The End of Hitchhiking

 Have you ever made a flip comment, meant to be humorous, then remembered it later and thought “That might actually be true.” 

I responded to one of those pointless FaceBook posts that posed the question “What is the one thing that is destroying the world as we know it?”  The real answer is no doubt climate change, which barely showed up.  The most numerous comment, of the thousands generated, was “Joe Biden”, which shows you who is reading generic FaceBook posts these days.

This thought came off the top of my head and I posted it without thinking.   

“It all started with the end of hitchhiking.”

I’ve had that thought before but never expressed it.  I don’t know when it happened or why and I’ve known anyone else concerned about it.  But hitchhiking is dead, and I think it has implications.  It’s a symptom of something bigger and more troubling. 

I’ve traveled a lot during my almost 72 years on Earth.  I don’t know where hitchhiking falls in the order of miles per mode of travel.  I’ve flown to Europe four times, to both Japan and Hawaii, as well as a winter trip to Mexico or Central America nearly every year since 1988 volunteering for I Care International’s optometry clinics.  So, air travel might account for a lot, because of the big trips.

Being an American in the rural Midwest most of my daily travel has been in cars, old Buicks mainly in the past twenty-five years.  While I drove a lot of miles between Ottawa and both Chicago and Springfield for work, my more frequent daily commute, a benefit of living and working in a small town, began on Ottawa’s north side and ended down the hill on the north side of the rivers, not 2 miles away.

I own a canoe but never had a boat, and have never been on a cruise, so nautical miles are limited mostly to ferry rides, lazy floats down the Fox, a handful of great trips in the boundary waters, and day trips fishing from open boats with outboard motors on Ontario lakes.

I used a Eurail pass heavily during the Summer of 1974, took the train to Springfield for a while there in the late 80s before my cornea transplants, and enjoyed a great ride with my wife on the rails from Montreal to Quebec City up the St. Lawrence River valley.  Now we take the Metra from Joliet to the LaSalle Street station when we visit Chicago and the kids, but rail travel has not amounted to much in my getting around.

But from the time that Eurail pass ran out till the end of 1975, I hitchhiked all over Europe and North Africa.  I hitchhiked from the Smoky Mountains to Ecuador and back to Danvers, Illinois in 1976, save for the occasional cheap bus ride here and there.

And when I once again owned cars, I picked up hitchhikers whenever I could.  I considered giving rides in return for rides given me as good karma.  I never had a bad hitchhiking experience as a rider or a driver.   It was both a way of getting from place to place and an unspoken social contract between humans.  I liked hitchhiking a lot. 

In its purest form hitchhiking is (or was) “I want to travel but I don’t have much money” meets “I’m going that way and I don’t mind having company while I do.” 

Hitchhiking was (I think using the past tense is sadly accurate) Uber and Lyft without the smartphone app, the credit card payment, or the star ratings.  Have we now monetized each and every want and desire humans possess, or are there yet simple kindnesses that don’t translate their worth into cash?  Hitchhiking was ride-sharing in the purest sense.  It cost neither party a dime.  Yet it created value.  Call it human capital.  Call it generosity.  I’m convinced hitchhiking was a good thing.  

Hitchhiking was a personal choice and a voluntary act.  For the hitchhiker, it started with a simple and universally understood gesture.  Extend your arm and put out your thumb. 

I think looking presentable and smiling led to more rides.  I got a lot of rides and never turned one down, that’s for sure.  I ran to cars that slowed as they passed me and stopped, and the first thing I did after stowing my backpack and taking a seat was to thank the driver profusely.  I considered hitchhiking a purely directional mode of travel.  Take me one mile or a hundred, as long as you’re going my way.  All I asked was that the driver let me out at a spot where I had a decent chance of getting another ride. 

As a driver picking up hitchhikers, I admit to slowing down and doing a quick assessment of the person I was about to pick up.  Though I may have slowed, reconsidered, and kept going I can’t as I sit here in the shack remember an instance when I did.  Hitchhikers and those who picked them up were a trusting group of people.  The whole premise was built on trust.  Usually, we discovered we had even more in common as we talked.

