By Walter Nicklin

Are they hiding, like stars no longer visible in the light-polluted sky? Or are they simply no longer here, gone forever, like the passenger pigeon or Good Lord Bird? What I hope to spot is another elusive species, rare and endangered, maybe even extinct. I feel like a frustrated sky-watcher or avid birder, constantly on the lookout, from back roads to Interstate exit ramps; but I haven’t found a one. Not one. Not a single hitchhiker.

The question, of course, betrays my age. Anyone younger than aging Boomers hardly cares. Like my children and their friends, who greet my puzzlement with polite indifference. Or like my younger colleagues, who look at me as if I’m crazy when I ask if they’ve ever hitchhiked.

But once upon a time, hitchhikers were everywhere — and everybody: Not only students like myself, who hitched for the pure thrill of it and the rite of passage it conferred. But also, of course, migrants looking for work, in the tradition of the Depression-era hobos. And adventurers of all ages and socioeconomic classes, following their hearts in the romance of the open road. Not to mention supposed axe-murderers, sexual predators, and serial killers, stories about whom comprised the currency we hitchhikers traded: something to brag about, raw experience for its own sake, badges of courage, eliciting both shudders and laughter, fear and delight. Of course, we never shared these stories with our parents.

“When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler!” During the gas rationing days of World War II, government propaganda actually encouraged hitchhiking. And such was the free-ride, open-road culture back then that the “Miss Manners” of the time, Emily Post, addressed the proper etiquette of bumming rides in her advice columns. Not until the early 1970’s did the culture start to change.

So what happened? Where did all the hitchhikers go? Where have all the cowboys gone?

Any guy over the age of, say, 55, when asked about hitchhiking, will smile; his eyes might even twinkle; then tales will be told. Take Ralph Nader, for a random, seemingly unlikely, and thus fairly typical example: “You met all kinds of people,” Nader said of this formative experience. “Executives would pick me up, tree surgeons, bricklayers, doctors, truck drivers. Not only did I learn a lot…but you had to adapt to all kinds of personalities. And, remember, you were helping people, too. Some of the drivers would pick you up because they were sleepy and you would keep them awake just by talking to them.”

Hitchhiking, unlike just about any other human activity (with the possible exception of fly-fishing), combined the practical with the poetic. It was easy, cheap transportation — and no less reliable than getting around in today’s world of flight delights and traffic jams. More importantly, it was a metaphor: not simply words on a page or some other kind of dry abstraction, but a trope you could actually live and breathe. And that trope was this: freedom, absolute, total freedom, and a landscape of unlimited horizons — what America was supposedly all about. Go where you wanta go, do what you wanta do.

As with most things long gone, appreciation is most finely honed in retrospect. Without hitchhiking, I would have never known, never connected with the deaf-mute, the long-haul trucker, and countless others. And I at least would have been the poorer. The all-male, mostly white college I would attend that fall wasn’t yet “enriched by diversity,” but hitchhiking was. The people I met hitchhiking were like rare books that I otherwise would never been allowed to take down from the library shelf.

And more: An invisible, unwritten contract was drawn with people you had not yet but were destined to meet. When you were driving a car yourself, it was payback time, so you picked up other hitchhikers. It was a moral obligation, and trust was the currency you traded.

Tocqueville, that 19th-century road-tripper, would have no doubt been pleased. It was community spirit like this, coupled with the coexisting yet contrary impulse toward rugged individualism, which made the American character unique. So if the cocoon-like automobile represented one side of the American character — vanity-plate individualism to the point of isolation — then Americans’ other side was expressed in hitchhiking.

Were Tocqueville to be reincarnated today, he’d likely be a social scientist into quantitative analysis — — seems plausible, right? And so he could hatch a brand new quality of life (QOL) index, which the U.S. Highway Administration might call VMTH — Vehicle Miles Traveled Hitchhiking. That measurement might be just as valid as the so-called Popsicle Index, Broken Window Theory, Gross National Happiness, or Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) — all designed to provide more nuanced meaning to the Standard of Living as Per Capital GDP.

With the VMTH now hovering close to a statistical zero, we Americans, each and every one of us, are all “bowling alone.” At the turn of the 21st Century, that popularized conceit made another social scientist, Robert Putnam, famous. Bowling alone, riding alone. They sound the same.

Long before 9/11 and the War on Terror, we became terrified of hitchhikers — that is, terrified of ourselves. Like prohibited items at airport security, hitchhiking can even be against the law in some places now. Not that such laws are needed for drivers who keep their windows rolled up, feet heavy on the accelerator, and eyes straight ahead (except when rubbernecking).

