Last October, according to his letter to the editor, a law enforcement officer tapped Bellevue resident Rolf Watness on the shoulder and cited him for an old-fashioned Tom Paine act of civil disobedience. Rolf had been hitchhiking, a here-and-now example of intelligent design. Each time we see a car with only one occupant bumpering on the road it should shame us. Pilgrims, we need one of our high-decibel public meetings where we can get in one another's face and argue the pros and cons of the anti-hitchhiking law.
I can picture the meeting—one gory tale after another, the kinds of tales that CNN and Fox make meals of for weeks rather than serving us real-time news that'd tax our attention spans. But for every gory tale there's a Disney Channel version, and here's mine from long ago.
Driving to Hailey, I'd pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker, and with the sun in my eyes I'd stopped before I saw he didn't fit the prototype for sharing my car in that exquisitely private time after I belt in, switch on, and am headed down the road. For starters, he had a suitcase, not a backpack, and he wasn't dressed even close to local chic. The only thing that kept me from swinging back to the road was my self-image: never a scaredy-cat, never indecisive. And besides, the face that peered in the window, a face years ahead of me on the road of life, was etched with the lines we can't manipulate, lines that become the roadmaps that show the paths we chose in days gone by. This map was reassuring—in fact, it was splendid.
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Nice day."
"Beautiful day."
Standard opening lines, and when he'd settled in I figured I'd earned the right to pry and delve, and he accommodated. He was a stonemason from Oakley, in southern Idaho, hitching to find a tow truck for his own truck stalled-out up north the night before in the darkest and coldest hours.
Stonemasons and cabinetmakers and all artisans who make functional things, things that often turn out to be works of art, are surely evidence of intelligent design. But, dear pilgrims, if we stick with the anti-hitchhiking law I don't know about the rest of us.
My stonemason had returned from war minus his zest for architecture; instead he explored his birthplace—picked at the rocks, saw their worth, and started to quarry. A few years ago he'd sold the quarry to devote full time to laying his own rock, and two of his mature sons were now extra right hands helping to the craft generational.
I know, I know. I lucked out with the Oakley stonemason. Today, I'm with you—afraid to pick up an unidentified hitchhiking object. But that's the point I'll try to make here; it doesn't have to be that way.
Most of us agree we have excess brainpower embedded here, so how taxing can it be to figure out how to I.D. local hitchhikers? One way could be to issue I.D.s at the driver's license window. We could pay a nominal fee for a ski-type, hang-around-the-neck I.D., or maybe be issued a gaudy vest we could roll up and pocket when a Patriot pulls over and picks us up.
KART doesn't work all the time for everyone. Some of us have hours that don't jibe, and it's possible, if not probable, that others of us are semi-socially misfit souls who find it way too much to ask that we be at designated corners at precise times.
Hitchhiking, if it's to remain of intelligent design, mustn't be only for pilgrims that don't own an Exxon vehicle. Gas prices are never going to be bargain-rate again, I know that and you know that, and with oil industry profits beyond obscene, we should/can become the hitchhiking community exemplar.
Here's one way:
· As a driver, never pass up more than three properly identified hitchers in a row.
· As a hitcher age 25 to 75, never let over five days pass without hoisting your red, white and blue thumb.
· If you're a fellow pilgrim in the over-75 gang, any day you wake up and can say, "I can do this," then totter on out to the road and do it.
Meantime, should you come upon a hitcher before the I.D. program's up and running—and I do have in mind one particular dear sweet little old lady—don't be a scaredy-cat. I guarantee she's harmless.
Betty Bell