Back then driving alone isolated you from others.  Now we call whomever we wish to talk to at any time on our smartphones, and if they don’t pick up, we dictate a message or (dangerously) text them. 

Many times, I think drivers (especially long-haul truckers before CBs) picked me up because they needed to talk to someone, either to stay awake or simply pass the time.  I was fine with silence, but if the driver wanted to talk, I was along for the ride. 

Hitchhiking without conversation was rare. It started with the “where are you trying to go/how far are you going” exchange and built from there. Talking, even if obligatory, taught me how to communicate better.  Meaningful and pleasant conversations extended rides.

And on the flip side, it was very apparent that some people who picked me up didn’t want to exchange ideas, they simply wanted someone to listen to theirs.  I did a lot of listening while hitchhiking.  Most of it was sincere and attentive, though over time I learned to fake it.  Both later proved to be good skills to have.

Hitchhikers got rides and drivers picked up hitchhikers because we didn’t fear each other.  Any lurking fear was overridden by a trust borne out of positive experiences.  To this day I don’t personally know of anyone on either side of the equation being harmed by hitchhiking.  No doubt it happened somewhere but I’m not aware of it.  So why did hitchhiking go away?

Most contend hitchhiking is dead because it is perceived as dangerous.  So much so that police departments discourage it, and many states ban it.  Though lightly enforced, those laws had their intended effect.  Hitchhiking is so rare now that there is a whole generation of people too young to even remember it.

The fear factor was amplified by law enforcement through public service announcements in the 60’s and 70s in the U.S..  A 1973 FBI poster, signed by J. Edgar Hoover, delivers this dire message under a scene of a family opening their car door to a man with his thumb out.  Sounds a lot like Reefer Madness.

To the American Motorist: Don’t pick up trouble!  Is he a happy vacationer or an escaping criminal—a pleasant companion or a sex maniac—a friendly traveler or a vicious murderer?  In the gamble with hitchhikers, your safety and the lives of your loved ones are at stake.  Don’t take the risk!

Ginger Strand, Author of Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that there has never been good evidence that hitchhikers, or those who pick them up, are particularly likely to be raped or murdered.  One of only a few studies by the California Highway Patrol in 1974 concluded the results do not show that hitchhikers are overrepresented in crimes or accidents beyond their numbers.

It’s more likely the widespread fear of hitchhiking is motivated less by evidence than by a pair of other trends.  As hitchhiking became rarer, it seemed more dangerous because of the people still doing it.

People without cars trying to hitchhike might be perceived as weirder, more deviant, or more dangerous.  The more stigmatized hitchhiking became the fewer drivers who were likely to pick someone up.  Fewer willing drivers led to fewer people trying to hitch.  And the downward spiral continued. 

Fear of hitchhiking fit into a general fear of strangers that blossomed in American society over past decades.  For instance, parents instruct their children never to talk to strangers.  Stranger Danger is a word worn cliché.   There is a kind of safety bug that’s taken over in society.  We’re much more reluctant to interact with strangers than ever before.  All those empty seats, all those lonely drivers.  It seems like a wasted resource, doesn’t it?

But others believe the decline of hitchhiking has nothing to do with fear of crime.  Joesph Stromberg, a journalist writing for Vox put together a good piece on hitchhiking called “The Forgotten Art of Hitchhiking-and Why it Disappeared.”  Here’s what he found by talking to others about the topic.

Most experts agree that the decline of hitchhiking has nothing to do with fear but everything to do with increased car ownership.  Since the 1960s, the percentage of car ownership in the U.S. has tripled, and the portion of households with multiple cars has grown even faster.  20% of us own three cars or more.  Add to that the fact that cars now last longer, and increased car ownership has extended to lower-income families.  Fewer of us need to hitchhike to get around.  In developing countries, where far fewer people own cars, hitchhiking is still commonplace.

