It was a different time

At this age who can remember what age you were when you did what you did, but it seems like 11, or 12 would be a good number, maybe younger.  In the old days kids could hitch hike.  Today a parent would be terrified if their kid walked down to the end of Poplar Avenue and stuck out his thumb, but that was how you got to the pool at Oglebay  Park.  No one picked you up and molested you, no one murdered you, or abducted you. In the early sixties molesting and killing kids was considered impolite and unseemly.  So after a long day swimming at the pool you walked up to route 88 and stuck you thumb out.  It never seemed to take long before someone saw you with your swimsuit wrapped in a towel and took you to the end of your street.

Most adults in those days had so many kids of their own they would be crazy to steal one more.  Probably if anyone abducted me and called for the ransom my parents would say " He is to ornery we will not pay to get him back, besides we have eight more, so just keep him if you want him."

Hitch hiking worked in those days, and I did a lot of it.  Twice I hitch hiked to the west coast and back.  Once I left Wheeling with ten dollars and made it to California.  It is a long story, so I will skip most of it.  Remarkably two long rides just about made the whole trip.  In both cases the person providing the ride was a man running from his wife.

My father got the strange notion to purchase land in Ritchie county which was about a hundred miles south of Wheeling, east of Parkersburg.  Many times I hitched a ride down into the boondocks.  The trip took one down the Ohio to St. Mary's where you go onto route 50 and headed east.  I always thought it was fun to get to ride in a big truck, but there were some other strange rides.  Once doing the trip with a friend a guy in about a 53 Ford gave us a lift.  The entire inside of his car was redone with shoe polish, black and white shoe polish.  Another may gave me a ride once and I remember his entire dashboard was an ash tray.  Cigar buts were covering the entire dashboard about an inch thick from one side to another.

The most fearful ride ever was coming back from out farm in Ritchie county with a friend.  Some strange men picked us up and the roads were icy.  We had to drive toward Wheeling on the road which was very narrow below Moundsville at the time.  The men were driving extremely fast and we sat in the back scared to death.  The car was doing close to 100 and for a moment they would lose control passing a truck.  This ride about broke me of the hitch hiking desire.   Listening to the conversation of the men in the front it sounded like they were some sort of escaped criminals from New England.  The one man kept saying to the other man " Remind me to shoot his windows out",  From what we could piece together of the conversation the man had fallen asleep in a barber chair.  The barber cut his hair to short and now he wanted to shoot the window out of the barber shop.   By some miracle we made it to Wheeling.  As we passed under what was at that time the B& O railroad station the car approached a red light.   In front of us was an old lady waiting for the light to turn green.  The light turned green just before the man driving smacked her car from the rear.  It did not seem to hurt her car other than giving her a very quick start.  Neither of the guys in the front reacted at all as if it was a normal thing.  The old lady must have just thought her car was perky.  The  nonchalant manner of the episode had my friend and I laughing hysterically.

Another story from the past occurred hitchhiking home from college.  A gentleman picked me up on a windy country road.  As we drove he told me about the last guy he had picked up.   He said he picked up an older guy who seemed like he had a lunch with him in a brown paper bag.  The driver told me the man kept fiddling with something in the bag.  The driver asked the man what was in the bag and he said nothing just his lunch or something like that.  The man giving me a ride said it sounded to him like the man he had picked up was loading a handgun in the bag.  Then he went on to explain to me how he solved the problem   He said he knew the door on the passenger side was ajar and not closed all the way.  As he went around a sharp curve he lifted his leg and shoved the old guy out of the car.  At this point I said to my driver " Well you did not know if he had a gun or not?".  "No" he responded.  He said he just saw the guy roll across the pavement.   Sad way to have you lunch ruined.  I assured him I was unarmed.

Almost forgot my favorite story.  Once coming back up the river from New Martinsville.  A red Corvette convertible pulled over to give me a ride.  The first thing they guy asked was" Where were you going? "  I replied" Wheeling. " Then the driver said to me " You would never believe what happened to me in Wheeling when I was going the other way.   I stopped at a house of ill repute to acquire the services of a prostitute,  and who did I end up with?  The girl I sat behind in high school.  That must have been a very strange high school reunion.

It was a different world in those days.  People trusted people, and people trusted strangers.  It worked then, but now no one relies on what Mr. Smoot used to call Shanks Mare.