Meet Buster: My Big, Fat Tumor

Frank and Morgan at Carefree Highway in Phoenix Area

Thursday afternoon I got a call from my good friend Frank. Turns out he was at a truck stop along I-10 in Quartzsite, Arizona, heading for Phoenix on a cross-country hitchhiking trip to Maryland.

It had been a while since I saw Frank- not since last spring in Southern California when we were working on a hitchhiking documentary called Along the Way. Frank was diagnosed with cancer this last fall. He’s been going through chemotherapy and radiation since that time, while living in California. The doctors told him he’s got at least a month until his next treatment so he decided to hit the road, hitchhiking from one coast to the next as he has many times these past few years.

I was excited to hear that Frank had time to stick around for a day. I told him to plan to stay with me overnight and I’d get him a little further down the road the next morning.

“You lose your hair yet?” he asked me.

“It’s begun to fall out, yep,” I told him. “I took some photos of me pulling out clumps.”

“Well, mine’s growing back in. I get to tease you now that you’re the baldie.”

The next day, early Friday afternoon, Frank called to say he was down the street from my place. He had ridden local buses in from the Flying J truck stop he was dropped off earlier on the southwest side of town. Kasha went to pick him up and from the moment he walked through the door we were catching up on travels and our recent struggles and realizations with cancer.

Plans were made to meet up with the family for dinner. We chose Fajita’s, an old family favorite not too far away. All the sibs and spouses were there except Michael. Frank kept us entertained with stories of traveling through Mexico. I was glad to have everyone get to hear. You see, Frank is a hero of mine. The way he travels, the experiences he creates through sharing– I consider them vital and inspirational. He is a mentor and strong voice on digihitch.com, but here’s the reason I wanted my family to hear: to meet an important friend of mine as well as get a sense of what is important to me through his experiences.

Frank called me several hours after Kasha and I dropped him off at Carefree Highway this morning on the edge of Phoenix. He said he was already in Flagstaff and would be staying the night at the hostel. Sounds like the perfect place to be for such a sweltering weekend (115 degrees in Phoenix!!). I feel energized after our visit and am looking forward to hearing how his trip progresses as Frank blogs to digihitch.