I was talking about all this with a friend, not in the front seat of a moving car but in the back room of a bookstore.  About the same age, he also hitchhiked. 

“I’ve got a ton of hitchhiking stories,” I said.  “I kept notes in a journal.  I’m not sure anyone would appreciate them now because hitchhiking is so rare.”

“I think you’re wrong.  I know I’d love to hear them.”

“Maybe I’ll blog some, see how people react.”

“Please do.”  

Marvel in the Moment

In my last blog post, I was getting out of Memphis, heading to Mississippi, and looking for a Waffle House.  But sometimes life interrupts those road trip sagas.  I have a note on my desk that reminds me why that happens.

Hard to follow that advice when you’re writing in late June about events that took place in early March and then relating them to American history fifty years ago or longer.  Today I am busting to tell you what’s happening right now around me.  It’s smaller in scope but exciting.

I was mowing past the clematis on the corner of the garage next to the patio when a bright red cardinal flew out of the vines past my head.  That’s never happened.  I didn’t think much of it till the next day when I walked past that same corner to get the hose and a female cardinal flew out of the same spot.  I informed my wife.  During the pandemic, we turned into bird watchers.  It gave us more to talk about.

“There’s something going on in the clematis with a pair of cardinals.”

We’ve had that clematis for I don’t know how long, but soon after we bought the house in 1987.  It’s been moved at least once.  We could take care of it better, but it does well on its own and is easy to ignore until songbirds start flying out of it.

“You know,” my wife said.  “I’ve noticed a pair of cardinals being closer to the house than normal for a week or so.  The male has been perching on your tomato cages.  He’s never done that before.”

I built new raised beds close to that corner of the garage, within reach of the hydrant and the hose. 

“Let’s go look.”

We slowly snuck up on our clematis.  Odd behavior for seniors in their own backyard, but we didn’t want to disturb a Cardinal again if it was lurking there.  Not seeing anything with feathers, we inched closer.  I’m taller than my wife, so I got up on my toes for a better look.

In a tangle of dead clematis vines I failed to cut back last fall was a smooth brown basket holding three tiny eggs. Light gray with dark spots. I announced the news to Colleen in a whispered flourish. 

“We’re about to welcome baby cardinals to the neighborhood.”

There is something wonderful about discovering new things in nature, especially when they happen so close to you.  The nest is fifteen feet away from an umbrella table where we spend a lot of our summer.  It’s less than eight feet from our new garden.  And no more than a foot from an access door to our garage, just inside is the fridge where we keep beer.  We want to give the expectant couple privacy, but the cardinals built their nursery in the middle of our summer hangout.  It’s nerve-wracking, likely for them as much as us. 

Two summers ago, during Covid when we lived like lepers, we watched a pair of bluebirds hatch their babies in a bluebird house fellow bird-loving neighbors gave us.  We did that mostly with binoculars.  We saw the fledglings fly awkwardly for a few days, then disappear.  But the bluebirds were across the yard and far away. 

As fate would have it soon after discovering eggs in the clematis, I borrowed another neighbor’s power washer to begin preparations for a family 4^th of July party.  My wife’s three sisters, my granddaughter June and her parents, a bunch of cousins.  Does this happen at your house?  My wife declared a list of home improvements that had to be done, and could not fail to be completed, before the party.  

One assigned to me was power washing the patio.  I had to admit it was long overdue.  I borrowed the washer from another generous neighbor.  But after I was underway, and realized the noise that thing made, let alone the cloud of water and crud it raised, I quickly stopped.

“Colleen, I’m afraid I’m going to scare the cardinals away from their eggs for good.”

“Oh, come on,” she said.

“No, really.  Let’s find out about this.”

Because we wonder long about nothing in this smartphone phase of our lives, we sat down at the patio table and furiously googled the habits of the Northern Red Cardinal.   Here’s what we learned.

