thumbs out....

I used to pick up hitch hikers

     It was always an interesting experience.
     One time I picked up a guy on 251 whose motorcycle had broken down.  I drove him to Rockford, or maybe New Milford, and let him out at a gas station.  He seemed pretty nice.
Jackie and I once picked up an NIU student who was wearing a garbage bag.  It was raining, and he must not have had a raincoat, so he took a black garbage bag, put arm holes in it, and put it on.  I don't remember how far we took him, but I do remember Jackie thought I was nuts.
      I was driving on 251 near New Milford and saw a young woman with a gas can.  I stopped, and as she got in I asked her how far her car was.  It was then I noticed she had a suitcase, not a gas can.  I ended up taking her to 251 and Standard Oil Road, where I let her out.  She seemed really nice too.
     The strangest experience I had was driving back from Rockford, at night, and I saw a young guy along the shoulder, thumb out.  He had a big back pack, and looked like he had been on the road for a while.
     There was no IL 39 back then, and the road was pretty busy.  Except that night.
     The kid got in, was very talkative and appreciative, but after about five minutes, he climbed into the back seat of my car!  I was doing 60 on a two lane road and this guy is climbing over the seat so he could lay down in the back!
     It scared the living hell out of me.  I just could imagine him pulling out a knife and ramming it through the seat.  Or using a rope to strangle me.  Maybe he had a gun and was going to rob me.
     I drove as fast as I could, hoping to get a ticket.  No cops.  I eventually got to Rochelle and pulled into a gas station at Ill. 38 and 251.  I stopped and told him he had to get out.  I figured there were enough people around that he wouldn't do anything.
     He complained that he still had a ways to go, but he got out, and thanked me again for the ride.
     I still have thoughts about picking up people.  I always wonder what tales they have to tell.  Maybe they are foreign and are hitching their way across the country.  Possibly they are running from a life that is strangling them.  Maybe they are writers, working on a great American novel.  A young couple in love running away from forbidding parents?
     If I was a braver person, I would give them a ride, and listen to their tales.
     But the world is not longer that safe place of long ago.  And I don't want some stranger to be the last person I see on Earth!