Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Leslie on July 12, 2005, 06:21:04 AM
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Hitchhiking is verbotten nowadays. Don't do it.
Back in 1976 I hitchhiked from Nashville to Grundy, VA. That was a trip. One guy was picking up every hitcher he saw. There were six of us in the car including a dog. Remember sleeping under an overpass where the biker with the dog and I got out. It was so cold that night I borrowed his boxer dog to use as a pillow.. Only thing that kept me from freezing.
Anyway I'm sure some of your stories are more interesting than mine. Did walk down the interstate and was hassled by sheriff deputy. He would only give me a ride to town if I wanted to go to jail. Was kinda funny because I was ready to get in the front seat. He left me alone when he heard I was from Bama. Musta thought I was stupid or something.
When I was in Grundy I hitched to my sales territory (didn't have a car). Was picked up one time by a guy in a trans am involved in a police chase. We easily evaded them, it was a game with these guys. Turned around and came back so the police could see us and then left em in the dust again. They were so bored there they did that.
From Grundy back to Nashville hitched a ride with hippies in a hippy van. Fortunately that turned out ok. This was in 1976.
Les
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Never hitched for any great distances. Before I had a car I used to have a girlfried that lived a fw towns over. It was usually no problem getting a ride there but rarely had a ride home. So I used to hitch or walk the 20 miles home every night (heh power of the poontang sure is somethin)
Anyway. never ceased to amaze me when it was raining, how many people think its funny to go out of their way to hit that puddle right next to you.
now before anyone says "Well dont stand next to a puddle"
I wouldnt just stand there at all some some idiots do. I'd be walking backwards in the direction I was headed as there was never a guarentee I was getting a ride and times I would just end up next to a puddle.
One night I had some old guy proposition me. After I declined the invatation he said "I dont have to give you a ride you know" I was like, fine. let me out right here. He kept driving. Next thing I knew he was trying to feel me up. So I flicked open my switchblade which I used to always carry and held it to his neck and suggested he pull over now and let me out. Which he did.
Fast forward 3 months. Its pouring rain and a car pulls over for me so I jump in and notice somethign familiour about the seats. he had these bead type contraption on the seats I think was supposed to be used for back releif. Anyway he starts talking and I notice somethign familour about his voice. Then it hit me its the same guy! And Im like oh no here we go again. But like I said its pouring rain so I want ot get as far down the road as I can. Couple miles later sure enough he propositions me again. So I said to him "you picked me up and tried this watermelon a couple months ago. Want to see my knife again?" he apologises and just pulls over and lets me out.
5 in later I get picked up by a couple and relay the story to them.
the chick says. "You dont really have a switchblade do you" So I take it out and open it and show it to her. She bout turned white as a ghost even though im holding it by the blade and handing it to her to check out. "uhh uhhh no thanks" she says.
her boyfriend/husband or whatever he was had no problems with it took it and checked it out for a few moments before handing it back but you could tell she was terrified.
they gave me a ride all the way home LOL
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Originally posted by Leslie
Was picked up one time by a guy in a trans am involved in a police chase. We easily evaded them, it was a game with these guys.
were you wearing a wedding dress at the time?
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No JB73, I was standing in front of a very old dilapidated building that used to be a store. The setting was a 100 ft. verticle wall on one side and a creek on the other. It was a least a two or three mile straightaway and probably used for drag racing. The incident I mentioned was more drag racing than actual evasion. Neither one cared about catching the other, or they would have.
Les
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Never really hitched. Not my thing but people in rural areas around often do for short local trips. Safe enough because it usually locals giving the rides.
Once I ended up getting a lift in an vintage Austin 7. I was on my way to London from Dublin to visit my sister when the tyre on my bike blew at about 80 mph on the M6 motorway one Sunday evening. I'm not sure how I controlled it but I did. The recovery vehicle brought me to a small garage where someone was 'cutting and shutting' a crashed car. I noticed the driver's seat had a large pool of coagulated blood on it Euggh! Someone met a gory end in that seat.
I patched the tyre but it only lasted a few miles and I ended up limping into Newport Pagnall motorway services.
