A llost art I used to employ on a daily basis pre-drivers license.
Will retro cycles bring this back sometime?
Will retro cycles bring this back sometime?
Hitchhiking
- Thread starter zappaa
- Start date
Lol, same concept as a Dodge Charger.
12 year olds take Uber's to go bowling, or go to a party.
Cell phone? can I assume you mean call mom?
I'd pick up a local kid in a second
Roger Waters covered this. . . .(safe for work version of the album cover):
Well now we understand your need to defend Penn State. :sunglasses:;)
I used to hitchhike all the time when I was in school until one night my roommate and I were coming back to campus after visiting a frat brother and were picked up by two local yahoos. The passenger turns and points a hand gun in my face. Says he just wants to make sure we know he has it in case we were planning on robbing them. I freaked but my roommate (ex military who had served in Viet Nam) kept his head. He convinced the guy we just wanted a ride, nothing more. No one said a word the rest of the ride. We had them drop us as soon as we reached the outskirts of campus even tho we lived on the other side. They drove away laughing. Assholes.
I recall when hitchhiking was safe it was also safe to leave your keys in your car parked on the street. Both things aren't safe anymore. Last time I picked up a hitchhiker 15 yrs ago it was pouring rain. When we go to the point where I had to go in another direction and drop him off, he wanted to argue about why I should take him the rest of his way (which I didn't). Way too many people with problems these days.
1 in 6 Americans Takes a Psychiatric Drug
http://www.livescience.com/57170-americans-psychiatrics-drug-use.html
1 in 6 Americans Takes a Psychiatric Drug
http://www.livescience.com/57170-americans-psychiatrics-drug-use.html
Last edited:
My freshman year at RU I used to hitch home fairly often back to denville. I would even make the cardboard sign.
Shared resources, it'll be back. Probably some catchy commercial using the music of ELI and have some marketing slogan stolen from a number sticker " Rape Van- gas, grass or ass- no one rides for free"
Picked up a hitcher in RI at college once.
No joke she was every reason why you would not do that. Drugs, sex and carnage made for quite a Tuesday night.
Never again.
No joke she was every reason why you would not do that. Drugs, sex and carnage made for quite a Tuesday night.
Never again.
Hitch-hiked and (more often) picked up hitchhikers when I was a student at Berkeley in the 1970s. Would never do it now.
Boggles my mind that this was ever considered not completely crazy. If if times were different back then, still insane to me.
One time my wife (girl friend at the time) left me at the mall after we got into a big argument. I said I'll show her and started to hitchhike the 15 miles or so back to her house. I got picked up almost immediately by a guy in a brand new Lexus with one of those old cell phones that had the wire attached in the car (this was probably 1991) and once he had to turn off, a trucker picked me up for the last 3 miles or so. I didn't make a habit of it but did it every so often. Zap is a bit older than me so it was already fizzling out by the time I was a teenager, plus we all had Mopeds!
I must have a few thousand miles on the right thumb, all pre-license. Some of us would hitchhike a few days each week from HS. I would get to Sayreville, where my Mom, who never knew, would pick me up (and I pocketed the bus fare). There were a lot of weekends hitchhiking on the GSP to the Shore. I haven't done it for 57 years and haven't picked anyone up in about 50 years. The car still smelled of him when I sold it a year later!
Like a lot of things from the 60's, hitchhiking is gone forever.
I never hitchiked but I kind of put this in the category of letting your children play outside alone (which all of us 35plus remember doing). Exactly when did it become infinitely more dangerous to do this stuff? Do we really live in that much more of a dangerous place? I don't think so - I think that we have been pumped with so much fear that we don't even have solid justifications for doing the things we do (or don't do) - we are all just following the fear crowd.
I played baseball with a kid who was an up and coming star at Mater Dei HS and was gonna be drafted. He was hitchhiking home from a party just 2 miles from his home in Hazlet. Two kids drunk were driving, and it was to late for him to get out of the car as they wouldn't stop.They crashed,and he had to have his right arm amputated. Of course the two kids were unharmed,sad.
My step-son is 27 and a free spirit who wants to see the world on his terms. He hitch-hikes all over the country. He spends most of his time in the West, Northern California, Tahoe, Oregon, Washington state. He has no trouble getting rides and says it is still quite common in the greater north west.
Me and my friends hitchhiked quite a bit in the 70s, mostly before we got cars or could drive, although a little bit after that if a car was not available. Some times we hitchhiked pretty far, say down to Cape May or Wildwood from Central Jersey. Had all sorts of interesting rides and only one questionable experience. Even had several cops pick me up at times and write me up a warning, but then drive me to the end of their territory.
The one weird time I was in Princeton and hitch hiking home which was a few miles away and something we did all the time since it was close and had more going on than our home town. An older gent in his mid 50s to mid 60s stops in his cool red italian convertible and offers me a ride. I hop in, tell him where I am going. We are ok for a few minutes and nearly where I wanted to stop. He puts his hand on my leg. I just said I need to get out right here, at this light. He said he was disappointed and I just booked out of there and did not look back. Could have been worse I guess.
The one weird time I was in Princeton and hitch hiking home which was a few miles away and something we did all the time since it was close and had more going on than our home town. An older gent in his mid 50s to mid 60s stops in his cool red italian convertible and offers me a ride. I hop in, tell him where I am going. We are ok for a few minutes and nearly where I wanted to stop. He puts his hand on my leg. I just said I need to get out right here, at this light. He said he was disappointed and I just booked out of there and did not look back. Could have been worse I guess.
