravan of dark, imposing vehicles approached in suburban Washington, D.C.
“At first when I saw these cars coming along, I thought it was a funeral procession,” Payne later told the Beacon Journal.
Payne was traveling with a buddy, Pfc. William L. Weaver, 19, who was hitchhiking home to DeWitt, Mich., when they found themselves standing at Grafton Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Md., about 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10.
Several motorists zoomed past, paying little heed to the pleading thumbs of the uniformed men on the corner. Fortunately for the Marines, a World War II veteran happened to be traveling that route with his wife.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former five-star general and supreme commander of the Allied Forces, was riding in a motorcade from the White House to a weekend retreat at Camp David with first lady Mamie Eisenhower.
The president’s car was stopped at a red light, preparing to turn onto the main highway, when Eisenhower saw the two men and ordered the motorcade to a halt. He dispatched James J. Rowley, leader of the U.S. Secret Service, to ask if the Marines would like a lift.
Boy, did they ever! It was just one more reason to like Ike.
Kindness, of course, had its limits. Eisenhower didn’t exactly scooch over on his seat or have Mamie sit on the servicemen’s laps, but he did direct them to a waiting vehicle in the motorcade.
“I was two cars behind the president and one behind Mrs. Eisenhower,” said Payne, a Hower Vocational High School graduate who enlisted in the Marines in May 1953. “Got a good view once in a while of the back of the president’s head. Mrs. Eisenhower turned around every so often and I could see her pretty well.”
Payne and Weaver made casual conversation with the president’s valet and a Navy physician who were also in the vehicle. The Marines rode about 40 miles before the motorcade dropped them off near Hagerstown, Md.
Unfortunately, Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, were not waiting in a second motorcade to transport them the rest of the way, so Payne and Weaver had to come up with other plans.
“It got cold and I hopped a bus to Pittsburgh and then another one home,” Payne explained.
Journey makes papers
By the time Payne arrived in Ohio and Weaver made it back in Michigan, they were already American folk heroes.
Newspapers around the country carried articles about their unusual ride in the Eisenhower caravan. As Associated Press reporter Marvin L. Arrowsmith wrote: “On the 65-mile drive to Camp David yesterday, the president surprised two hitchhiking Marines by halting on the outskirts of Washington and arranging a lift for them in another car in his motorcade.”
The hitchhikers’ journey was archived in the president’s daily schedule for Dec. 10, 1954: “2:05 p.m. (At the corner of Grafton and Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, the Presidential motorcade stopped and picked up two servicemen, who were hitchhiking a ride home.)”
After arriving at 5:30 a.m. Dec. 11, Payne enjoyed happy reunions in Akron with his wife, Martha, and his mother, Leona Duve, and got a lot of mileage out of his famous thumb, posing for newspaper photographers.
After his military service, Harold D. Payne moved from Ohio to Tennessee and worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority, where he retired.
He was a husband, father and grandfather when he passed away in July 2014 at age 78. He was interred at Chattanooga National Cemetery with Marine military honors.
“He loved God, his country and his family,” Payne’s obituary noted. “He never met a stranger and was always in high spirits.”
Especially when the stranger was the president of the United States.
Mark J. Price will sign copies of his book Lost Akron from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Saturday during the Cascade Locks Park Association’s Holiday Extravaganza at the Mustill Store at 57 W. North St., Akron. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.