While I was there considering whether to find a hotel for the night. I got talking to the driver of the Austin 7 who was returning from a vintage rally. An elderly gentleman who was once a musician supporting a well known singer. He offered me a lift the rest of the way.
I couldn't resist. Traffic was Sunday night heavy into London but he just blithely passed it all down the hard shoulder reckoning that the police would never bother with a old car like that. He was right and we passed everything in our little putt putt motor car.
It was very late when we got into London and he suggested I stay in his flat for the night. It suddenly occured to me, probably unfairly, that he might want a return on the favour. This did not appeal much so I demurred. As he left I felt he looked disappointed as if cheated of his prey.
Then I tried to find a cab. It's tricky to get a London cabbie to go 'saaf of the wiva' at that hour of the night but eventally I got one. Had to wake my sister by flinging stones at the window of her bedroom at two in the morning. That didn't make me popular.
It was a hell of a day but interesting.
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LOL 73!!! Just what I was gonna ask!!!
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Did quite a bit in the 70's along the California coast.
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Went to Donnington Monsters of Rock once in a Rover Metro liberated from my Mum. Got so wasted we fell asleep in the car park on the way out. Woke up in an empty field very early next morning. American girl banging on the window. She had some interesting tobacco and was a good looking bird so my mate and I proffered a lift. Turns out she was living on the base at Mildenhall. By the time we got there we could hardly drive in a straight line or manage two words without cracking up. We actualy got past gate security. Big scary looking guys with big guns. Much worse when you are wasted. Think we ended up in a bar on the base not sure as by then was very far gone. Never got the girl but did get to be wasted on a USAF base!!!
Was hitching home one night after going to see Ipswich town play. Got offered a lift so jumped in only to find the guy was a full on tranny, stockings dress the lot! He was pleasent enough but I was seriously uncomfortable. Made out I lived in a village down the road just to get out of the car. It was a long walk home. Should've looked at the guy before getting in I guess.
Both stories from long ago. No hitching these days. The fear mongers got to me in the end. Pity realy.
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I've never hitchhiked, but I've given rides.
Last one was about a month ago. I was heading up to Kernville to go mountain biking. Passed some hikers that were doing the Pacific Crest Trail near Walker Pass. I gave them a ride to Onyx.
Nice couple.
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Last time I hitched a lift was in University, this was back in the UK in 1990. I had been out drinking with three other lads at a pub/restaurant just outside of the town. We had driven there, but in classic student style had decided that we were all going to be the designated drinker.
At closing time, the owner of the car (a clapped out Opel) suggested that he was fine to drive home, but considering we had just watched him pour most of his last pint down the front of his shirt, we decided that we weren't going to get in the car with him and then because we had all drunk and smoked the last of our spare cash, decided we should walk home. He anounced "I'm going for a slash." Walked off and the next minute he's driving past us tooting the horn and flashing us "a salute." So the two of us started the long tromp back into town which is harder when standing up and walking is a task in itself. Eventually, we gave up walking and broke out the thumbs under a street light.
Eventually a twenty somethingish townie stopped for us, and my friend got in front and I got in the back. He stalled the car on starting again (not a good sign) but what the heck we weren't walking anymore, then he turned and casually asked my friend in the front. "Ahm a lettle stoned, could yas jes lean oot the window n' tell ma how close ta the side o' the road ah ahm?"
My friend did exactly that and guiding him back by "leff a liddle" "righ' a liddle" we managed to make it back.
Our friend who left us wasn't home when we got in, so we concluded he was probably dead. But the next morning we discovered he hadn't come home because he had stopped at an ATM and then the "open late" Curry house in town to get in some chips with curry sauce and a few extra pints of lager before bed and then had gone over to an "ex" girlfriends flat. (Why bother with the embarrassing 2:00 AM phone call when you can just show up in person?)
Truly the only reason I survived the period from '87-'91 is God's providence... Anyway, wouldn't hitch today if you paid me.
- SEAGOON
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Originally posted by JB73
were you wearing a wedding dress at the time?
