When I was 17 I took my first plane ride to Washington D.C. with a friend who was from Virginia. We brought back packs so we could hitch hike back to California. After a month enjoying the 1976 Bicentennial out there we started home. We always got rides. We slept under over passes. In people's houses. In fields. What a great way to see the country and meet people. We went fast to Colorado then stayed in Aspen for a week in these girls condo with them and their room mates. Then home. Longest ride was from the Salt Lake city to Sacramento. Then from there to the Bay Area. What a blast that was! But now, 38 years later caution takes over and I think, "What the heck were we thinking? We could have gotten killed out there!"
I bring this up because my hitch hiking friend wrote me about a new John Waters book where he hitch hiked cross country and writes of his adventures.

Nice story and I like happy endings.

But these days... there are just too many sickos out there.

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Jorge

In 1973 during the summer after high school, I spent 3 months hitching my way around Florida. It was one of my favorite summers of all time.

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Bob | KM4DEO
Sport | Glock 22

These days, I'm not sure who'd be more scared for a ride ... the hitchhiker or the driver.

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I'm with the banned ...

Years gone by had sickos too, I remember the case of Mary Vincent,,,

I did my share of hitching in the sixties, young and dumb.



QUOTE=JJEH;137939292]Nice story and I like happy endings.

But these days... there are just too many sickos out there.[/QUOTE]

1964...My friend and I drove a car one way from Chicago to Montery,Ca. Hitched down to LA and route 66 all the way back taking time to smell the roses. What a great time that was.

I haven't picked up a hitch hiker in years. The last time was a kid in Las Cruces (?) that I drove all the way to Walsenburg. He thought it was his lucky day.

Wouldn't pick up a hitch hiker to day if it was my mother in law

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Retired Career Security Guard

My how times have changed. Hitch hiking in the 50's and 60's were really fun but I wouldn't do it now if you paid me.

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James
On the Llano Estacado

Back in 1964 I was working in Willow Creek california. The town is in the "Bigfoot country" in the Trinity Alps northern california. The road down to Eureka back then was a nightmare of curves and switchbacks.
On my day off one of my guys was driving to Eureka and I went along. We broke down and he was going to stay with his car. I elected to thumb back as it was late and I had to boss a crew early the next morning.
One of those old Jeepster pickups pulled over with two drunk rednecks in it. That is, I soon found out they were drunks. They asked where I was headed. Willow creek. Hey bob, we know anyone in willer creek? That should have gave me a clue.
These guys had a big bottle and started to pull over on every turnout for a nip. Some spots you could look over the side in the moonlight what looked to be a thousand feet! They always offered me a drink and I had refused. The other guy told the driver, Bob, maybe we should let the kid drive! Naw, I`m fine. Finaly I was so shook I accepted the next offer and then the next. Obviously we lived. Still, I have only been more scared only a handfull of other times in my life. They were nice guys though.
Not long before that ordeal I had drove a company truck with a travel trailer from wisconsin to california. I passed a hitch hiker but stopped in the next town for eats or whatever. When I came out the same guy was leaning against my truck and gruffly told me I had passed him back thar!
I gave some gruff answer right back to him and so he tried a more polite tatic and said he needed a ride to his sisters place about 70 miles up the road. Okay, I said, get in. The man was wearing cheap dungarees, no luggage at all and was maybe 55 years old and I was 23 at the time.
He would just stare straight ahead like in deep thought with his mouth hanging open until I would say or ask him something. Then he seemed to snap out of it and be somewhat normal. Then he would go right back into his trance. All of the sudden he snapped out of it, turned to me and said, "Ya know what I did this morning? I escaped jail!" I dont know just why I thought this, but I recall assuming somehow he probley just walked off a honer work camp or farm. For whatever reason, maybe being young, strong and stupid while I believed him alright, but I wasnt afraid of him in the least. I didnt even press him for the details. I had already told him I was headed for california to run a crew at what I did. Now he wanted me to take him to california and work for me! I think we were in kansas or nebraska. I put him off and said a full crew was waiting for me but if one didnt show how about giving me a phone number of his sister? He did!
I would like to tell you that I then let him out and called the police. I didnt! At least I dont recall doing anything but letting him out. Dont know why. In those days a big failing of mine was not taking anyone real serious. I still was a happy go lucky type and guess I didnt give a damn.
Wonder what the real story was.

A buddy and l hitched from Madison, WI to Houston back in 1980. It was a riot. We met some awesome folks and got to see some cool stuff.

If my kid told me he wanted to do it today, I'd break both his legs to stop him! Well, you get the picture!

I will stop to see if I can help someone out in the elements or clearly broken down. More often than not, they are more leery of me than I of them!

