Discussion for article #236195
I hitched a lot in the mid to late 70s, as a college student. It was a means to an end, and no more than that. Nothing about it was comfortable or romantic in any way. I stopped hitching when I finally could afford a crappy car, which I bought only so I wouldn’t have to hitch any more.
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Let’s show a little pride in our Photoshop work! The “Not a killer” doesn’t look like it was drawn on that board, and not just because the writing goes over the guy’s fingers…
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I hitchhiked a lot in the 70’s. As soon as Reagan was elected, I felt a change. People stopped less often. I also began to hate the fact that a lot of the drivers smoked, and since they were giving me a ride, I couldn’t really object. I finally got a car in 1983, but then felt myself change and turn inward a bit. With all its drawbacks, it was a fascinating way to travel. the fact is, most people are of good will, and I met some fascinating ones.
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I hitched in 1981: best ride was from Auburn CA all the way to Morgantown WV in a stolen Chevy Malibu and none of us in the car had a license on hand (mine had been stolen during a previous ride in Oregon) we sold the AM/8-track radio in Wyoming after getting tired of the sole tape on hand: KISS Destroyer.
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I did a lot of hitching at the end of its era in the late 70s. I once was propositioned awkwardly by another man but, otherwise, nothing bad ever happened and I encountered an interesting range of people from housewives to garage bands to journalists. I still associate the song by Boston about hitching with a really fun family who picked me up on the Ohio Turnpike outside of Sandusky. They were coming from a weekend at Cedar Point–a (still) great amusement park with a beach rather than an endless overpriced Disney commercial.
The uptick in crime over the 70s, along with the child abduction hysteria of the 80s probably damaged hitching more than any specific hitching horror stories, which had been around for decades. Picking up hitchhikers, I did encounter some dodgy characters–a newly released prisoner in northern Michigan, a couple who seemed to be running away from something in Pennsylvania, but nothing problematic ever happened. I stopped picking up hitchhikers for awhile while I was living in Connecticut. I was working as a tech at a psychiatric hospital and happened to see some walk-aways from our adolescent unit on Route 9 in Middletown. I did occasionally pickup hitch hikers later on–usually on my old stomping ground of the Ohio Turnpike, but hitchers became fewer and fewer in the 80s and now they seem to be mostly homeless and obviously troubled.
I think I did ok because I looked like a college student who needed a ride (which I was)–not a burnout but also not someone who’d turn down a joint, someone with a reasonably well trimmed beard, neatly dressed but not overdressed. I wasn’t what we now would call a hipster or in those days began to call a yuppie. I wasn’t likely to be curating anything. I looked “safe”.
Hitching was a great way to get around, but it was never entirely w/o problems. In its heyday it probably was not advisable for women traveling alone and more than one male usually was perceived as trouble. Propositions like the one I had were not unusual–friends of mine who hitched from their Catholic prep school in Cleveland to their suburban homes regularly encountered these. Still, it was treated as the price of admission more than a deadly danger. The usual protocol was to get out at the next stop light. People born in the 50s and 60s encountered dangers–there were warnings about not taking candy from strangers, etc., but seems like we didn’t encounter the pearl clutching avoidance of messy reality that came to dominate later.,
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I hitchhiked for a few years in the late 60’s-early 70’s, both alone and with other women or guys. Most of my rides were good and some people went out of their way to take me where I was going. However, a few men grabbed at me (I yelled at them and they let me out). Another guy started driving in the wrong direction, so I got out when he stopped at a light. Another guy started masturbating in front of my friend and me. A truck driver showed us his gun. I didn’t take rides where I would be outnumbered by men, or would have to sit in the back of a two-door car. It really wasn’t the safest way to get around. Also, you could wait a long time for a ride in rural areas.
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Hitching rides was so easy back in the early '70s. HIppies everywhere and those that didn’t have a VW bus to pick up hitchhikers bummed rides with those that did. My ex and I hitched from Michigan to Alaska in 1974 when we ran out of money and had to sell our bus… She was beautiful and the reason for some of our rides I’m sure. The journey went well until we hit Calgary right at Stampede time. So many kids hitchhiking through the city on their way to Jasper or Banff that we had to walk three miles to get to the end of the line where it was street etiquette to stick out our thumbs again. In order to get out of crowded Jasper we had to take the train to Prince Rupert and then the ferry up to Haines. Hitched on up to Fairbanks from there. I still pick up every hitchhiker I see in an effort to pay back the generosity of all those who picked us up. With Reagan came a more paranoid and selfish America so most of those on the road today are doing so out of poverty induced desperation rather than adventure.
