HITCHING
When I was young, 25 or 26, hitchhiking was an important way of traveling. Most of us had left behind our middle class parents and their suburban ways, to start a life that was not based on consuming. Mostly we could go where we wanted by walking or hopping public transportation. Occasionally we wanted to go to the nude beaches south of Half-Moon Bay. That meant sticking out a thumb.
The best ride would be if some long haired surfers came by in their surfing van. Surfing vans were bachelor pads on wheels. Guys spent a lot of time and money making vans spectacular refuges for resting, smoking a doobie with fellow surfers, or maybe even hooking up with a bikini clad beauty.
The worst ride was two greasy middle aged guys who acted like they were on the run from having their car repossessed. And that was the ride we got. We had waited a long time already so it didn’t seem like a good idea to be picky.
The guy in the passenger seat lit a joint and passed it back to Randy and me. We could see he had herpes. When a guy like that passes you a joint, you accept it. Saying, “no thanks,” would be unfriendly and possibly set off an edgy guy, but it didn’t mean we were stupid enough to actually smoke it. Unlike the surfer dudes, these guys could be passing us PCP, or something worse. There is no reason to go into potential implications of that.
We faked smoking while watching for any implication that could point to them turning into PCP driven madmen. They seemed okay, though the driver hinted that they were horny in case we were interested in helping them out in exchange for giving us a ride and free dope.
When we got to our stopping place, the car pulled over. The driver turned back to us and said we should be careful hitching, that there were bad people in the world and hitchhiking could be dangerous. The passenger side guy exploded into laughter and grinning back at us repeated what the driver had said about bad people being dangerous. It was perfectly clear that they were the dangerous people and we were saved only because they had eaten the previous hikers, and therefore were not currently hungry.
After a relaxing day at the beach, we went back to the highway and stuck out our thumbs looking for a ride back home.
When I was young, 25 or 26, hitchhiking was an important way of traveling. Most of us had left behind our middle class parents and their suburban ways, to start a life that was not based on consuming. Mostly we could go where we wanted by walking or hopping public transportation. Occasionally we wanted to go to the nude beaches south of Half-Moon Bay. That meant sticking out a thumb.
The best ride would be if some long haired surfers came by in their surfing van. Surfing vans were bachelor pads on wheels. Guys spent a lot of time and money making vans spectacular refuges for resting, smoking a doobie with fellow surfers, or maybe even hooking up with a bikini clad beauty.
The worst ride was two greasy middle aged guys who acted like they were on the run from having their car repossessed. And that was the ride we got. We had waited a long time already so it didn’t seem like a good idea to be picky.
The guy in the passenger seat lit a joint and passed it back to Randy and me. We could see he had herpes. When a guy like that passes you a joint, you accept it. Saying, “no thanks,” would be unfriendly and possibly set off an edgy guy, but it didn’t mean we were stupid enough to actually smoke it. Unlike the surfer dudes, these guys could be passing us PCP, or something worse. There is no reason to go into potential implications of that.
We faked smoking while watching for any implication that could point to them turning into PCP driven madmen. They seemed okay, though the driver hinted that they were horny in case we were interested in helping them out in exchange for giving us a ride and free dope.
When we got to our stopping place, the car pulled over. The driver turned back to us and said we should be careful hitching, that there were bad people in the world and hitchhiking could be dangerous. The passenger side guy exploded into laughter and grinning back at us repeated what the driver had said about bad people being dangerous. It was perfectly clear that they were the dangerous people and we were saved only because they had eaten the previous hikers, and therefore were not currently hungry.
After a relaxing day at the beach, we went back to the highway and stuck out our thumbs looking for a ride back home.