Hitchhiking in America: Using the Golden Thumb

Hitchhiking in America: Using the Golden Thumb

Second Edition, Electronic Version

Dale Carpenter

You’re Dale Carpenter!  We’ve read your book!  Hitchhiker Gabriel

When in The Wizard of Oz is hitchhiking mentioned?

What movie, which includes a famous hitchhiking scene, won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Actress?

What song mentioning hitchhiking reached Number One on Billboard’s Hot 100 List in 1971?

What television show’s main character was almost always seen hitchhiking at the end of each episode?

The Guinness Book of World Records mentions two hitchhiking records.  What are they?

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Though it tends to be looked down upon as a trivial activity confined to vagrants, the feeble- minded, sex maniacs and serial killers, hitchhiking needs to be re-valued as a means to an end (transportation and self-education) and as an end in itself (as suggested by Jack London’s wonderful paragraphs quoted at the top of p.  35).

This is a source book, not just a casual handbook, and by its appeal to a long tradition it gives hitchhiking well-deserved stature.  People have been hitchhiking since the first vehicle – probably a raft – was invented.  Odysseus hitchhiked, St.  Paul hitchhiked; anyone who hitchhikes today is keeping alive an ancient and honorable tradition and your book will help readers put modern hitchhiking into its particularly American context.

Prof.  Daniel H.  Garrison

Department of Classics, Northwestern University –

Presenter of a lecture that students refer to as Hitchhiking as an Art Form.

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Published by Lies Told Press, Ltd.  – Non-fiction Division.  Printed in The United States of America.

Second Edition Print and Electronic Versions Copyright 2014 by Dale Carpenter.

First Edition Copyright 1992 by Dale Carpenter.

All rights reserved.  No part of this book, except for brief passages in articles and reviews that credit both author and publisher, may be reproduced by any means without express written permission from the author.  No distributor or vendor of this book, in any form, may place restrictions on lending of this book by any public funded institution or organization.

The scanning and distribution of this book via the World Wide Web or the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions.  Your support of author’s rights are appreciated.

Carpenter, Dale.

Hitchhiking in America: Using the Golden Thumb.

Bibliography.  Includes index.

1.  Hitchhiking - United States.

2.  United States - Travel.

3.  Hiking, Pedestrian tours - United States, General Works.

4.  Hitchhiking - American Media.

GV199.4  2014917.04 Car

ISBN 978-0-9631910-2-1 Second Edition Electronic Version

ISBN 978-0-9631910-1-4 Second Edition Print Version

ISBN 0-9631910-0-4           First Edition Printing

The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

All illustrations by the author.

Second Edition Dedication

On November 7, 2010 I was driving through Binghamton, New York when I saw two hitchhikers with a Florida or Bust sign.  Something made me turn around and pick them up.  Gabriel and Nicholas are college students from Quebec who are hitchhiking around the Americas, hoping to make it to Terra Del Fuego.  As we drove south on Highway 81, we talked of hitchhiking.  I was telling them how I used to use a folded white towel with ‘North’, ‘South’, ‘East’ and ‘West’ marked on it, when Gabriel yelled You’re Dale Carpenter.  We’ve read your book.

They are the inspiration for this second edition.

First Edition Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the people who passed me by while I was hitchhiking.  May they someday realize what an interesting person they missed meeting.

My thanks go out to all of the hitchhikers I have ever met and who offered friendship and advice.

This book could have been written without them but it never would have been as good.

Thanks also go out to Daniel H.  Garrison of Northwestern University who, by offering observations both as a fellow hitchhiker and as a fellow writer, measurably improved this book.

An unpayable debt is owed to my friends who, with their knowledge of my hopeless ability to spell and use proper punctuation, gently pointed out my errors.

Table of Contents

Note: Clicking on any of the chapter headings will bring you back to this table of contents.

