Small Blue Highway Moments Find a small moment that you find telling, not only about the person described, but, by extension, about folks like him or her. Focus on that moment, deliver the details in summary, and comment on what it suggests on a larger level. For example…
As Least Heat Moon makes his way through Louisiana, there is a small moment with a young hitchhiking soldier that struck me as surprisingly rich and revealing. At a gas station, Least Heat Moon acquires some excess food from a generous traveler, frozen steaks and some bread, and then, after almost falling asleep driving further down the road, picks up a hitchhiker to talk to and stay awake. As Least Heat Moon drops off the hitchhiker, he gives his fellow traveler the meat, to which the young man replies, “It’ll be a good night at home. Mama loves steaks.” (Blue Highways 110) Several themes cut through this scene, especially the irony of the original gift: the traveler first gave the excess food to Least Heat Moon so he would not have to leave it “along the interstate for possums and niggers,”(108) and the hitchhiking former soldier to whom Least Heat Moon gave the food is a black man. However, what moves me was the gentle hospitality of the receipt of the gift, by both Least Heat Moon and the hitchhiker heading home. The Spec 4 who accepted both the ride and the food is a proud man, but seemed to recognize in Least Heat Moon a gentleness, an absence of arrogance, a quality that made the giving free and without attachements, and the acceptance equally free.(PJClements)G
7:37:40 AM 
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