In the late 1950s and into the ’60s, when most families in the rural South had only one car, it was commonplace for young boys and men in their 20s to “thumb” a ride. Those times are gone, and what I did when routinely hitching a ride is certainly not what I would recommend today. That being said, let me tell you about hitchhiking.
When I was 9, our family moved into a farm house a little less than a mile from my school in Norphlet. Our family had one car, a blue 1936 Chevy. My mother had started working in El Dorado and carpooled, and my dad worked shifts at Macmillan Refinery.
As school started that year, my mother checked to see when the school bus would come by our house. She was told it was not on a bus route, and our house was less than a mile to the school. That meant, if my dad had the car at work, I would have to walk to school.
I didn’t mind walking in good weather, and would leave a little earlier to be able to arrive on time. However, it rains and sometimes snows in Arkansas, and there were numerous days where a cold north wind made that walk to school miserable.
I was very shy as a young boy, and it took some really bad weather for me to, in near desperation, raise my hand and thumb a passing pickup. Much to my surprise, the driver pulled over and waved for me to get in.
I was holding my breath, but it turned out to be a very nice man who knew our family, and he dropped me off right at the gate to the school yard. You can just bet that if the weather was even a little iffy, I would have my thumb up, and later in high school, I occasionally hitchhiked to El Dorado.
After I graduated from high school and was attending college at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville without a car, my hitchhiking moved up to another level. Unless I could find a ride with someone heading south toward El Dorado, hitchhiking was the only choice, and wow, did I hitchhike. However, when I started hitchhiking from Fayetteville to El Dorado, I made a few changes.
Instead of just standing along the roadway, I made sure I was close to a red light. I had found out the hard way that very few cars will stop for a hitchhiker if they are roaring along at 60 mph.
My second addition to college hitchhiking was a big Razorback-red A, taped to a hardback suitcase. You would not believe how effective that was. A couple of times I had cars stop to pick me up as soon as I got out of my friend’s car on the edge of town.
After a few thumbing rides to south Arkansas, I thought nothing about hitchhiking home for the weekend. There were times I made it to El Dorado as quickly as if I had been driving my own car.
A few rides stood out. I was a sophomore, and the Thanksgiving holidays were coming up, and I hadn’t found anyone in school who I could catch a ride with to El Dorado. So that Wednesday I headed to the edge of town with my red A suitcase. In a few minutes a pickup pulled up, and a guy yelled, “How far you going?”
“El Dorado!” I yelled back.
“I can get you to Ozark.”
“Great.” I said as I threw my suitcase in the back and hopped in the front. We talked for a couple of minutes, and then I couldn’t help but notice a shotgun that I had to move in order to sit down. It looked like a .410.
“Going huntin’?” I asked.
“Naw, that’s for shooting crows.”
I kinda shook my head. Then he said, “Can you shoot a shotgun?”
I was a 19-year-old small-town boy who lived and breathed hunting, and I nodded. “Well, sure.”
‘“Wanta shoot some crows?” he asked.
“Uh, well, maybe.”
“OK, when I yell, ‘Crow,’ you roll down the window, and when the crow flies off the road you blast away. Got it?”
Well, why not, I thought. I knew that crows frequently were on the road pecking on roadkill.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll load the gun.”
He nodded, I popped a shell in, and got ready to roll down the window. It was about 20 minutes later, and we were roaring down U.S. 71 south, when he yelled, “Crows!”
I started rolling down the window as we approached two crows that flew from the middle of the road, and as they crossed to my right, I blasted away. Moving at 60 mph shooting at a crow that is flying at right angles to the car is hard, but I got off a shot. I was aiming at the lead crow, but hit the one trailing it.
“Hey! Good shot,” the driver said.
We continued on toward Ozark, and about every 15 minutes he would yell “Crow!” and I would blast away. After that first lucky shot, I was 2 for 5 by the time we arrived in Ozark. That was in 1957. I wouldn’t recommend that today.
I was a senior in college when I really went overboard with hitchhiking. Vertis and I had fallen in love, and weekend after weekend, I hitchhiked to El Dorado.
There is one hitchhike that stands out from all the rest. I was a sophomore living in a dorm when I heard someone yell, “Mason! Mason! Telephone!” I answered it, and my mother, through sobs, said, “Your dad has been in a very serious car wreck!”
That was all I needed to hear. I rushed back to my room, grabbed my bag, threw a few things in it, and in a few minutes I found a friend with a car to drive me to the edge of town. It was almost 5 p.m. when I got my first ride, and after I stood on the side of the road for two hours in Fordyce, I got a ride to Camden.
It was after 2 a.m. when I gave up and checked into a rundown old hotel. It cost me $2.50 to spend the night, and I was afraid to get under the sheets. I just stretched out on the bed, and was up early the next morning. By a little after 8 a.m., I had caught a ride to the hospital. Dad was still alive, but gravely injured. He died a few days later, killed by a drunk driver; he was the drunk driver.