" Thumbin' "

 

           "Son, I don't know where Pittsboro is but I'll give you a ride if you have some identification."  Whereupon, I, who had been holding a sign for my destination while standing alongside U.S. Route 64 in the little town of Ramseur, N.C., brought out my picture-less driver's license.  The gentleman in the car with the Alabama tags must have been satisfied because in less than an hour he dropped me off right in front of my parents' house.

    That 'hitch' was but one of many that I hailed in the four years (1956-1960) that I was an undergraduate in a college about 60-70 miles from home.  Even before that, I had 'stuck up the thumb' in order to travel.  My earliest memory of that mode of transportation occurred when dad and I hitchhiked the 15 miles or so to another town in order to pick up a new truck for his dry cleaning route.  As a high school senior, needing dental work at a time when dad was unavailable, I 'thumbed'  the 15-20 miles to Dr. Milliken's office and then back home.

    Once upon a time, a serviceman in uniform had little difficulty securing rides.  Late one Sunday afternoon, dad drove me the 35 miles or so to the Charlotte highway.  Eventually, a kind soul
took me to that city.  By then, it was dark and I was still some distance from base.  Someone I knew in Charlotte gave me a ride to the bus station and I made it back to avoid being AWOL.

     After leaving the Army, I hitched from Durham, N.C., to Washington to spend time with a former seminary classmate.  My next hitching destination, however, was the Port Authority Terminal in NYC and from there by bus to a friend's  home in Rhode Island.  On the return trip, I flew back to DC to spend a few more days.  The ride I hitched back to NC was with a driver who when he learned that I had been to seminary asked if I 'had noticed that Biblical prophecy was coming true ?" When I said "No", there was little conversation til we reached NC.

      During  the era of the Great Depression and World War II --- when money, cars, tires, gasoline were often in  short supply --- hitchhiking was commonplace around here.  Wikipedia defined hitchhiking as "a means of transportation that is gained by asking people, usually strangers, for a ride in their automobile or other vehicle. A ride is usually, but not always, free."  In my youth, it was also termed 'Bumming a ride.'

     Now, 'thumbers' are seldom seen.  Among the 'reasons' sometimes cited are a proliferation of car ownership, the interstate system of highways, and perceived dangers.  For me, I stopped picking up folks after reading the true scene in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood where a garrulous traveling salesman barely avoided being murdered by his two passengers who were on the run after killing a family in Kansas.  The driver had stopped to give a ride to a third passenger.  Capote later sought out that driver to tell him how close he had come to losing his life.

     Now when I see the occasional extended thumb, I remember times when I did then what I will not do now.  Did you, do you, ever 'thumb a ride' ?

       Satchel