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Thanks for noticing the changes that Reagan wrought. Thought I was maybe reading too much into that element of our changed American when I posted below. Fellow travelers indeed.
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Great piece!
As a female, I hitched extensively for years - up and down the Eastern Seaboard, South Florida to Northern California (and back), to work every day, during the mid to late 70s, yet was never raped. (Propositioned is another thing, but if “No” is an acceptable answer, I guess you can’t blame a guy for trying, right?) I found, as in most things, that there are good people out there that will do anything they can to help, even if they have little to nothing themselves. This does not means bad things never happen. Or that they are representative of the experience, as a whole.
Mine was in Tennessee, late one night, when I was first harassed by the local police, dumping all my belongings out at roadside, with a “Be careful. We only stopped you because we think we have someone locally preying on female hitchhikers.” And then left. Gee, thanks?
My next ride had watched the whole thing, driving by several times, before offering to give me a ride after the police had left. I think he was their man.
After driving down a deserted “short-cut”, with me jumping on his gas pedal to convince him I was willing to total the car rather than let him have his way, I was able to get out of the car with everything but my shoes, ran into an all-night diner, then called friends with information in case I didn’t show up as planned, and waited out the night drinking coffee. And then I continued on, for a couple more years without incident.
Final average of Creeps v. Samaritans? About 0.63%. Or less. Giving a solid win to the Samaritans.
I, myself, have picked up four hitchhikers so far this year. It makes my husband mad, sometimes, but I generally have my dog in the back seat. And she’s big. She might kiss you to death, if given the chance. But to this day I feel an obligation to “Pay it Forward” by paying back the kindnesses that were done to me over the years, and I wish that America’s love for consumerism didn’t leave all having to own one of everything, no matter how little we need or use them, like cars, because we have made people so frightened of the consequences of sharing.
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There was a great postcard printed by someone back in the '70s called “On The Road to Tok”. A hippie who had lost his patience after probably days of trying to get out of that crossroads town in Central Alaska was pictured laying in the road out of desperation and exhaustion. Yes you could sometimes wait days for rides unless your lucky gimmick(ours was hitting the center line with three of the first five stones cast) worked it’s cosmic magic for you.
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I’ve never hitched in the States but I did extensively in Israel, Egypt, the Balkans, and Ireland during the 90s and early 00s. In Ireland particularly, hitching actually meant getting picked up along the road because no one could understand why I wanted to hike along a lonely road!
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Those were the days, weren’t they? It was a much friendlier time, as I remember it. You could count on the kindness of strangers, as well as the ability to find “fellow travelers” to share your experiences - and resources. I still pick up hitchhikers, like you, and I agree - not one of them was doing it for adventure. Three were elderly, one with bedpan and farewell bag in hand, standing in front of the local hospital.
Desperation indeed.
I have an awfully hard time leaving people like that standing at the side of the road, and I wish others felt the same.
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I guess, being a young female, I never had to wait more than a few minutes for a ride.
Funny how that works. 
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" I still associate the song by Boston about hitching with a really fun family who picked me up on the Ohio Turnpike outside of Sandusky"
Mine is Meatloaf, because a friend and I were picked up by a guy in a beat-up VW bug in NJ who told us he was the drummer for a guy named “Meat Loaf”, and we thought he was joking, as well as the funniest thing we had ever heard. I guess the joke was on us though!.
How could we have had these experiences otherwise? Social isolation is part of what makes this country so quick to judgment and immune to the value of our neighbor’s lives.
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That’s how we finally got out of Calgary. I left my lovely mate by the street and went into a phone booth to call for information of getting a bus out of the city. While in there three drunk Canadians heading for Jasper saw the lovely lass seemingly hitching alone and came squeling tired through four lanes of traffic to get to her. They had a beat up camper on back that we hunkered down in as they swilled out of vodka filled canteens and switched drivers on the go. They saw a Black Bear and attempted to get it into the cab of the truck for a photo op. Crazy times that I wouldn’t trade for any other lifestyle.
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I’m not sure who had it worse - you with Kiss’ "Destroyer, or me with “The Best of the Guess Who”. On 8-trak. For days… Either way, sounds like many of the rides on the “Dead Tour Express”!
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“You who are on the road
Must have a code
That ya can live by”
Just thinking about that CSN&Young song brings tears to my eyes. Kinder gentler times indeed.
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Those were definitely the days, my friend! Where else, how else could you ever have experienced that? Totally awesome!
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I hitchhiked twice when I was in college. Both times the guy picking me up wanted a little more than a thank you at the end of the trip. No more hitchhiking.
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