·       The female builds the nest 3-10 feet above the ground in shrubs, vines, or low trees.  The male brings her the building materials.  Nest building lasts 3-9 days.  It’s an open cup of twigs, weeds, grass, and leaves lined with fine grass or hair.  They build a new nest every year, sometimes more than once in a single year.

• ·       Cardinals don’t migrate.  They can start nesting as early as late February (though I doubt it in Illinois) and often continue into late August or September, raising one or two broods a year, one beginning in March and the other in late May or July.
• ·       Cardinals generally mate for life, which only averages 3-5 years.  However, divorces do happen, and when they do the partners search for a new mate.
• ·       A male Cardinals defends his territory during breeding season, chasing away intruders and predators. While the female is busy building, then nesting, the male keeps an eye out for predators.
• ·       Cardinals rarely abandon their nests because they are very protective of their brood during the breeding season. 

Trusting that last bullet point, I went ahead with the patio power washing.  I washed the section nearest their nest last, worked quickly, and the male Cardinal didn’t make much of a fuss.  A day after that was done, while taking a break from painting the patio steps with Colleen, I craned my neck to check the nest again when both parents were gone.  When I peered in, wide open beaks with big eyes above them rose and gaped open at the top of the nest.  Tiny naked bodies below those big beaks seemed almost an afterthought.  I was so shocked to see live hatchlings instead of eggs I didn’t count them.  I went in the house and reported the news immediately to Colleen.

“The Cardinal chicks are here!”

Young people might think of retirement as boring when they realize big news in their parents’ lives to be the arrival of baby birds in a bush.  But be honest, how cool is it to witness new life bloom right beside you?  Very.  I don’t care what stage of life you’re in.

We had the party, the weather was good, and our guests were on the patio all afternoon and into the evening.  We made a general announcement to them about the nursery in the clematis and they were good about staying away.  The Cardinals went about their jobs as new parents, gathering food, regurgitating it into their chicks’ mouths, and keeping watch over their nest.  It may have been my imagination, but I think the male stayed especially close.  I saw him perching in my garden, watching from boughs in the cypress tree, even standing guard on the rain gutter above the clematis.

I have to say I identify with his style.  I remember when our first child, our daughter Maureen, was born.  The day after her arrival when all was well, and she was scheduled to come home I went to Kroger and bought $250 worth of groceries (in 1983 when $250 bought a whole load of groceries).  Early the next morning I was one of K Mart’s first customers and bought our first microwave oven.  I was imagining warming up our baby’s milk and feeding her myself to help my wife.

I’m not suggesting human beings have similar parenting instincts as American songbirds, but the prospect of providing for my family hit me hard.  Like the male Cardinal I took parenting very seriously.  Still do.

Of course, Northern Red Cardinals have been in Ottawa a lot longer than humans have.  If they only live for five years, there are uncountable generations of Cardinals who have built nests, hatched eggs, gathered food, and stood watch over their chicks.  Maybe they too feel a need to make sure their kind survives and thrives in the ravines, valleys, and bluffs along the Fox and Illinois rivers, or wherever they their lives take them. 

My wife and I feel honored to be part of it if even in a small way.  The birth of a nest of Cardinal hatchlings in our clematis on Fields Hill is extremely local news noted only here.  But its good news.  For me, it comes at a time when good news seems scarce.   As a country we’re going to embark on an ugly election season that will last too long and exhaust us.  Be present in the moment and pay attention to the breadth of what is going on around you.  These are things that make up our lives.

 

Post Script:  I finished this piece on the 4^th of July to the sound of fireworks going off over the Illinois river down the hill.  This morning I checked the nest.

The chicks have fledged.  One never hatched.  From what I’ve learned, the fledglings fall from the nest, hop around on the grass, stretch their wings, and imagine flight.  All that while being watched over closely by the male and female Cardinals.  Another version of helicopter parents.  Unlike humans, they become empty nesters quickly.  Do you suppose they still worry after their offspring fly away?