Like the Interstate highways, designed to connect us, the Internet’s instantaneous communication has seemed only to drive us further apart. Fear and mistrust is the climate we’ve grown acclimated to. Political extremists and special interests are fearful of compromise; elected representatives, fearful of their retaliation. Where we live is increasingly self-segregated, ideologically and economically. With our gated-community mentality, fellow Americans become scary strangers; and people standing with thumbs outstretched by the side of the road are the scariest and — given their scarcity — the strangest.
***

A retired journalist and publisher, the author can be reached at walter@rappnews.com

My mother was the secretary for her ninth grade class. They graduated in 1953 in Newton, Massachusetts. By the time she and her friends had finished three years at Bigelow, the class had been together for three years. They knew each other well, having grown up together, many of them in the same elementary school also. As class secretary, it was her responsibility to address the graduating ninth graders with words of reflection and wisdom. Apparently my mom was an aspiring literary scholar, and she wrote a three page poem in rhyming couplets. I offer it here for your entertainment (assuming none of you, dear readers, are graduating ninth graders today).

 

I have photographed the pages directly from her yearbook, and the miracle of technology allowed me to quickly create a more readable version, below.

My mother never tried her hand at school poetry again, that I could determine, but she was awarded the Girls Senior Cup (Newton High School, 1956). I’m happy to have the cup in my house, now, hanging out on the mantel with photos of many other graduations and plants and water polo trophies. It was hard to photograph, so you’ll see something of my “selfie” in the silver reflection. I miss my mom. I wish I’d know she wrote poetry when she was younger, before she was gone.

 

Class History

SEVENTH GRADE

Nineteen fifty, in September
Is a date to long remember;
For in that month, one happy day,
We started at Bigelow a long, happy stay.
Anxious and wondering entered we,
The class of nineteen fifty-three,
Into the maze of passageways
Where, lurking in the blacks and grays
Of corridors very dark and droll,
Were members of the Student Patrol.
It seemed to be their very delight
To find seventh graders not at the right;
A ticket then would be handed to you
With orders to report at 2:32.
Misters Beattie and Phinney, we soon found out
Would show us exactly the way about.
We found the locker rooms with their showers,
And rooms for staying after hours.
To the ninth graders we were bores
And only good for holding doors.
To beautify Bigelow was our aim
And for the seventh grade make a name.
Our conservation was going strong;
We felt with our flowers we couldn’t go wrong.
We dug the ground with our little tin spades,
Much to the amusement of the two other grades.
Soon our flowers were coming up;
But then, alas, a neighbor’s pup
Trampled on them with some other dogs;
And where once were flowers, now are bogs.
Our social life was completely nil,
We had no parties, not until
The Seventh Grade Social Club was founded,
With a program that really was very well rounded.
Another event was the Football Dance
The seventh grade went to on a chance.
Rooms two-thirteen and two-oh-five
Went to a picnic put on by the live
Mr. Phinney. (Though sometimes we doubted this fact.)
Another fine day in a bus we packed
To visit the weather bureau at Logan Airport,
And view weather instruments, different in sort.
By the end of the year, when June rolled around,
Our heads were so full with new knowledge we’d found,
We were glad to leave Bigelow there in the sun.
Our first year’s adventures had surely been fun.
Ahead to next year we looked happily, for
A new seventh grade would enter the door.
It wouldn’t be us who would tremble with fear
For we knew the way, so … Welcome, next year!

EIGHTH GRADE

In September, fifty-one
After another summer had gone,
Again we entered Bigelow’s halls
Past new seventh graders’ poky crawls.
To impress ninth graders was our great hope,
But to them, in spite of our soft soap,
We were still little babies, younger than they,
And only created to spoil their day.
Miss Bruce and Miss Johnson were new to our school;
But how could they think we’d obey every rule?
For we were the eighth grade, a mischievous class,
We bothered the teachers and walked on the grass.
Mr. Baker, however, soon found a solution:
His “weakie” row was a grand institution.
Mrs. Kendall inhabited room two-sixteen
While Miss Larrabee’s absence seemed frightfully mean.
Miss Larrabee, in January, came back well to us,
And Mrs. Kendall ‘s departure aroused quite a fuss.
We know that the teachers must often have paused
To remark over all of the trouble we caused.
The Halloween Party was quite a big fling,
We really did not want to end the darn thing.
And then to our most sincere delight
To the ninth grade canteens we received an invite.
At many activities our faces were spied,
And also to make changes we desperately tried:
Burr Playground at lunchtime soon had become,
Instead of the driveway, the place to have fun.
Before our exams, there was one more ordeal,
The ninth grade had yearbooks to sell, a great deal.
Each of us willingly ordered our books,
Because if we didn’t, we’d get scornful looks.
Next year’s color bearers were chosen one morn;
They were Dorothy Swanton and Robert Gorn.
Also Robert Appleton and Mary Ayres
Would help to carry the flags up the stairs.
By June, ’52, we were quite tuckered out
And ready for vacation to come about.
We left Bigelow then, feeling really quite spry.
We had but one year, before NEWTON HIGH.