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paws for friendship

i used to hitch hike almost weekly as a teen living 40 miles from town met some cool people some drunk drivers and some overly friendly ones...male and female lol
i was always armed ,never had a problem i couldnt talk or walk my way out of...will still pick up a hitcher today, if they arent too scared lol

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the rules? there are no rules

I did my national tour in a 1965 GTO. Then-I got drafted!!

Oklahoma to the SF Bay Area when I was 16 going on 17. That was the time of free love and all that, and getting a ride to SF was easy. Met some very friendly hippie chicks, and plenty of other friendly people. Even once getting there, it was easy to find a place to sleep, etc. The times, they have changed. Getting back was a little harder.

bob

Yep, usta hitch back in the 60's. Roanoke College to home in PA. Roanoke to DC and back..

My best hitch story: Dad & Mom had a friend who was the Corporate Pilot for Borden/Wise Potato Chips. Wise is still in my hometown of Berwick.

Anyway, Ed McCutcheon found out I was hitching home from Roanoke. Called me to meet him at the Airport. He was flying solo back from FL in the Co. Twin Engine Beech. That was cool!

Even cooler, he was a WWII Carrier fighter pilot. Had lots of stories.

I was working in Louisiana winter of 1962/1963. I was thumbing and a off duty state trooper picked me up wearing civies driving the state marked patrol car. He was tired and said something about he had been moving. We were on a freeway around around Alexandria. He started to pass a car and at the same time I looked over his shoulder to his blind side and noticed a couple youths were 8 o`clock on us passing him! The kids were driving one of those old open MG`s or triumphs. They almost lost it and there was a high bank divider they shot up on, come back down on the freeway and almost lost her again! The old trooper apologized to me, not sharp after working moving all weekend etc. The youths fell in line behind us until the trooper pulled over to let me out. The driver walked up to the trooper as I was getting out and asked, "Am I arrested sir?" He started to apologize to the kid and I being a smart *** told the trooper, "Ya got people trained pretty good down here captain!"

The best ride we got on that 1976 trip was when we were hours east of Salt Lake City with no cars whatsoever for maybe three hours when I guy picked us up in a brand new motor home he was taking to a dealership in SLC. That was riding in true luxury. A couple years later I was hitch hiking through Utah with another friend. I picked up a book on Butch Cassidy and as we sat on the road in Green River, Utah the book mentioned that town and the Henry Mountains. The wild bunch would ride from those hills into town to sell stolen horses exactly right past where we were sitting. Then we headed up to Colorado. Had lunch at the hotel that would be in the Shining about a year later.

Back in 1959 I went on leave for two weeks.
Left my ship (USS Saint Paul CA73) in late December.
Hitched from Long Beach Naval base in California to my home in Detroit.
Nice family took me to somewhere in Eastern Arizona and
dropped me off at a gas station as they were turning Southward.
It was early morning 2-3AM got picked up by a guy driving
an old Nash Rambler that had such a bad front end alignment that
47MPH was maximum top speed.
I learned just how wide Texas is especially at 47 miles per hour!
The guy said he would drive me to my home in Detroit
which was the only reason I stuck it out.
He, however changed his mind somewhere near St. Louis.
I talked him into taking me to the Greyhound station.
It was $20 to get me to Detroit and in the interest of time it was worth the cost.

I tell my grandsons about this and
they really have a hard time believing that people
could travel like that and come out alive.

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Armed and Dangerous

I would have never been able to date my honey when I was in college, had it not been for the kind folks in SC who frequently picked us up! It is a long way from Spartanburg to Rock Hill!

medxam

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Doc Garrett
Dead Man's Doctor

You dont see the hitch hikers now like years ago. What you see now at the ramps is bums with cardboard signs begging. They built a Loves Truck Stop a couple years ago about a mile from our house. Usually I can always find entertainment looking around there. This is a picture I posted here a couple years ago. This odd ball couple had everything they owned in a wagon about 4 X the size of a old coaster wagon parked across from loves. Someone here recognized the couple from camping on some property near him in Florida. This couple were camped here for about 2 or 3 months during the winter. It would have taken a half full semi to get their outfit in to give them a ride. They weren't worried about it. I talked to them several times. The guy was about 25 years older than her and a real tin hat foil anti political type. They never really begged but would accept "Donations", were selling some pamphlet type recipe book she wrote etc.

I hitch hiked in the 60's but always with my college room mate. He was on the basketball team and I was on the wrestling team. We got a ride from a guy who turned out to have just been released from the state psychiatric hospital . We told him to let us off at a trunk highway because we needed to go north and liked the back roads. He refused to let us out and I had decided to attack him if he got to the last possible city that would allow us to go north. He was talking crazy the whole time. He let us out there and I didn't have to do anything. Another time a nice couple with nice little kids picked us up and spent the trip preaching to us about Jesus. I enjoyed their sincerity. Another time we got a late start and weren't getting picked up. Luckily a semi stopped and said that he and his partner in a following semi had been driving a long distance and if we would drive the last 100 miles we could have a ride. That was fun for a 17 year old kid .

