I am an Indian from a small reservation in New Mexico. Pardon my use of that politically incorrect term but my mother was an Indian and my father was an Indian so naturally I'm an Indian, too. I haven't bought into the whole 'Native American' thing. My wife is from Oregon, she's white. Her parents moved to Oregon from Michigan. Her heritage is Heinz 57, according to her mother. Enough about our ethnicity.

We met while we were both hitchhiking 14 years ago. I was headed to Alaska and she was really headed nowhere in particular. She decided to go with me to Alaska where I was going to hook her up with some friends who would help her get reconnected with her children. She had gone through a messy divorce and lost her children to her ex-husband. His parents had used their money to help accomplish this. This was the reason that she was out on the road. I was going to go out on a fishing boat and then I was going to Europe and do some more hitchhiking.

Funny how the best laid plans do not always work out. We got stuck for 4 days on a freeway on-ramp in Pasco, Washington. We had money but Pasco was a long walk from the freeway. To eat and drink we had a box of Triskit crackers, a gallon of water, and a Walla Walla onion that had fallen of a truck . My future wife had some rolling tobacco but no rolling papers. You guessed it, she smoked. Car after car after car drove by but nobody stopped. I was going crazy. She on the other hand simply sat on our packs and waited.

Eventually, she needed a smoke. Since she didn't have any rolling papers I suggested using some corn husks that were lying, all over, beside the road. I explained that corn husks were used when we made our 'Indian cigarettes' back on the reservation. She agreed to try it.

I wanted to cause some type of problem that would possibly stop, or at least slow down, traffic in order to increase our chances of getting a ride. She enlightened me to the fact that if I did in fact cause a disturbance we could possibly end up in the Pasco jail. Henceforth, we would have to walk back to the on-ramp, whenever we were released. Needless to say, I didn't do anything stupid.

There has been so much more that we have been through during our time together. But I use this as an example of how two people from two very different worlds can hold each other up in a difficult situation. I realized back then on that on-ramp that I was in the company of a very strong person. She was able to maintain her control while I

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