Your Hitchhiking Story

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A couple weeks ago, as apart of our End of the Road series on the American car and the open road, we published ‘The End of the Open Road: The Inside Story of How Hitchhiking Died‘. If you’re over 40 you probably remember during your own lifetime that there was a time when hitchhiking was a normal thing people did. Not everybody did it. But it wasn’t something that seemed crazy or marginal. And then over a few years, probably less than a decade, it was something almost nobody did. At least it was something no one did without other people thinking they were reckless or crazy.

Here’s a letter TPM Reader DP sent this weekend. It is simply marvelous: a big trove of stories about America …

I’m sorry this letter is so late but this is my story.

I was born in 1959, hitch-hiking was a big part of the first half my life. When I was in the 8th grade growing up in a nice little upper-middle class suburb south of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, my mother actually wrote a letter to the principal of my school giving me permission to hitch-hike the three miles home every day as I didn’t care for riding the bus. Did it every day, I was in 8th grade! A safe community, I never once felt in danger. Throughout my teen years in the mid-1970s I hitch-hiked all around the area; to school, the pool, my friends’ houses, the mall, into Pittsburgh, eventually expanding to see one friend at college 120 miles away and another in Columbus Ohio. Did it all the time, never thought twice about it.

While in the Navy I thumbed (against the orders of my Commanding Officer, I got in a lot of trouble for that) from San Diego and Long Beach CA to my brother’s in Phoenix several times. Heat, deserts, crazy people. But the biggie was thumbing from Phoenix, AZ to Pittsburgh PA after getting out of the Navy. I left Phoenix on the afternoon of December 8, 1980 and learned the next morning at a truck stop in Gallup New Mexico that the previous night John Lennon had been murdered. It took me another three days to reach my destination, the experience was life-altering. I left Phoenix one person, when I arrived tired, cold and bitterly sad on Thursday morning I was a different person entirely.

A month later I thumbed back to Phoenix to gather my things, this time stopping in Austin Texas to see a friend. Had a run-in deep in the night in the middle of nowhere with a herd of cows and then another rather memorable night just west of El Paso involving a truck full of dog food. Long stories each, I still tell them to this day (the dog food one’s better). Got to Phoenix, sent all my stuff back to Pittsburgh, then took to the highway again, this time stopping in Louisville KY to see a friend (met a hottie I remember to this day) and Charleston WV to see my brother. Phoenix to Pittsburgh, back to Phoenix, then back to Pittsburgh. Three different routes. That was it for thumbing for a while.

In 1984 I hitch-hiked from Fort Myers FL to Pittsburgh (then flew back), the last time I ever stuck my thumb out would have been 1998 (?) when I got a flat tire on my way to a Dylan concert in State College PA and had to thumb down off the mountain to Altoona to call my girlfriend to come rescue me (no cell phones in those days). That’s been it, I haven’t hitchhiked since. Don’t imagine I ever will again.

(Before I continue, I want everyone to understand that “long distance hitch-hiking” also involves a great many miles of walking. With heavy backpacks and sometimes bad shoes.)

I pretty much caught the last days of the hitchhiking era but I took full advantage of it. Of the countless rides I accepted over the years and tens of thousands of miles, only one that I can recall left a bad feeling, but even that one worked out in the end without incident. To this day I remember specific people who picked me up; the old man with a Bassett Hound named Bo Diddley (“You want him? Take him, he’s yours”) who drove me from Tucumcari to Oklahoma City (at 50 miles an hour, took forever), the preacher who I forced to let me out of the car near Tulsa when he said John Lennon was burning in Hell, Gilbert who let me drive from St. Louis to Indianapolis ‘cos he was exhausted (though I’d been awake for nearly 40 hours myself). The guy from Arkansas who let me drive his truck (that I then wrecked), the first night out when a truck driver stuck a gun in my face as I climbed into his cab ‘cos he didn’t stop for me, he had no idea I was there, he had pulled over to check his map and suddenly the door flies open and I start crawling in… A misunderstanding, he drove me to Gallup that fateful night.

Some people fed me, some people I gave money to for gas, many refusing my offer. We drank beer and smoked pot while cruising down the road, exchanged stories, talked and laughed, sang, cried, ate and slept, tried to understand tragedy and sat quietly for hours watching the country go by. Music, the sun coming up over Monument Valley, getting snowed on, rained on, baked in the sun, I WALKED probably 20 miles total out of my way one night to get to Statesboro GA just so I could sing “Statesboro Blues” while walking down Main Street at 4:00 in the morning. A ridiculous goal certainly, but for the rest of my life I can say I did it. Saw meteor showers over the Painted Desert, got dumped on by the same snow storm twice five hours apart (the first time west of Terre Haute, IN, the second time later after getting out of a car that had driven me in front of the same storm so it could hit me again in central Ohio), pissing behind the guardrail in Ozona, Texas– I don’t know why that stands out but 35 years later it does–, hallucinating giant white buffalo flying over the highway because of sleep deprivation. The Best Cup of Coffee Ever, at a diner in Needles. Madness and sadness at times both exciting and debilitating.

It wasn’t always fun (I was truly fearful for my physical and mental well-being stranded in a sub-zero snow storm outside of Wheeling the last night of my first cross-country trip), but I can’t imagine my life without these chapters in it. It’s a huge part of who I am, sent me on a trajectory I’m still on today. The romance, the cold, the frustrating boredom, the frightening tiredness. The beauty of space, the country. The faces, the names, the people… It is certainly something I will never either forget nor regret, my life’s version of Forty Days in the Desert, but with a lot of people popping in and out. I’ve thumbed right through the heart of America, up and down and all around. Decades later and I still remember the faces of those who long ago picked up a tired, excited and exhausted wounded soul, just trying to get someplace warm, usually home.

I’m glad I did it, caught the tail end of that era, it’s a huge part of who I am today.

I also picked up a lot of hitchhikers in those days with equally profound memories. But there’s not enough time to go over all of that.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m naive or suggesting people take this up. I’ve never hitchhiked. I doubt very much I ever will. I certainly wouldn’t want my sons to do it. But these stories really strike a cord in me. They remind me of a lot of Dylan songs or songs by The Band.

I also wonder whether there was ever anything more dangerous about hitchhiking than a lot of other ways people meet strangers or whether its demise was part of a few high profile horror stories and just changing mores. If hitchhiking died in the 70s it had lasted at most 40 or 50 years. The mass car culture that made it possible only went back that far. It’s a key part of 20th century America.

Do you have a hitchhiking story?

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