| Sep 5 @ 10:56 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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CrackerJackPat
Posts: 558
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Annie's road trip brought up the subject with the fact that she'll be driving back from Indiana all by herself. I thought perhaps she could pick up a driver back east before heading out this way again. NOT suggesting she pick up a hitch-hiker.... but remember when it was not only safe to do so, but FUN!!!! You got to help someone out and meet someone new. Oh if my mother only knew the guys I met!!!!
Let's see... there were the two from PA (I lived in northern Indiana). We (my g/f & I) probably offered to take them to the OH boarder (10 miles) and let them talk us into driving them across OH to the PA boarder. They assured us we'd be home before daylight! I didn't even have my driver's license yet - just a permit.
I have more hitch-hiker stories to tell.... but wait.... what about yours?????
Hitch-hikers join in -- I've bet you've got some good ones as well!!!
Those were the days my friend! 
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| Sep 5 @ 12:29 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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meanjolene
Posts: 287
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My story about hitchhiking, not so good. In 1970, my friend and her friend lost their lives while hitching a ride from their WVU college campus into town for a movie. They were decapitated and their heads never found. My friend's father identified her body only by her shoes. I don't think their killer was ever found. She was 19. Karen Ferrell, her name was, her friend Mared Malarek, from New Jersey. Karen was a promising writer, an only child, just a wee thing under 5 feet. Her mother never really recovered from her loss.
Sorry, this is an awful tale, but true. Maybe a little later I can post another, happier one.
Hello, Crackerjack Pat
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| Sep 5 @ 12:35 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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Loreli
Posts: 20,307
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My Dad use to pick up the "hippies."
He figured they were pretty peaceful.....and fun to talk to. 
Of course he told us girls to NEVER ever do it...and I haven't.
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| Sep 5 @ 12:46 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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LipGlossQueen9
Posts: 10,088
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There used to be an epileptic carnival worker that came around every year during the week long church carnival. He couldn't drive, obviously, so some people in my community used to give him rides.
No one really saw any harm in it. 
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| Sep 5 @ 12:56 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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tahoma
Posts: 10,526
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I was on a road trip in New Mexico and stopped off for a refreshment break. There was this Navajo older man hitching, leaning on the guard rail, obviously had been drinking... so when I finished shopping at the gift store and replentishing my water supply I picked the old guy up and gave him a ride. He taught me some of his language, which was difficult to pronounce and I had forgotten quickly afterwards.
I'll never forget that old guy...
You don't want to hear my story about when I was picked up hitch-hiking as a young teenager... it isn't a pretty story
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| Sep 5 @ 10:54 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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meanjolene
Posts: 287
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When I started seventh grade, my brother and I walked two miles down the mountain, two miles back up, to catch our bus. After my brother left, I walked it alone and fended off guys, sometimes drunks, trying to pick me up. I was like, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, for heavens sake!
I never accepted rides from anyone I didn't know...then there were the few times a neighbor would come along, truck full of kids, the back full of cattle feed or groceries, and I would gladly hop up on the running board, hang onto the window frame, and ride like that.
I got to ride a bus my final year of high school, when I was sixteen.
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| Sep 6 @ 12:31 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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redhairNfreckles
Posts: 2,818
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I remember when I was still in nursing school, a classmate came by and picked me up at the house. We headed straight down to the bayfront where she heard that a couple of the navy's subs were in for the weekend (this was when they would come to St. Pete and it was 1966. As we knew would happen, there were a couple of sailor's walking down the street, so we picked them up and went joy-riding for a couple of hours, brought them back to their sub, gave them a kiss goodbye, and headed home. When mom asked where did we go....I remember telling her, "Oh, we just went out looking for uniforms"..... 
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| Sep 6 @ 2:52 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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kywonder
Posts: 1,223
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I have heard many of the hitch hiking stories from my brothers as they hitch hiked back and forth to town. I remember Mom telling me of taking my brother to the Virgina line and dropping him off so he could get back to his Marine base. Thirty minutes later someone took him all the way to his base in Norfolk. Now days, people just pass them up. Fear, violence and crime has kept many of people from hitching a ride or picking one up. I know I feel guilty every time I see one hitch hiking, but fear makes me drive on. Or for the days when it was safe to help other people. 
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| Sep 6 @ 3:00 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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twotall911
Posts: 12,856
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it used to be safe years ago and i gave a lot of rides
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| Sep 6 @ 3:11 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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meanjolene
Posts: 287
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I have given people rides while my hand was on my 38, they didn't know it.
You can't be too careful. I had the gun inside a vinyl, innocent-looking case, my finger on the trigger, just in case. Dark, and late at night.