Introduction

Hitchhiking: A Social Phenomena in the History of America

Hitchhiking as Portrayed in the Media: Newspapers, Magazines, Books, Movies, Television

Advice for the Hitchhiker:

Why Hitchhike

Planning Your Trip

Alone or With a Friend

What to Take Along

Women Hitchhikers

On the Road:

How to Thumb

Choosing the Spot

Tactics for Hitchhiking

You and the Driver

Road Hassles

Sleeping on the Road

Sex on the Road

Keeping a Journal

The All-Important Attitude

Conclusions and Recommendations

Final Hints and Tips

Bibliography

Newspapers

Magazines

Books

Movies About, Mentioning, or Showing Hitchhiking

Index of Subjects Discussed or Mentioned

My grateful acknowledgements to these companies who provided permission to use the quotes in this book;

And/Or Press, Berkeley, California;

Associated Press, New York, New York;

Basic Books, Inc., New York, New York;

Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., New York, New York;

The Boston Globe, Boston, Mass.;

Car and Driver, Ann Arbor, Michigan;

The Crown Publishing Group, New York, New York;

Harper's Magazine, New York, New York;

Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Mass.;

Macmillian Publishing Co., New York, New York;

William Morrow & Co., New York, New York;

The Nation Company, Inc., New York, New York;

The New Republic, Washington, D.C.;

The New York Times, New York, New York;

Newsday, New York, New York;

Newsweek, New York, New York;

W.W.  Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York;

Penguin Books USA Inc., New York, New York;

Random House, Inc., New York, New York;

Saturday Evening Post, Indianapolis, Indiana;

Simon & Schuster, New York, New York;

University of Colorado at Denver, Center for Urban Transportation Studies, Denver, Colorado;

The Washington Post, Wash., D.C.

INTRODUCTION

I was in the car less than 5 minutes when the driver asked where I started from.  Upstate New York, I said.  Where? he asked.  Binghamton, New York.  Just over the Pennsylvania border.  I started at noon.  What? he yelled.  You started at noon and you got down here by Washington already?  Yes, I've been lucky getting rides. Lucky, hell.  You must have a Golden Thumb.

I am not in the same league as Devon Smith who claims to have hitchhiked 290,000 miles from 1947 to 1971 (1979 Guinness Book of World Records), or Paul DiMaggio, the author of The Hitchhiker's Field Manual, or the young lady who was crowned Miss Hitchhiker by the Mayor of the Bowery (New York Times, August 23, 1946).  My total at the time of this writing (1992) is over 30,000 miles.  I hitchhiked while in high school, while in the service, while attending college, and while working.  While most of my hitchhiking was done in the eastern half of the nation, I have done several cross-country trips around the United States.  I once hitchhiked in March from upstate New York to Los Angeles just to attend a friend's wedding.

I started hitchhiking young.  Living out in the country meant a walk into town if I wanted to go to the library or shopping for comics or visit my friends.  After walking for miles and miles in town, my brothers and sisters and I faced the walk back home.  So it was with sore feet that we, at first, hesitantly turned around to oncoming cars and put out our thumbs.  Mostly it was friends of the family that picked us up, mainly because they knew us and also lived out that way.  While in high school, if I stayed late for a sports practice or for some other after school activity, it was my thumb that helped me get home.  Hitchhiking like this, in a familiar area where one knows many people, is the safest way to be introduced to the pleasures of traveling by thumb.  Learning to hitchhike like this, it is only a matter of time until the thought occurs one could easily hitchhike to visit friends in another town, or to a concert somewhere, or off to see the world.

The main reason for writing this book is to help those individuals who are planning to hitchhike for a period of time, be it for one week or longer.  It will also, I hope, improve the image of the hitchhiker by giving a general overview of how hitchhikers have been portrayed in newspapers, periodicals, books, television, and films, and how very often this image is false and misleading.

November 7, 2010.  I get on Route 81 south in Binghamton, New York and get into the far left lane to stay on 81 where it splits with Route 17.  Glancing to my right, I see two hitchhikers with full size backpacks and a sign saying Florida or Bust.

Something tells me I have to pick them up but the traffic is too heavy to get across and stop so I get off at an exit, clear the front and back seats and get back on the highway.  As I pass the hitchhikers I see a New York State Trooper car has stopped by them.  At the next exit I get off and do a u-turn to go south.  As I come up on where they are standing, I see a State Trooper SUV has pulled up behind the trooper car.  I stop about 75 feet behind the SUV.  The trooper gets out and walks back to my car.

