This Edition of Kooky’s Korner Kooky covers a topic which I have benefited from many a time, Hitch Hiking. In my opinion it is one of those throw back common courtesies that has been lost in today’s society. There was a time when one could stick a thumb out and get a ride just about anywhere. Sometimes new friends were made, ideas exchanged or at the very least a good deed done. These days hitch hiking has gotten a bad name with all the crazies out there.
The thing is how many people really get robed, murdered, killed or raped in comparison to how many do not from hitching. I mean they don’t make reports on the news about hitch hikers who have no adversity. I guess a few bad apples spoil the whole basket. I personally am a strong advocate for hitch hiking being on both sides of the coin. This is not my forum to write and Kooky did a pretty good job on the issue. I will let him run on it…Chris
What do you do when you see a person with a thumb out walking down the side of the road? Most people in America wouldn’t think twice about continuing driving, and most Americans wouldn’t hitchhike. Well I am not most people. I am Kooky Motherfucking Kyle.
The first time I ever hitch hiked was in Belize my sophomore year of college. I had just taken a plaster cast of Jaguar tracks on the edge of a jungle road that ran into a nature preserve and was walking back. I reached the edge of the preserve and was walking along the edge of a massive orange orchard. It just so happened that a field worker was rolling down the rutted dirt road on a dirt bike. He pulled over and asked if I needed a ride back into town. With limited time to catch breakfast, I didn’t hesitate.
I jumped on the back of the bike and we zoomed off down the rough road. I only really started hitch hiking in my final year of college to cut down on my walks to class. Short rides really, maybe a half mile. They made my day. Often times it would be class mates slightly puzzled that I was walking back from class and even more so that I was hitch hiking. Lately I have been using it as a means of getting around town here in Santa Barbara (most often back from the Kitty). I have gotten rides from a French surfer, a cute girl in her mid twenties, a British guy and his girl, and a taxi driver who was “headed that way anyway”.
On the converse side I have given people rides before too. Once on the way to a regatta, I was in the truck pulling our crew team trailer. This old black man came up and asked where we were going camping thinking that the shells were canoes. Well it turned out he was going in our direction and had no problem riding in the bed of the pick up. One glorious thing about the south is people can ride in the bed of a pick up even on the interstate.
This past spring I tossed an ad on the wonderful Craigslist and gave a hobo couple in their twenties, their dog and her 10 day old puppies a ride from Wilmington NC to Baltimore MD. It was cool they had a different path in life and were pretty interesting as a result. These people had hitch hiked across the country and back, hopped trains, totally transient. Gnarly as they were, the chick had a Mohawk, the guy had tats on his face and a rat tail, they were good people. I asked them about hitching and they said the people who pick you up are a strange mix of Bible thumpers, concerned parents who see their kids in the hitch hiker, people who hitch hiked back in the 60’s and 70’s, and people like me who are just nice enough to give you a ride. I asked them where was it easiest to hitch hike, the girl said that hitching was easier in the south, because everyone has pick ups and you can just hop in the bed.
The fact that hitch hiking is frowned upon in America saddens me. Have things come so bad in this country that we cannot trust one another? Sure I the rider might be a nutso serial killer, but they don’t know that you aren’t either. In other parts of the world it is still acceptable. I hopefully will be in one of those places this winter, New Zealand. I will acknowledge that hitch hiking is not the safest activity to partake in, but it is not nearly as dangerous as people make it out to be. Trust your gut instincts, it will usually tell you when there is something arye. So, share rides, you never know what interesting tale you may hear or what interesting person will pick you up – Kooky Kyle
I have to say that I myself passed by this dirty looking homeless couple along Sea Cliffs the other day and just by the look of them I could imagine the stench. I shook my head and drove on by. If there was a puddle next to them I probaly would have sped up and drenched them. Then again I am a fucking asshole.
I dont know if you want to give this guy a ride, but you can decided that for yourselves.
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