Today from a bus we noticed a forlorn hitchhiker on the other side of the road, and realized that we’ve seen hardly any in the last many years. After I learned, in America, to drive, I stopped for every hitchhiker I saw, knowing, from my thousands of miles of experience in Europe and North Africa and Asia, what it feels like to get no ride for hours. Did I have any bad experiences? Yes, the worst was when a fellow asked me whether I minded him smoking, and I said no, so long as he opened the window. Perhaps people have become more fearful, as they have of many things. But what has also increased is the need for fewer people to drive cars.
“What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe
When hitchhiking, make sure to have your towel ready. When picking up a hitchhiker, make sure to have a towel rack handy.
I’m with you on this one. I live in rural New England (no locks on house, keys routinely left in car) and I’ve always picked up hitchhikers; some stranded, many eccentric, most interesting, some drunk (I’d rather they ride with me than interact with them behind the wheel), some simply hitch-hiking – included into Canada – but have also noticed that there are very few needing rides these days – especially for being stranded. I attribute a great deal of that to ubiquitous cell phones.
I once found myself at the bottom of a steep backwoods hill in the midst of a surprise seasonally-early snow squall – with summer tires incapable of making the grade. I stumped to a nearby house to ask to make a phone call (I’m a cellphone luddite) only to find a terror-stricken old woman behind the door curtain. She threatened to call the police – so, I asked her to kindly do so! The officer drove me to my house to get the truck and steered my car as I towed it up with a rope.
It continues to be a remarkable psychological phenomenon that as there is less to fear we become more fearful. Its correlate may be that as life circumstances improve we tend to become more dissatisfied (even depressed) with remaining flaws and challenges and find them more intolerable. The subjects of war/peace, school violence, food/drug/child safety, pollution, placebo/nocebo etc. all find applications of this human tendency.
Hardly a good idea in this age of terrorist attack and outright madness
As Michael Crichton observed in his book of the same name, we are kept in a State of Fear.