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I like Ike.

I hitched Tucson to Richmond, Va., in the spring of 1972. Met some interesting folks along the way. One was a drunk in an Impala convertible who stopped for anyone and the deal was to help drive. We must have had about five hitchhikers crammed in there...

I might, unless it was my mother-in-law!

I've done my share of thumbing. In 1977, I was 17, and I spent the summer hitching all over the West Coast, visiting people I knew, working a little here and there, but generally just being a bum. It was easy to get a ride back in those days, and I have lots of fond memories. One of them is when I thumbed my way to a biker party in White Salmon, Washington. It was called the Abate Run, over 1500 bikers showed up for it, and I didn't have the 6 bucks to get in. I stood by the gate and hit up all these big, mean looking bikers for spare change. And they gave it to me! Either I had giant huevos, or I was just stupid, or maybe a combination of both. After that summer, I spent a year with a travelling carnival based in Portland, but that's a story for another day!

As it's been stated by others, though, I wouldn't give anyone a ride these days!

These days ???
There were at least 3 serial killers working in the California area alone in the 70's. This has been confirmed by police reports.
Who knows how many more killers that were never identified.

Glad you had a good time and had some neat adventures.
You rolled the dice unknowingly and made it thru OK.

Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

In 1959 I was on the highway late one night, headed home, when I saw a young GI thumbing. Clean-cut-looking kid, uniform squared away, so I picked him up. After a few miles I saw him fumbling in a pocket and on a hunch put my left hand down next to me on the driving seat.

Good thing. He came up with a knife, I came up with a gun, and the last I saw of him was his heels clearing the roadside ditch on his way to the woods.

He and I were both very young and stupid at the time. I was just slightly better armed. Very slightly--it was a little German .22 Short POC--but it made an impression.

I've almost never picked anyone up since.

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Oh well, what the hell.

In my twenties, I used to hitch all over the place, all over town, at least, and on a few cold mornings when my car wouldn't cooperate, I would hitchhike to work. I used to see a lot of hitchhikers, and would usually pick them up unless something about their looks said otherwise.

More recently, I can only recall two hitchers in the past fifteen years or so. One was in Mitchell, SD; I carried him to just outside Sioux Falls. At first glance, he looked kind of wild and wooly, in a cowboy hat and a duster, but something about him said sad sack. He turned out to be a drifter, and not a very well-traveled one at that, confining himself pretty much to the state of South Dakota. He said he usually traveled on his bicycle, but it was broken.

The other was a clean-cut guy I picked up in Fargo; he was headed to Bismarck for a truck-driving job. The guy turned out to be a pretty interesting conversationalist and an ex-con. The easternmost 300 miles of North Dakota can be pretty grim, so a little diversion was welcome.

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Not in jail.

I used to hitchhike up to Vail when you could spend the night at the roost,ski Saturday and Sunday and have enough to eat for $25.The best ride I got was in a Pantera.

Thanks everyone! Each story is fertile ground for a separate episode in my dark noire HBO series "Hitchhikers". Anyone got one for the pilot? (eye roll)
Just kidding, but if I were a screenwriter... there is plenty here to build upon and spin up a real riveting Stephen King-like tale worthy of urban legends.

Like the others, I did my share of thumbing rides. During my junior year of HS in '65 against the admonishments of my parents, my hitching days came to an abrupt end one morning. I got a ride to HS from a woman who made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She was, a force of nature, that could with just a look melt your heart or melt butter with her glance. That awkward fateful 10 minute ride was devoid of pleasant "conversation".

Sorry to say, it was not Mrs Robinson. To my complete humiliation, it was my mother who proceeded to express her displeasure and dispensed every invective at her disposal leaving no doubt in my mind that I had crossed the line with her. I was unceremoniously dispatched from the car onto the steps of HS knowing full well my next trip to HS was going to be on foot, on a bicycle, or on a bus. That short trip caused me to be tardy without a parental note and led to (not a first) detention, no bus ride home and a long thoughtful walk home... she was friendly with the neighbor ladies... she had her spies.

A valuable lesson was learned. My parents were not unreasonable. Without a morsel of negotiating leverage, I was able to reach an agreement for her to permit me to drive myself to HS with her riding shotgun... one way only, I had to hoof it home. Eventually I got a real drivers license, got a dependable car of my own, a job, off to a local college. I picked up a lot of hitchhikers myself without any real incident. Some Vietnam vets and some hippys unbeknownst to mom. All well on the domestic front with mom... until I came home one day with a Royal Enfield 750 Interceptor. That lit up mom again like a drag race christmas tree. Another story for another day.


