Something about them always seems to manage to do that. I was up for the sunrise recently, listening to a good run of CSN & Y, in all its glorious forms, on Pandora, and I couldn’t help ending up in tears myself. Something about living in today’s society and listening to “Ohio” brings into sharp focus how much of the progress we’ve made since that time has been destroyed.
Teach your children well, indeed. And know they love you.
Definitely kinder and gentler. I’d like to get back to those good ol’ days.
I found out the hard way there is a stretch of desert in Washington state
prior to that I got a ride in my first hippie van: the passenger door was broken so had to climb in through the window. got in to find 9 people, most with the runs from being on the road too long. they needed gas on the way to a Rainbow Gathering, and had good liquid too!
I did not get to finish your article but I will and am enjoying it- At the age of 14 I started practice hitching-a few hundred miles at a time. At 16 I bought an old external frame backpack for $10 and thumbed from Rochester N.Y. to Berkeley with a marker, an electric blanket (broken) and $90- I hitched every state but Florida by the time I was 18 and did over 30k miles just in that time. I used to stop in Aspen and work for a few weeks when I was nearby- I never sparechanged or got financial assistance( except for a PB & J in Santa Cruz and I paid them $10 for it a few years later when passing through. P.S.- Aspen Colorado still has a hitching sign and bench in the center of town.I am 48 now and own 2 cars but every summer I want back out there- always wanted to thumb across Canada…
Yes, one meets mostly good people. I’m sure today would be no different in that regard. I did thousands of miles and only had a couple (two) scare rides. The only time I was harmed physically was getting slapped around by cops in Kansas.
Still, although hitching is romanticized as some sort of pinnacle of the free spirit existence, the fact is that once you hop into the car you are no longer the master of your own destiny.
This is a well-written piece. But…umm…shouldn’t there have been some mention of the slug lines that exist in cities with car-pool lanes, where “slugs” can hitch rides with commuters who wish to reduce their drive-time? In the Washington DC area they’re popular and the local authorities have no problem with them.
Hmm, I live in the mountains of Colorado and I’m sure this is just a local thing but anyone who claims hitching is dead has never driven the back highways around our mountain passes in the winter! Two years ago my car blew a hose and I had to hitchhike into town to buy a replacement then hitchhike back out to where I lived at the time. Friends of mine that worked in town frequently hitched to work and home.
Not just the end of the road, but the end of the sky. Many years ago there were those who used to thumb rides at airports. Private pilots who were flying in your direction would welcome the company if they were soaring alone. And for those thumbing, it was a faster way to get from point A to point B. Alas, gone are the days when faring strangers could come together, and by the end of miles shared become a measure of friends.
As a college student in the early 70’s I only had one bad experience while hitchhiking - that was from a cop who didn’t like hippies, and was determined to find the drugs he just knew I must have been carrying (I wasn’t). Ultimately no harm done, but had a scary time for a little while.
Hitchhiked from Oregon to Minnesota and back with my boyfriend, Short rides on the way there, and a couple drivers took us to good spots where we could camp for the night. Coming back,we got a ride in North Dakota with a guy traveling to Seattle who had already picked up another hitchhiker. The guy got a ticket in Montana. We went with him to the police station where he paid his fine, and we saw a nice display of confiscated marijuana pipes and roach clips. Hitchhikers took over the front seat and the driving; he sat in back and drank. He also got us a motel room for the night and we all made it to Seattle the next day.
In California we still have some old fashioned Highways; as opposes to modern Freeways. One has to exit a freeway to get to the local businesses. On an old highways- think rout 66- the gas stations and fruit stands are all right along the highway. It’s easily to hitch on an old highway; but it’s absolutely illeagel to hitch on a modern, fast moving freeway like the 405 or interstate 5. I would guess the development of the fast moving interstate freeway system has allot to do with the death of hitchhiking.
Well maybe those were “kinder and gentler” “good ol’ days” for white, straight middle class kids. For non-white, and/or non-straight and/or poor folks…not so much. Just sayin.
Hitched a fair amount in my teenage years on the East Coast in the '80s. Mostly just local rides, 20 or 30 miles at most, often less. Only one bad experience, a guy who was sniffing “rush” while driving, and tried to grope me (I am male) and didn’t stop when requested. A little scary but no real harm done except to his passenger side door, which I swung open as he slowed to negotiate around a corner in order to jump out, and the door struck something (guard rail, street sign, I’m not sure). Sadly I was too rattled to think to get his license plate number, and too distrustful of the local cops to report him. In retrospect, of course I should have.
Hitching is still alive and (sorta) well on California’s North Coast (Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties). I have given rides to hitch-hikers probably a dozen times a year for many years, with no bad consequences other than a couple of them attempting to panhandle me after telling me a sad story…and a couple who smelled so rank that I pretended to be getting off at the next exit or next town. But on visits to the East Coast I NEVER see anyone hitching anymore, and the one time I tried there 10 years or so ago, no one would stop (other than cops to demand my ID, question me in a very hostile manner, etc.), and several motorists actually yelled at me and/or made obscene gestures. Ended up walking the full 6 miles to my destination, which was fine, but kinda sad.
I hitchhiked all around Canada, the U.S. and Europe many times from about 1969 to 1979. In the beginning it was incredibly easy to get a ride, especially from fellow hippies. In the beginning even non-hippies were very open and friendly but it got increasingly hard to get a ride toward the end, even though my hair was considerably shorter. My last major hitchhiking sojurn was in 1980 across the U.S. and then around Europe. It was still easy in Europe and I was still regularly invited into homes but after that I gave up trying to hitch in the U.S. I also got a car and almost never saw hitchhikers again, except for the what appeared to be the occasional drunk.