We hitched a lot in the late '50's when we were in elementary school and never had any problems. By the time I was driving we were told to never
pick up a hitchhiker. Today if I would see a broken down car on the side of the road with 2 teen girls in it I wouldn't pull over.
pick up a hitchhiker. Today if I would see a broken down car on the side of the road with 2 teen girls in it I wouldn't pull over.
Saw a hitchhiker a few weeks back. She was dressed like she was still in the 70s. I didn't stop.
The last time I hitchhiked was in the early 90s and I was drunk coming out of a bar at 2 AM. Car stopped and my friend and I jumped in. Driver was drunk and all over the road. We made it 2 miles and told that guy we reached our destination. Got out quick and walked the rest.
Uber is much easier.
The last time I hitchhiked was in the early 90s and I was drunk coming out of a bar at 2 AM. Car stopped and my friend and I jumped in. Driver was drunk and all over the road. We made it 2 miles and told that guy we reached our destination. Got out quick and walked the rest.
Uber is much easier.
I used to hitchhike from New Brusswick back to Bound Brook with long hair and beard it wasn't easy any many times I ended up hoofing it. The minute the hair was cut and beard shaved it was no problem. I would not think of it now, but I often see the hats from Lakewood hitching rides back from Freehold on RT9
It's actually statistically safer now than it has ever been to let your children play outside, walk to school, bike around the neighborhood, etc. "Stranger Danger" has always been an irrational paranoia. Your kids are more likely to die being driven around by you in a car.
Before transferring to Rutgers i spent my freshman year at Grove City College about an hour north of Pittsburgh. I hitchhiked back and forth several times. That was the early 70s and hitchhiking was pretty common back then, at least much more common than now.
People will never ever let facts get in the way of some good media fearmongering though.
I will forgive you since you know no better.
It was the days when kids didn't need or ask their parents to drive them everywhere, you rode your bike or stuck your thumb out and got picked up by another mom on her way to the grocery store.
It was the days when at 12 years old you'd dissapear into the woods and have war games for eight straight hours, no water bottles, no lunch, parents didn't know where you were...you came home famished and ate enough dinner for three people.
You'd go to the park at 9 am, play stickball, tackle football no pads and basketball, all pick up and you made your own rules…be home for dinner, that was your obligation.
I wouldn't trade that experience for the travel sports schedule and structure of today, not to mention bring under your parents thumbs 99% of the time for all the money in the world.
I took my chances and never got raped or kidnapped...lucky me
Last edited:
Thanks for this post!. Great memories of a time gone by.
My favorite story that I remeber to this day. Back then both my parents worked. My father would leave the house before I got up and got home right before dinner and he worked weekends also. I ran track and was pretty decent. But my parents rarely saw me run. I would grab my friends we would run to the track and then run home after practice. Meets were right after school so my parents would be working. At the county championships I won the 880. Dead tired, hands on my knees I hear my father at the fence line " nice race son" . He got back in his car and went back to work. First time he saw me run.
In this day and age he would be branded as a bad parent, in my age he was a great parent that made sure we had all we needed.
I hitchhiked from N.J. to Big Sur, Cal., back in the 70s. Our second ride was from two young ladies who took us from East Stroudsburg all the way to Wyoming. Great memories. $$$$
Last time I hitchhiker, got picked up by a guy in a Lexus wearing a bow tie , emailing a group letter, texting high school players, posting on some site called SN. I had a large bag I was carrying and said I had to take it to the tailor he said, and it chills me even today "take it to the bank"
Picked up my last hitchhikers maybe 10 years ago now.. gee.. make that 16... get this.. 2 people in wetsuits.. somewhere near Bodega Bay, iirc. They lost their somethingorother.. kayak?... walked up a hill to a road and did not expect anyone to stop for them. I told them it was BECAUSE they were wearing wetsuits that I stopped. yeah.. one was a pretty nice looking gal.
Same experience in the late 40's & 50's, except for the woods part as we lived in Brooklyn. Great stuff. As you said, made our own rules, settled our own beefs, no parents, leaders came to the fore. We showed emotion & had passion. So much better than this controlled environment of today.
As for hitchiking, did it in early college years in very early 60's in upstate NY. Seven or eight hour trip home. Standing in frozen tundra along wide open old rt 20 in zero temps with the wind howling. Too many stories to go into. Needless to say, lived to tell about it. Only really not so good experience was years later when I picked a guy up & he came on to me. Slammed on the brakes & growled "out".
Last edited:
We had about a mile of woods down the end of our dead-end street... ending at the bay. At first as pre-teens, we used about 3 square blocks of that as defined by fire trails cut into it. Later, probably a half-square mile.
There was sandlot ball played in ankle-deep sand at the intersection of the fire trails/breaks designed to protect the development from the odd brush fire. Football began on adjoining front lawns (even if said house had no kids in the game) and them moved to park grass fields and even the school lawns for "road games".
The strangest game we came up with was called "manhunt". One team teh hunters, the other the huntees. Sounds like the typical prisoner capture game where you bring them to a prison... but we amped it up by tying the captured to trees, discarded bed-frames, etc. If someone got loose they were free to run again.
Once.. ONCE.. we forgot a kid was tied up back there. All went home for dinner. Then the phone rang. "Have you kids seen Kevin? His parents say he hasn't come home yet."
Of course you didn't go home until the streetlights came on.. so we needed flashlights to go find him. I thought his yelling would help.. but it really didn't.
Similar threads
