Hitchhiking

When I was a kid, my parents often picked up hitch-hikers, but they always knew who they were, being in a small town in upstate NY. When I got my first "real" job at a service station while in H.S., I would ride the bus home from school, eat, change, and often would walk the mile to the "hard road" and hitch-hike the 7 miles back to town. One guy picked me up a lot because he was on his way home from work. Did some while in the army too.

In 1968, the middle of my peek hitch-hiking years, the U. S. population was about 200 million, since then the U. S. has increased by over 100 million (currently about 314 million). My point? There are a lot more crazies, partly because there are a lot more people. And... yeah, it is a very different world. Didn't have 24 hr cable back then reporting all the awful news from every corner of the world either.