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Hey! I had a 1965 Royal Enfield 750 Interceptor and I think, a 1958 700 Indian that was built by Royal Enfield. Later I bought another interceptor basket case, never put it together and sold it.

I wrecked my car while living in FLA and had to hitchhike to work for a while. Long story short there was a group of guys that started watching for me after a week or so and waited to pick me up and drive me straight to work.

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Retired Career Security Guard

You mentioned the longest ride, what was the longest walk, between rides. I used to hitch hike to school, sometimes I would get picked up by one of my teaches, sometimes when I got to school, I decided to take the day off, the next day he would pick me up again, he would say I thought I picked you up yesterday but I didn't see you in school.

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Don

Picked a guy up one morning on my way to work. Clean, work clothes, and a lunch pail. Told me his story, was down on his luck and with no bus routes in the area he hitched back and forth. As luck would have it, his hours coincided with my commute. Ended up picking him up at his house (not off route for me) in the mornigs and at his job for the return trip home for about a year. Every day. Very appreciative person, just didn't have a spare red cent to hhis name.

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Lost in Penn's Woods

I did a fair amount of hitch hiking in the late 50s in the Midwest. It could get pretty cold and wet sometimes out there, but a lot of folks would cheerfully give you a lift in those days if you looked halfway presentable. Sort of a holdover from the Depression and the war, I guess.

The only time I ever got scared was when a guy in a brand new '59 Chevy (remember those wild fins?) picked me up. We travelled the next 50 miles at about 110 miles an hour. I was mighty happy to get out of that car alive.

Most interesting ride I ever had was with a guy who was a state legislature, who was also a Korean war veteran--air force pilot. He flew a P-51. He said that a MiG-15 found him and was hot on his tail, down low. I asked him how he got out of that fix; he said he headed straight for a mountain and pulled out at the last second. The MiG didn't.

I think today you'd have to be nuts to hitchhike, or, unfortunately, pick anyone up. It was a different world back then, and I enjoyed the freedom and the variety. All things being equal--and they sure aren't--I'd rather hitchhike than fly under today's conditions.

I'd probably get where I was going quicker, too, if it was under 400 miles...

If you like really odd semi-horror stories there is a short story that was tag team written by Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn called Serial that is what happens when 2 serial killers meet. One is a hitchhiker and one is a driver who picks up hitchhikers. Gave me nightmares for weeks but very well written.

Some of my scariest and best memories are from hitch-hiking up and down the Pacific Coast in the 60's and 70's.

I hitchhiked in the 60s until I got my license and car and then picked up a few. Buddy and I got picked up once by a pervert when we were about 14. He wanted to take us swimming to a spot he knew and we declined. He wouldn't stop and let us out until Ralph screamed stop and opened the passenger door. I think we got lucky there and good thing too there were two of us.
Another time a babe in a mini skirt picked me up in a Mustang GT 350. She could drive that thing too and was looking for more than just giving a kid a ride. She was disappointed when I insisted she drop me off at work and I was a little dense too at the time.

We saw a guy hitchhiking just the other day and my wife commented you don't see that much these days. I'd be afraid to hike myself or pick anyone up today.

On another trip in 1979 I found myself alone under a single road light outside Glenwood Springs, Co. at 1:00 AM with no cars at all until a girl actually stopped and picked me up. When she got to her town she kind of apologized for not letting me stay at her place. I was just grateful for the ride and amazed that a woman would pick up a guy hitchhiking like that, especially early in the morning.

That was our means of transportation!

We hitched all over the State/Country back in the early 70's. Never really had a bad memory of it. A few cars we declined something didn't seem right but the majority were great. Met people, did stuff had a good time.

Today?? No way I watch Criminal Minds!

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Still Running Against the Wind

I hitched up and down the east coast around 1970 from Montreal, where my car died for good, down to Orlando and back to NJ. Good times, today, no freakin way.

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Back to back World War Champs.

I did some hitching during the early 60s college years. First trip three of us went from Indiana up to Sterling IL. Three guys was too many so we split up and I went alone....got little short rides and arrived a whole day after the first two.

For spring break 1963, a buddy and I hitched from Indianapolis to Houston, about 1100 miles. We got great rides going down....made it in 24 hrs. Going back, we got a ride with repo man from Houston to Memphis, then ****** rides for the next 48 hours. We met nice people, not very nice people, a trucker who wanted us to keep him awake, a Tupperware employee delivering a company car to a high producing sales person, etc.

We were too young and ignorant to be scared. There were lots of sickos back then too but national publicity was not like today.

Great experience!

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Bob.
SWCA 1821