I seem to be full of off topic ideas.
For some reason when I was driving down to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription today, I saw a guy at the side of the road fixing his shoe or something, and it made me remember the old days when you saw many hitchhikers all the time everywhere. I was one of them
I used to hitchhike from New York City to Pittsburgh and back on the weekends when I was in the Coast Guard stationed in Brooklyn. It would take me about eight hours when a guy I worked with used to drop me off on the New Jersey Turnpike right where it split off to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. On the way back it took me a little longer but not that bad when my dad dropped me off at the turnpike entrance. At the end I could just take a ride from anywhere in New York City and ride the subway.
So anyway, when I was going to Southeast Asia in the Coast Guard of all places, I hitchhike from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, and it probably took several days(don’t remember). When coming back from Southeast Asia to San Francisco, I hitchhike from San Francisco airport to my home in Pittsburgh in, believe it or not, 56 hours total duration. That included six hours stuck in Cheyenne Wyoming at a gas station when there was no traffic except for maybe one car per hour from midnight to 6 AM. It wasn’t worth waiting at the road edge all the time. That was 1968.
Of course, having a white sailors uniform on during the time of the Vietnam war was sure helpful!
After returning to the states in 1978 with a wife and two kids, although it hurt me in my heart, I decided not to ever pick up hitchhikers because I was hearing too many bad of stories about unfortunate things that happened to people that were kind enough to pick them up.
Now it looks like nobody even would understand what a hitchhiker is! Now that my kids are grown and they have their own kids I might actually pick a hitchhiker up! Except they don’t seem to exist anymore.
Times do change…
For some reason when I was driving down to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription today, I saw a guy at the side of the road fixing his shoe or something, and it made me remember the old days when you saw many hitchhikers all the time everywhere. I was one of them
I used to hitchhike from New York City to Pittsburgh and back on the weekends when I was in the Coast Guard stationed in Brooklyn. It would take me about eight hours when a guy I worked with used to drop me off on the New Jersey Turnpike right where it split off to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. On the way back it took me a little longer but not that bad when my dad dropped me off at the turnpike entrance. At the end I could just take a ride from anywhere in New York City and ride the subway.
So anyway, when I was going to Southeast Asia in the Coast Guard of all places, I hitchhike from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, and it probably took several days(don’t remember). When coming back from Southeast Asia to San Francisco, I hitchhike from San Francisco airport to my home in Pittsburgh in, believe it or not, 56 hours total duration. That included six hours stuck in Cheyenne Wyoming at a gas station when there was no traffic except for maybe one car per hour from midnight to 6 AM. It wasn’t worth waiting at the road edge all the time. That was 1968.
Of course, having a white sailors uniform on during the time of the Vietnam war was sure helpful!
After returning to the states in 1978 with a wife and two kids, although it hurt me in my heart, I decided not to ever pick up hitchhikers because I was hearing too many bad of stories about unfortunate things that happened to people that were kind enough to pick them up.
Now it looks like nobody even would understand what a hitchhiker is! Now that my kids are grown and they have their own kids I might actually pick a hitchhiker up! Except they don’t seem to exist anymore.
Times do change…