Can I help you?

Officer, I’ve done a lot of hitchhiking and I know those guys are hitchhiking in a bad spot.  I am heading down towards Scranton so I decided to give them a lift.

You would do that?

Sure.  I can drop them off at a truck stop and use my cb radio to ask if a trucker would give them a ride.

Okay.  Pull your car up behind mine.

The trooper walks up to where the first trooper is talking to the hitchhikers.  I pull up behind the SUV and turn off my car.  In about 3 minutes, the trooper comes back.

They are college students from Quebec and don’t know they are not supposed to hitchhike on the highway.  You still want to give them a ride?

Sure.

He waves.  A young man comes trotting along the highway to my car and looks in the passenger window.

Bon jour.

Hello.  Toss your backpack in the back.

He walks behind my station wagon, opens the hatch, takes off his backpack and puts it in.  The other hitchhiker and the first trooper come walking back along the road, talking.

Hello.  You will give us a ride?  Yes.  Put your backpack in the back.

The first hitchhiker gets in the back seat.  The second puts his backpack in my car and gets in the passenger seat.

You sure you are okay giving these guys a ride?  One of the troopers asks.

Sure.  I did a lot of hitchhiking in college and in the Army and I almost always pick up hitchhikers.

They are college students from Quebec and they don’t know they are not supposed to hitchhike up on the highway.  The first trooper says.  And this is a bad place to stand.

I saw them when I went by but I was over on the other side and couldn’t get over in time to stop so I came back for them.  There is a truck stop near Scranton and I can let them off them.  Well, this is a good thing you are doing.

It’s November in Binghamton.  If you had a chance to go to Florida, wouldn’t you go?  The troopers laugh.

Thank you.

Thank you, officers.  Have a good day.

The officers get in their cars.  I wait until they leave and seeing an opening in the traffic, pull out on the highway and head south.

I am Gabriel.  The man in the passenger seat introduces himself.  Dale.  We shake hands.

I am Nicholas.  I shake hands with the man in the back seat.

They are college students from Quebec who are traveling around for a year, documenting their journey with video, film and emails, which they put on their website www.grasdur.com.  They plan to hitchhike to Florida, then west through the south, then down through Central and South America to Terra del Fuego.  I am jealous.

We talk about hitchhiking and I mention I did a lot of it while in the Army and in college.  The subject turns to hitchhiking techniques and I start to tell them about the white towel I used as a sign.

I took a white towel, folded it in fourths and wrote ‘North, South, East and West’ on it and pinned it closed with….

YOU ARE DALE CARPENTER.  WE READ YOUR BOOK!  Gabriel yells.

After the laughter stopped, they said to prepare they looked at all the hitchhiking books they could find and decided mine was the best in providing how-to advice.  So of course I had to bring them to my house, provide food and shelter, and listen to their adventures.  My dear wife made them use our phone to let their families know they were safe.  That little meeting provided the emphasis for the second edition of this book.  That and the fact copies of the first edition are selling for over $100 on various online book sites.

I cannot teach you how to hitchhike.  Like parenting, sex, driving a vehicle, sky diving, swimming, building a house, exercising, and many other activities, hitchhiking can only be learned by doing.  But I believe I can give you some useful information that will make it easier and less hazardous to learn.

Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines the verb hitchhike: to travel by securing free rides - to solicit or obtain (a free ride) - hitchhiker noun.  The noun hitchhiker has often been used interchangeably and erroneously with the words hobo, tramp, and bum.  All of these words carry with them a sense this person is an undesirable.  Hitchhiking tends to be seen as an activity used mostly by the unemployed, runaways, and criminals.  It needs to be looked at as a means of transportation and as an activity worthy in itself.

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"Let me here dispel a popular fallacy concerning this practice.  A hitchhiker is not a bum, although a bum may be a hitchhiker! The difference is this.  A bum is – a bum; trying to chisel the most out of people with the least amount of labor expended.  A hitchhiker is a person who has a certain destination to reach, feels his imposition upon the general public, but is willing to earn his