A trucker, unable to make it up the mountain, on a bitter January night, comes to mind. He was skidded in the middle of rt. 60, I really mean bitter cold, too.
You can't pass people by in such circumstances, but you can't be stupid either.
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| Sep 6 @ 3:12 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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painter007
Posts: 15,990
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Its been years but I remember the day of sticking my thumb out for a ride......
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| Sep 6 @ 9:27 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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andxr
Posts: 428
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I can remember when my dad use to take me on trips with him when I was little. when we saw a hitch hiker he would stop about forty feet in front of them. they would have to walk to the car and as soon as they got there hand on the door handle he would take off.  those are fond memories. 
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| Sep 6 @ 9:44 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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CrackerJackPat
Posts: 558
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I grew up in a small college town where cruisin' was what you did on Friday & Saturday nights. It was an engineering college and at that time, very few women attended. Few of the college guys had cars (didn't need them) and sooooooo.... the high school girls drove around, met them at the drive-thrus etc.
Never crossed anyone's mind to harm another. We grew up with the Golden Rule.
Once, at a stop sign, a really cute guy jumped right over the side of the car and into the passenger seat of the convertible I was driving -- it was as good as the movies.
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| Sep 6 @ 11:09 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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Carol386
Posts: 3,063
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I grew up in a small bedroom community where everybody pretty much knew everybody. We hitched all around town with people we knew as well as picking people up - of course my dad had other ideas about that. One day my mom went to the store and took me and a couple friends - she was just about done when we told her we were just gonna walk home. We kept waiting for her to drive by and pick us up - when we thought we saw her car, we stuck out our thumbs - well, it wasn't her and there was a cop behind that car. He made us all get in and he took us back to my house to wait for my mother - lights flashing and all! Boy did we all get in trouble. Somehow though I didn't think it was the appropriate time to tell the cop I would pick his daughter up when she was hitching around town! 
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| Sep 6 @ 11:24 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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CrackerJackPat
Posts: 558
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^^^^^^
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| Sep 6 @ 11:31 AM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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Carol386
Posts: 3,063
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Yeah, my dad was really pissed about it - after I was ungrounded though he gave me the best "punishment" a girl could ever have. He decided that if I was gonna be out driving around and possibly picking up hitchers, he would give me a car that would only seat two people (since I normally left with a passenger/friend) - lets see, I had a Cutlass to drive - he took that away from me and made me drive his two-seater Jag convertible! My father was sooooooo mean - I suffered through that punishement for almost a year 
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| Sep 6 @ 12:14 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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grumblebear
Posts: 10,491
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when the weather turns ugly and evil up here, (winter blizzards, etc), I take my big 4x4 truck out on the local main drags, and play good samaratan... breaking a trail in the snow or pulling them out of the ditch...
I'll look at the parents with a couple little kids in their car, and tell them to get those kids home and safe...
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| Sep 6 @ 12:42 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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CrackerJackPat
Posts: 558
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Good on you GB !
I had occasion once to rescue a family myself. Coming off the interstate right in front of us (my daughters and myself) was a smoking van with mother, father, and three kids piling out. This was before the time of "everyone has a cell phone". We pulled over, piled everyone in the our car, dropped the dad off at the nearest gas station and took the rest of the gang home with us to wait for the vehicle to be repaired. The kids watched tv and the mother and I created a new friendship. We fed everybody supper. The poor dad was stuck at the station forever. It was dark by the time their van was fixed.
The scary part happened when we drove mom and kids back to the repair shop down the highway about 10 miles. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye a man appear out of seemingly NOWHERE!!! Not a car in sight - barely a house in sight... but there he was walking toward the highway. I thought I was seeing things. But it was confirmed.
The state pen wasn't too far away.
I used to be a trusting person. But I would not have pulled over for that guy for anything. I think we need to go on our "gut feeling".
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| Sep 6 @ 12:44 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up???
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Always_Striving
Posts: 7,595
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I've only hitch-hiked 3 times in my life in a span of over 5 years and only one woman picked me up, and it was the same woman each time. She told me that she has only stopped to pick up me because she was unsure about picking up hitch-hikers but was feeling pretty good and wanted to help someone that day. She didn't remember the first time that she gave me a ride and I didn't remember her either until I started talking about a woman who picked me up on the same road years ago. Then she remembered that it was her.
Pretty funny huh?
I got one more ride from her later on and that was the last I ever saw of her because I moved to the Seattle area. I wonder if she is here in MD land and remembers me. We were pretty close in age and she was good looking and drove a pickup truck.
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| Sep 6 @ 1:24 PM |
Remember when hitch-hiking was cool ? & so was picking 'em up??? |
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redhairNfreckles
Posts: 2,818
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I confess.......it wasn't me......but I would have picked you up! 
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