Oct 1, 2023
While most Americans today can’t fathom the thought of hitchhiking, many people at an earlier time would routinely stick out their thumbs on the side of the road. There were many different reasons that led people to hitchhike and why hitchhiking became acceptable.
Hitchhiking was once a common form of getting around for students and travelers of all ages. But it had an overtone of being something reserved for desperate or unsavory individuals. Billy Cook’s 1950 murder spree was the basis for The Hitch-Hiker, a 1953 American film noir co-written and directed by Ida Lupino, starring Edmond O’Brien, William Talman, and Frank Lovejoy, taken hostage by a hitchhiker during an automobile trip to Mexico.
When cars were less plentiful and gas was rationed, hitchhiking was common in the Depression in the 1930s and the World War II years and its aftermath in the 40s. Hitchhiking was a bit less common the 50s, but a big resurgence took place in the 60s and 70s. Hitchhiking, aka “thumbing,” was common and socially acceptable, and drivers seemed more sympathetic and inclined to pick someone up and enjoy the company.
By the 80s, people seemed to change. People were less inclined toward the hippie ethos of cooperation and more inclined to the yuppie ethos of looking out for themselves. Hitchhiking may never recover.
At one time in Medfield, many young people used to hitchhike to different parts of the state and beyond. I remember back in the summer of the early sixties, when Ronnie Kerr and I took the Trailways bus from Medfield to Park Square in Boston. We grabbed a couple of slices at the King of Pizza on Washington Street and took the subway over to Kenmore Square to catch the Red Sox.
From Kenmore Square we walked up the hill that was Beacon Street to arrive at Jersey Street, the front entrance to Fenway Park. The Red Sox were playing the Minnesota Twins, the very team that would go on to the World Series in the fall of 1965. After the game, we took a roundabout subway route, and before we knew it, we were going down the escalator at Forest Hills and turning a corner to arrive on Washington Street with much of Roslindale center just ahead.
We had planned all along to hitchhike back to Medfield after the Sox game. We had only walked about a couple of blocks until we got our first ride by two older guys who took us as far as Dedham center. Ron and I told them we were headed to Medfield, which, unsurprisingly, they had never heard of. They let us off about a mile up the street from the Dedham Superior Court House and off they went to Route 1.
Moments later we were picked up by a man who had just finished work at the Abbott Laboratories in Needham, and we all talked baseball. He gave us a ride all the way to downtown Medfield, which was on his way home to Franklin.
Another time when we were both in our freshman year of Medfield High, Ronnie Kerr and I had to hitchhike back to Medfield from downtown Dedham, after seeing the highly-publicized West Side Story. We didn’t realize we would be watching a musical about two gangs in Manhattan. The movie was a masterpiece, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins. That version of the classic West Side story has stood the test of time. Other subsequent editions couldn’t come close to the original that featured the incomparable acrobatic Russ Tamblin and fiery dancing of Rita Moreno.
Ronnie seemed to think that the movie would have been even better if it had not been set to music! But I thought that the music and singing made the movie so much better than a drama about two warring factions fighting over their turf in the upper west side of Manhattan. We started to thumb back to Medfield and fortunately got a ride all the way to Medfield from a couple living in Millis.
The next time I went to Boston was on a snowy Friday afternoon when my older brother, Todd, and I took the Greyhound Bus into Huntington Avenue to Jordan Hall to see the musical genre-straddling Peter Nero play piano. We enjoyed listening to his music, and we decided to buy his album that came out in 1962 entitled, For the Nero Minded. He was stellar and engaging and remarked that his audience on that snowy day was small but very good! Here’s a link to Nero playing Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm.
Nero’s show ended at around 7 pm, and that meant we could still get the subway to Forest Hills. Dressed warmly for the cold, Todd and I were thumbing once again up Washington Street in Roslindale center. We walked uphill as far as the famous Pleasant Cafe and were fortunate to get a ride as far as Fayo’s Restaurant in Medfield, with snow following us all the way back home!
The next summer, thumbing home at 10:30 pm from Mutiny of the Bounty, playing at the Norwood Cinema, I was lucky enough to be picked up by a Medfield couple, Mr. and Mrs. Les Bowman, who gave me a ride right to my home on 15R Pleasant St. Now why can’t everything be that easy?!
In the summer of 1966, I landed a job at the new Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. I went to live at the Medical Center as sleeping arrangements were included in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I arrived in Manhattan in early June and wanted to get to know the city on foot. While after working my first full day, I wanted to see Broadway and Times Square. I didn’t yet know the best way to get there, but fellow workers at the Medical Center told me to just go across mid-town and keep looking for Seventh Avenue. So, I walked up to First Avenue at Sixty-First Street and kept walking. Suddenly I thought that I could possibly thumb my way to Times Square because I wasn’t quite sure how far away mid-town was. I’d never been to Manhattan before, so I thought that I’d give thumbing a try.
Nobody stopped – that was the first and last time I ever tried thumbing in New York City! I soon discovered that Manhattan was great for walking because the unique experience was like walking amid wall-to-wall people. The window shopping wasn’t bad either.
The longest hitchhike I ever completed – from the Canadian border to Medfield – took place in the summer of 1971. I went to Nova Scotia to visit a young woman I met at Emerson College. She drove us from Nova Scotia to Montreal. She was a great tour guide, and I was able to experience the difference between life in the United States and life in Canada. The people in Canada seem to live at a slower pace than Americans. Their government wasn’t involved in Vietnam and politics were not as stressful as it was in the States.
We drove back from Montreal, and my friend and left me at the Maine border crossing. I was about to start thumbing back to Boston, Massachusetts. I knew I’d probably have to hitchhike for quite a while, accepting many rides all the way down through New England to Boston. But I held up a cardboard sign with “Boston, Mass.” printed in big, black letters. Within fifteen minutes, a student going back to Harvard picked me up and took me to Boston’s Trailways bus station! From there I took the bus back to Medfield in time for a late supper of spaghetti and meatballs with my family.
In retrospect, I guess I’ve hitchhiked about 50 different times. Most all the time, I arrived where I was heading without any problems. I’ve thumbed my way back from Cape Cod very late at night in the summer. I thumbed rides to my motel down at Daytona Beach, Florida late at night. One time I had to thumb my way to my job at the Carling Black Label Brewery at Natick in the summer of 1969. One time back in the frigid cold of 1966, without realizing it was illegal, I got kicked off the Mass. Pike for hitchhiking. Fortunately, a Mass. State Trooper picked me up and took me to me to the main road where hitchhiking was legal heading over to Framingham.
But I have to admit I had to get out of a car quickly to dodge a couple of potentially scary experiences, one with a drunk driver and one with a seemingly mild-mannered sexual predator.
All those times I’ve mentioned are just a few of the many times I’ve hitchhiked. The act of thumbing a ride wasn’t what made the event so very positive and memorable. Rather it was the anticipation of getting to where I wanted to be and the good people I wanted to engage in the adventure.
Perhaps Marvin Gaye’s 1962 song, Hitch Hike, had the most original appeal, leaving us with his lyrical passion of words.
I’m going to Chicago.
That’s the last place my baby stayed.
I’m packing up my bags.
I’m gonna leave this town right away.
I’m gonna find that girl if I have to hitchhike
round the world.