More interesting question would be...did he take his hat off? :)
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Never practiced hitch-hiking as a "sport" or a main transportation on a trip. You know, there are some, usually young, people who simly get "on the track" and travell from Omsk to Moscow and back. Here they have special places where long-range truck drivers pick them. It's an interesting, but almost extinct culture here. I know people who travelled from Moscow to Cental Asia, then Siberia and back in 70s-80s, now it's impossible because of all that stupid new borders.
When I get stuck somewhere in the rain with my backpack and a piece of bread/cheese, with last bus left several hours ago and the next will come next week - I have to hitch-hike or go something like 100km on foot, I usually get a ride in no more then one hour, even on some god-forgotten forest roads. There are sill some people who are not afraid to pick up a bearded guy wearing faded cotton camouflage and a dirty backpack. I never had to pay for such a ride, even some people with Moscow license-plates usually simply want me to show them the "way out of here".
Travelling with children we sometimes hich-hiked some trucks or shift-buses on forest-roads in taiga, drivers usually were quite happy to help 15+ kids with their leaders.
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If I cant get myself there, I dont go. Never have hitched a ride with any unknown person in all my years.
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Originally posted by Yeager
If I cant get myself there, I dont go. Never have hitched a ride with any unknown person in all my years.
y
Yeager, you don't understand what is an adventure ;)
One of my best hitch-hiking rides was on a forest road in Central Russia, on Valday height, two guys in a ZIL-130 truck with Moscow license plates, they said they hijacked it in Moscow and were riding to their village... They were unable to start an engine, because one of them was deadly drunk and it took two people to start an engine: one had to rotate the handle in front (starter didn't work, I think they sold an accumulator to buy vodka), and another had to put the wires torn from a key-lock together... We helped them, they poured us some poison and gave us a ride for mabe 15km... What really touched me was that they stopped at a common grave from 1942, and we drank some glasses without clincking, to honour the dead. The grave deep in the forest was clean and it was obvious that they keep it clean.
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Boroda,
I drive Interstate five everyday for 50 miles. Not only is that an adventure, its a frikking dance with disaster coming and going.
On top of that I lay in bed at night wondering if the next asteroid is going to plow through my roof and in and out of my skull.
I have lots of adventure daily haha :aok
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Originally posted by Jackal1
More interesting question would be...did he take his hat off? :)
LOL
something tells me Leslie didn't get the joke....
Leslie, i was not poking fun at you at all, i was meerly pointing out the similarity to the movie smokey and the bandit, with the black trans am ;)
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Used to get and give rides as a kid on the west coast. Was normal to hitch up to Topanga Canyon and from there hitch up to the beach. When I had a car, I'd pick folks up on the same circuit.
Then one day I gave a guy a lift after I got outta the service. Wound up with a badly cut arm and a dented door. No more riders after that.
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Hitched rides all over the eastern side of Australia, and a bit up in the Northern territory.
The thing that amazed me was how many young women were willing to give a ride to someone who looks like me.
I'm a big ugly bastard... 6'4", 125kg, bearded, had a mean looking Blue Heeler with me that had both his ears chewed off in fights, was usually wearing dirty jeans, boots, hat and a flanalette shirt, and was carrying a swag and a rifle in a carry bag( had a permit, bag had conspicuos padlock, bolt and ammo were seperate...used to be perfectly legal, but it was blatantly obvious that I was carrying a high powered weapon)
Truck drivers would drive right past, young blokes in four wheel drives would go straight past....it allways seemed to be young women.
They were perfectly safe, I might look like a criminal, but im actually a nice bloke :)....but they didnt know that.
I allways quized them about it, basically saying "I dunno that I would stop and give a bloke who looks like me a ride, especially not if I were a pretty young woman like you"
The reasons they gave were many and widely varied, but a lot of the time it was because they were alone and bored, just wanted someone to talk to while we drive the next two or three hundred kms to the next town.
More than a few of them simply liked my dog.
Good fun, if you've never tried it, you've missed out on some interesting times, and some very interesting people.
I wouldn't reccomend it unless you are confident in your ability to handle just about any foreseeable situation though, without a doubt, there are some weirdoes out there.