NINTH GRADE

For the third time and last, through Bigelow’s doors
Did we step, to walk on familiar floors.
Who cared what the other grades thought of us now?
For we were the top class. My goodness! And How!
Mr. Hanrahan, back from a year in Belgium,
Soon had us convinced we would have to succumb
To the fact that a marvelous teacher was he
In his own estimation, and that was for free.
Mr. Ring, while seriously doubting it all,
Wisely kept silent in his room ‘cross the hall.
Our building was crowded, for to our distress
There were two extra seventh grades we would have to impress.
But luckily they didn’t bother us much,
For they were so busy with planting and such.
Because of the excitement that was stirred up
By the Halloween Party and Harvest Hop,
The canteens were so overcrowded that we
Were deciding to let people in … for free.
Another pastime that the kids patronized
Were our ball games, that really were well organized.
Our charming cheerleaders were Bigelow’s delight.
They were Barbara Athy and Marcia White.
Plus Jeannie LaTona and Louise Whelan who stood
With some more cheerleaders, Connie Forbes and Wood.
Michele Gilman, Jane Brenner and Roberta Fritz, too
Helped to cheer on our boys to victories  … few.
Of course, there were blue slips, ominously connected
With dozens of tests that must be corrected.
Without Mrs. Kelly and Miss Hamilton
The battle with blue slips we ne’er would have won.
Mrs. G. never failed to brighten our day
With the novel of Ivanhoe, or an int’resting play.
Then there was that ridiculous rumor
That Mr. Frost had developed a keen sense of humor.
Election of officers was held in third term
And candidates giving their speeches would squirm.
An amazing discovery made pupils wary:
Only one person was running for Secretary.
Elected for president, a very light eater,
Well, what do you know? It was Dauten, Peter.
For Vice-President, Stephen Allen, with a yearbook to devise.
Secretary, Dot Swanton. Wasn’t that a surprise?
Jane Collier, our Treasurer soon had found out,
Class dues were for her to worry about.
The yearbook was now our biggest headache,
We hounded the students, and were willing to stake
Our reputations on the chance that we
Would get two hundred orders at a very small fee;
Only fifty cents down with $1.50 to pay
And the yearbook was yours to throw away.
Thus we ended our years at our dear Alma Mater
We go to the high school, knowing all that we ought to
Our years at Bigelow we’ll always remember
Since first we entered, that day in September.

Dorothy Swanton
Secretary, Class of 1953

 

 

I didn’t know Maria well. She was a senior and I, a freshman, in the autumn of 1970. She was thin with a puff of blonde curls surrounding her pleasant face. We had mutual friends and we were driving to one’s house at the western end of the Mass Pike late one Saturday evening, exactly 47 years ago. I remember it was the beginning of Yom Kippur and I was fasting. Maria was last to enter the car. I startled to see her face, bruised and swollen. Already in the back seat, I listened intently to her story.

“I was in Cambridge 10 days ago and needed a ride back to campus”, she began in a soft voice. “I stood with my thumb out and a guy picked me up. He was scruffy looking, but that didn’t bother me. I became uneasy when I saw he wasn’t heading in the direction of Waltham, but out towards the country. He pulled off onto a dirt road and tried to pull me in to him and grope me. I screamed and tried to fight him off. He smacked my face hard. I continued to struggle, and we fought. He had me pinned down, as I kicked and screamed. Somehow, I collected myself and had the presence of mind to say, ‘No one ever loved you, did they?’ He pulled back, stunned by what I’d said. He sat up, quiet for a moment, then broke down and sobbed. I tried to calm him. He let me sit up and laid his head in my lap and told me the sad story of his life. I had touched a nerve. He had been abused and unloved. My simple remark, my outreach felt like the first act of kindness he had known. I stroked his head as we talked. He apologized for hurting me.

After some time, he collected himself, turned the car around and drove me to Mt. Auburn Hospital and turned himself into the police. I asked that they be lenient with him, since he had shown remorse and ultimately, taken care of me. I did not ask his name, he does not know mine. It is a good thing I am a psychology major.”

