As the Minnesota Orchestra finishes up the ambitious Bernstein Festival with a series of Young People’s Concerts this weekend, it seems as good a time as any to recount the time the legendary composer and conductor picked me up hitchhiking.

It was a humid summer night in 1975. In my summer employment as a parking attendant for Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Lenox, Mass., I had just finished herding vehicles out of a large field behind the complex that served as one of the parking lots.

I was standing at the bottom of a road that went over one of the hills in the Berkshire Mountains, clad in my uniform, a flashlight and paperback book in my left hand and my right thumb pointed out. A large white limousine sped by then pulled over about 20 yards up the road. A door swung open as I approached and a voice asked, “Where you goin’?” Even in the muted light I recognized the craggy face of Leonard Bernstein.

Climbing into the seat directly opposite him, I explained I only was headed about three-quarters of a mile up the road, to the bottom of a dirt road where I’d get dropped off and hike about another half-mile to my tent. As cryptically as possible (I needed to spot the drop-off point in the dark) I explained to Bernstein that, besotted with Jack Kerouac’s "Dharma Bums” and the poet Gary Snyder, I’d decided to live outdoors for the summer.

I’d found a secluded spot near a clear stream that ran into the Shadowbrook Reservoir, land once owned by Andrew Carnegie that now belonged to a church at the bottom of the hill, and correctly assumed no one would bother me. Without rent, I could survive on my wages as a parking attendant.

"That’s tremendous!” the composer enthused, and clapped his hands once. "Is it good?" When I replied that it was, he said, "I wish I could trade places with you. What are you reading?" he nodded down to my book. It was a novel by Yukio Mishima; I can’t remember which one. "Say," he said, "have you ever read, 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?' " I hurriedly told him I hadn’t, then informed the driver that my stop was just up the road on the right.

"Well, I think you’d like it," Bernstein said, as we pulled over. He asked my name, then extended his hand without introducing himself and said, "Well Britt, it has been a pleasure talking with you." Same here, I said, then opened the door and got out. Just before I closed it, Bernstein leaned forward and said, "Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s important."

When I’ve related this brief encounter at various times over the ensuing decades, cynics have pointed out that it was precisely at this time, during the 1970s, that Bernstein was going through something of a sexual identity crisis, and that he was likely trying to pick me up in ways that don’t involve hitchhiking. Maybe so: I was 23 at the time and in good shape.

But I had hitchhiked literally thousands of miles by then, and had become pretty attuned to that sort of attention from my rides. Bernstein didn’t exude a gay vibe, and only touched me to shake my hand. I’ll never forget the emotional power that emanated from him during our five-minute happenstance. I could tell he wasn’t kidding when he coveted my circumstances, and probably my youth.

He was renowned for his intellectual curiosity and enthusiastic support for unconventional paths, of course. But to have it directed at me when I was just a kid in a uniform working at the bottom of the employment totem pole was immediately inspiring, and has retained a glow for me whenever I replay it.

Besides all that, this world-famous musician instructed his chauffeur to stop his limo so he could extend the simple courtesy of a ride. I’ll never forget it.

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