I pick up hitchers too, most of them are cool, many will give you a few bucks for petrol, or a joint or sixpack of beer or something....all of them have interesting stories to tell.
The freaks are easy to detect within minutes of them getting in your car, in that case I just out-freak them, tell them about my axe fetish and show them the moari fighting axe I keep under my seat(a gift from a gratefull moari guy called Sam I gave a ride to)....they usually want to get out pretty soon afterwards.
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guess is they liked the "bad boy" LOL... there's a whole seinfeld episode about that LMAO
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I generally give them a ride. The last time I hitched it was pain in the bellybutton to get a ride. Most people just give wierd looks and laughs. I gave a finger to one of those and he slammed the brakes. I eventually talked him to give me a ride.
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Some interesting stories. Boroda's adventures are worthy of a book. I'm not surprised Bluedog gets lifts from women despite looking dangerous. In my experience some women like to dabble with rough looking men. Not that anything is supposed to happen just some vicarious fun. Women are complex creatures as we all know.
One Christmas eve, my brother met some of his mates for a drink on the other side of town. He got a little drunk, couldn't find a taxi so he started walking. Eventually he got tired and sat against a tree near the road.
A car stopped with two women in it. They asked was he OK. He told them a BS story about arriving back from England that night to spend Christmas with the family. Amazingly they drove him all the way across the city. I for one would thnk twice about giving a drunk stranger a lift. He even got their address as he sent them a bottle of wine to thank them. A bit of Christmas spirt I suppose
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When I was a freshman in university I lived in residence. The residence had an orientation week. One time in the middle of the night they woke up all the freshmen and brought us outside making sure we had no wallets or money on us.
They taped a cloth over our eyes and put us in cars and then drove without talking. The car drove about 2 hours on a highway before making a few turns and then the ride started getting bumpier and bumpier. Finally they took two of us out of the car and told us not to remove our blindfolds for 10 minutes. When I heard the car start up I took mine off and found out I was in some kind of field and saw the car bumping away on the other side. I watched what way it turned then started walking that way with the other guy they had dropped off. He was a Korean student who barely spoke english.
After walking to the farm lane that we were on (5 minutes) I turned the way the car had turned and started walking. I had no idea where we were or even what direction I was walking.
Almost right away a car came by. I stuck out my thumb and he stopped. It was a cab. The driver was a nice guy who told us where we were and then took us to the nearest main road about 10 minutes away even though we could not pay him anything.
I could not believe that we had found a cab in the middle of nowhere.
On the main road I stuck out my thumb and another guy picked us up right away. He was drunk and said the wanted someone to talk to so he wouldn't fall asleep. He drove us right down into Toronto which was a good 45 minutes south of where we were. I lived in Toronto so he dropped me at my house and I got my motorcycle out and gave the Korean guy a helmut and off we went.
The university was about a hour and a bit away but on the bike I could go door to door in about 35 minutes. We pulled into the residence parking lot just as the guys who dropped us off were getting back.
It was pretty funny to see thier faces. I never told them how we got back so fast or how we got the motorcycle.
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I rarely set out to hitch hike, but my POS cars often set it up for me when I was younger.
my brother had a fairly ingenious idea when he did a cross-country trip. he took a new 5-gal gas can and sawed the bottom off off it, and attached latches to hold it shut.
he used this for a suit-case while hitching. a guy packing a gas can down the highway has a much better chance of getting someone to stop than a guy with a back-pack.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
he used this for a suit-case while hitching. a guy packing a gas can down the highway has a much better chance of getting someone to stop than a guy with a back-pack.
LOL!!! :D
Hehe, here when a group of hikers (people who travel on foot with backpacks) want to hitch-hike it looks like this: backpacks are hidden in a bush near the road, with all the people except for 1-2 most attractive girls (sometimes wearing swim-suit tops in summer) who "vote" for a ride at the road, usually first or second truck stops, and after girls negotiate with a driver - a horde of bearded people with huge backpacks wearing dirty torn clothes attack the truck from all directions and in a matter of seconds occupy lorry body, girls go back with them while two really big guys sit with the driver :)