I will never forget Maria’s story and I have never hitchhiked.

 

My oldest sister went off to Radcliffe College in September 1962, just as I started seventh grade. I was fascinated with Radcliffe – the apple trees with circular benches around them in Radcliffe Yard, the nine old homey-looking brick dorms around the lush green Quad – and with the bustling Harvard Square area. It seemed like every time we visited my sister, something wonderful happened. On one visit I got a great Marimekko dress at the Design Research store on Brattle Street, which I wore for many years. I wanted to come back as a student myself.

Six years later, when I filled out my housing questionnaire for Radcliffe, I requested to live in Comstock Hall, because that’s where my sister had lived. It wasn’t necessarily the most desirable dorm physically, but I liked the continuity of living where she had been, and it turned out to have an amazing collection of women who are still my best friends in the entire world.

I received contact information about my roommate in advance. Her name was Linda and she was from New Rochelle, New York. Her last name sounded Jewish, which made my parents happy. We wrote letters to each other all summer. I was living in D.C. that summer, so it wasn’t feasible to meet in advance. But it seemed like we had everything in common.

My parents and I drove up to Cambridge from New Jersey on a lovely September day. I had just returned from the tumultuous 1968 Democratic Convention a couple of weeks before, leaving Chicago on the day I turned 17. It was a wonder that my parents were okay with having me leave home again so soon, but they probably figured that Cambridge would be a lot safer than Chicago. No tear gas, anyway.

The car was packed to the gills with my clothes, my stereo (which was huge!) and my record collection, a few books and my new typewriter. I was renting linens from the college linen service, but I had my own blankets and pillow. There was barely room for the three of us in the car. It was a four-hour drive, and we all sighed with relief when we got off the Mass Pike at the Cambridge exit.

We easily found Comstock – after all, my parents had already moved one daughter into that dorm – and got all my stuff unpacked and my stereo set up. Linda was there too, with her parents. Eventually both sets of parents left. I’m thinking now that my parents probably just turned around and drove home the same day rather than staying overnight, but I don’t know for sure, and there is no one left to ask. If I had written this story last year, would my mother have remembered? Hard to say. At 95, her memory was very sharp about some things, but certainly not everything.

After Linda and I were all settled, we went to meet the girls across the hall. It turned out that their names were Suzy and Linda too. What was the housing office thinking when they put us across from each other? Someone must have had a quirky sense of humor. (Counting names in the Radcliffe Freshman Register, I see that Susan/Suzanne was the second most popular name in our class, and Linda was the third, with 17 and 10, respectively, out of a class of 300 women. The most popular name was Katherine/Kathleen [spelled with either a K or a C], with 21. Still, it seems bizarre to make two pairings of Susan/Suzanne and Linda, and even more so to put them in rooms right across the hall from each other.)

The four of us ended up getting a phone together. In those pre-cell-phone days, there was a dorm phone on each floor, but if you wanted to be able to talk in privacy and/or comfort, you needed to sign up for phone service from New England Telephone, get a phone installed in your room, and pay the bill every month, just like a grown-up. The name thing made phone calls a little confusing – whenever someone called, whether they asked for Suzy or Linda, we would have to say “which Suzy?” or “which Linda?” And both pairings turned out to be unsuccessful. By December, the other Suzy had moved to a different dorm, and the two Lindas had switched rooms, so that I was rooming with the Linda from Chelsea, Mass., and the Linda from New Rochelle was by herself. But it took a few months to discover the incompatibilities, on that first moving-in day everything seemed great.

Gradually I met all the other girls in Comstock, upperclasswomen as well as freshmen (freshwomen?). That was one of the nice things about Radcliffe as opposed to Harvard, our dorms had all the classes mixed together. Great for getting advice about courses . . . or men!

In later years, the Comstock women certainly have seemed more cohesive than the women from any other dorm. At every reunion, there is the ceremonial taking of the class picture on the steps of Widener Library by a professional photographer. First they take the enormous picture of everyone from the whole Harvard-Radcliffe class. Then they take a smaller picture of just the Radcliffe class. Then we always request a picture of the women of Comstock Hall. No other dorm does that, to my knowledge. Here is our picture from 2007.

There were a lot more of us in the dorm, of course, these are just the ones who came to the reunion. As it happens, neither of the Lindas is here, nor the other Suzy. But these nine women in the picture with me all played an important part in my college experience. And I’m pretty sure I met all of them on the first day of school.

• * * *