Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing , tramping , hitching , autostop or thumbing up a ride ) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking people, usually strangers, for a ride in their automobile or other road vehicle to travel a distance that may either be short or long. The latter may require many rides from different people; a ride is usually but not always free. If one wishes to indicate that they need a ride, they must simply make a hand gesture. In North America, the gesture is to stick one of their thumbs upward. In other parts of the world, it’s more common to use a gesture where the index finger is pointed at the road. This cultural difference stems partly from an alternate offensive meaning for the thumbs up gesture in parts of Europe and Asia. source
Hitch hiking is a wonderful way to get a genuine snapshot of humanity – and its almost completely irrespective of your own present relationships and situations. You just put yourself out there on the side of the road – an anonymous probe – and check out what rolls down the line…
Personally, I am interested in what other people are
doing
. How are they spending their days? What are they talking about? Where are they going? Are they happy? Stressed? Psychotic? Feeling revolutionary?
Hitch hiking is also a great experiment in marketing – you are quite literally selling yourself… as a friendly, safe person who needs a ride and is traveling the same direction you’re going.
Well, I took a hitch hiking trip yesterday, and five people bought what I was selling.
I was headed from my home in Portland to Troy, ME to pick up the car at the mechanic (why use a mechanic 100 miles away? Great mechanic. Specializes in Subarus. Trustworthy. Affordable. Plus, AAA will tow the car there, so its worth taking an afternoon off to get the car fixed. And, hitch hiking up there is fun. That’s why.)
My roommate dropped me off at Portland’s northbound Forest Ave on-ramp in the pouring rain at 1230 p.m. on Mach 23rd, 2010. It took me five rides and three and a quarter hours to make it to the mechanics’. And I definitely got a strong dose of central Maine authenticity along the way.
My first ride was from a home builder out of Brunswick. He had a nice new full-size truck, with leather interior, which was good because my wet rear end was not going to leave behind a puddle! We mainly shot the breeze about weather and local food. It was a quick ride as I had him drop me off in Freeport, even though he was going to Brunswick, because the Brunswick on-ramp doesn’t allow much opportunity for drivers to slow down.
The second ride was from a jolly, two-toothed good ol’ boy from Brunswick. On the highway, he played leap-frog with a cute girl in a Mustang (we even passed a cop traveling well over 70; this at the same time as he winked across me to the grinning woman in her green sports car. “Do you know her?” I asked. “No, but I love pussy,” he delivered this with more innocence than I would have thought possible.). We talked about the rough situation his cousin was in, with a girlfriend who refused to recognize a mental illness which caused her to be bi-polar and moody. My new friend was on his way to pick up the cousin for a break from the madness. He, going a bit out of his own way, dropped me at the new Topsham exit.
There I stood for 20 minutes or so, holding my increasingly dilapidated sign (“Waterville.”) A man in a tan Excursion stopped and had me move some of his tools so I could unfold one of the back seats to sit. He was heading, home, to Kingfield, and agreed to take the route through Waterville in order to help me out. This was my longest ride of the day and we talked easily of outdoor adventures lived. He told me of a kayaking trip he had taken in the Everglades during which his stern had been lifted from the water by a protective female alligator swimming underneath him.
We parted ways at the Kenneday Memorial Drive exit in Waterville, with him heading north one more exit, before going west through Norridgewok toward Kingfield; and me setting out on foot through downtown Waterville. Through the rain I walked alongside KMD’s four lanes until I reached the turn off for rte. 137 toward China.
I made a new sign (“China”) and in 15 more minutes I had a ride in a terrific automobile: a 2003 Volkswagen TDI Jetta. I chatted with the local man, who rocked a beard sans moustache and a John Deere hat. We stopped for a minute while he picked up a part at the small engine shop (I waited in the car alone) and while he drove we talked of hitch hiking stories (“I used to hitch home from college in Boston. I would just stand out there with a sign, like you are, said ‘Maine,’ and I’d eventually make it home”), cell phone usage (“now people carry them hunting in case they lost!”) and the value of a good mechanic (he pointed out another good Subaru guy in China. As he pulled back onto the road, a Forester gunned it and passed us going up a hill, “Subarus. They’re everywhere!”). He also went a little extra for me, driving past his house three miles in order to drop me off at the intersection of rte 137 and rte 202/9.
This point was the most desolate hitching spot on my journey and it was also the longest I waited before I got a ride. A state trooper passed me at one point and did not slow down when I stuck my thumb at him and flashed my new sign (“Unity”). I also saw a surprising number of taxi cabs pass me on that intersection (two). Finally, after 25 minutes, a deliciously cute 80-year old couple stopped for me in their 2003 Hyundai Accent. They had just spent the winter in Florida and were on their way to visit family in Dexter (“That’s what all the wrapped gifts are for – we haven’t seen them since Autumn.”). I also had to unfold the seat in their vehicle. With them having been away since Fall, it was fun to see Maine through their eyes, fresh, anew: “group of turkeys there”, “he must be a plumber with all the white PVC piping in the dooryard.” This friendly couple brought me all the way to my vehicle, also going out of their way a couple miles. The woman, who had only chimed in occasionally in the conversation earlier, said “Bless You” as I left. “Merry Christmas!” I said.
The car was ready. I stripped off my soggy raincoat, removed my little pack and chucked my signs in the passenger seat. As I turned over the engine, cranked the heat and pledged to fix the broken radio (one of these days) I began to mentally unpack the experience of the afternoon’s hitch.
From my intentionally unscientific snapshot, folks are certainly neighborly: All five rides dropped me in a location not on their original route, just to help. Everyone seemed to feel good about their life, and, importantly, to be living for themselves. Several were on the way to spend time with family. All were, for the most part, stable, industrious, friendly, clever, thoughtful and likable.
Today, it is back to work for me, but the hitch hiking trip was a worthwhile and somewhat inspirational experience. Plainly, Maine is a good place to be doing stuff.
Source
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