Column: Hitchhikers

It's pretty safe to say that the warmer are days of 2018 are long gone and the next few months will have some chilly days.

As idiots drive by way to fast on the Interstate people will long for the days when there were warmer temperatures and clear roads. As someone who spends a lot of time on the road, I prefer them clear although the warmer temperatures bring out the seasonal hitchhikers.

I would not say I scare easily, but I do admit that each and every time I pass a hitchhiker I immediately start to think of all the bad things that would happen if I picked them up. I run through each scenario and is always worse when there are multiple people.

I understand that sometimes people have run out of gas or a car breakdown, I'm talking more about the people with signs or look like that have not had a good bath since Richard Nixon was in office. I was always told not to judge a book by its cover, and usually I don't, but if the cover looks like it is going to murder me after five minutes in the car, I'll judge away.

I know there are people far less scared than me that pick up people, but I just cannot do it and I don't know too many people who would disagree with me. Another scary thing it might be some of the normal looking people who could be really nasty so there is no win-win in picking up anyone. I hate to say it, but I'm sure some people might use their kids as bait to get people.

It's just a different world than it was 50 plus years ago when their were hitchhikers all over the road and a "hobo life" was not an uncommon thing. I found this out in an interesting way during a night out with a few buddies.

In the early 2000's, I was working for a daily newspaper in Wyoming and would meet up with my friends every Friday night at a local brewery. The food was hit and miss, the beer was tremendous, and the conversations were out of this world.

There was always the usual Friday evening crowd that gave the place a "Cheers" like feel, but there would be a revolving door on interesting characters each Friday that made things interesting.

On one evening the bar portion of the brewery was packed elbow to elbow and I couldn't really hear my friends who were all to the right of me. I instead struck up a conversation with a professor at a local community college. He was a little strange, but so am I, so I was enjoying the small talk. One of the first things he told me was that he did not own a TV and would watch once every four years when he would rent a hotel room to watch the Presidential results.

He then proceeded to start talking about hobos and hitchhiking and I was mesmerized. For the next few hours, I felt like I had a crash course on the hobo life and learned just how common it was. There was a whole hobo code I knew nothing about it. It was a way of life. He also spent some time talking about how normal it used to be for college kids to wonder around the United States by hitchhiking. It really got me thinking and I wonder how awful it is there is a loss of innocence. If I grew up in another era I wouldn't have been so scared to pick someone up instead of thinking about if their kill count was higher than Ted Bundy.

I'm sure I feel really stupid after writing this and then running out of the gas on the Interstate, I'll just make sure to check the tank before I leave!