The 80-Mile Hitchhike: When Freedom Met Foolishness (Part of the “Traveling While Black Gen X” series)

In The Know with Tony Reeves · Oct 21, 2025 · 18m

In 1987, I was just 18 — a college freshman at the University of Tampa and a brand-new Army Reservist trying to earn a $4,000 bonus. What should’ve been a routine weekend drill turned into one of the wildest, most dangerous journeys of my life. No car. No money. No phone. Just a uniform, a highway, and the belief that I could walk 80 miles from Orlando back to Tampa — because, at that age, I thought I was invincible. In this episode, I share how that long, dark walk down I-4 became a defining lesson about freedom, faith, and foolishness. From begging for food at a gas station to crawling…