WEBVTT - Hitchhiking: Two thumbs out! 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:04.840 Hey, everybody, we are coming to a town ostensibly near you, 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:06.360 so putatively see us. 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.520 That's right, May twenty ninth will be in Boston, really Medford, Massachusetts. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.319 The next night we're gonna go down to Washington, DC, 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.040 and then scooch back up to New York City at 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:17.760 Town Hall on May thirty first. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:19.760 Yeah, and if you're one of those people who likes 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:21.720 to plan way far in advance, then you can go 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.160 ahead and get tickets for our shows in August. We're 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:25.560 gonna start out where Chuck. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.720 We're gonna be in Chicago August seventh, Minneapolis August eighth, 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.880 then Indianapolis for the very first time on August ninth, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.400 and then we're gonna wrap it up in Durham, North Carolina, 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:35.880 and right here in Atlanta. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.640 On September fifth and September seventh. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.880 Yep. So you can get all the info you need 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.159 and all the ticket links you need by going to 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.920 stuff youshould know dot com and hitting that tour button, 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.400 or you can also go to linktree slash SYSK Live. 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:51.320 We'll see you guys this year. 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:59.440 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.920 Hey, and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh, and there's 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.600 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just making it 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.199 our own way, grooving on down the road. E'sn on down, 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.880 e'sn on down the road out yep, with our thumbs 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:23.560 out and our chest puffed and are I don't know, 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.800 standing on our tippy toes. That all makes this stuff? 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:27.720 You should know, by the way. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:28.840 Uh? 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.800 Yeah, can we shout out that great book that a 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.200 lot of this is culled from. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.040 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.120 Yeah? 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:38.880 What great? 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:46.959 Jack Reid wrote a book called Roadside America's colon the 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.200 Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation. Uh, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.080 and about an e book. I actually read a lot 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:54.480 of that thing. 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.360 Yeah, how is it? 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:58.040 It's really good. 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.600 I mean it seems like the book on hitchhiking in 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:01.400 the United States. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.360 That's really great because I ran across a lot of 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.680 other stuff, not books, but articles that had been written 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:11.160 over the decades. In like, there's some really interesting, helpful, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.480 authoritative writings on hitchhiking out there. So I'm sure that 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.760 guy had the nerve to write an entire book about 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:20.000 it. It was probably pretty good. 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.280 Yeah, it was good, and I guess we should say 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.040 that hitchhiking is. This feels like one of those where 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.200 we would just breeze right into it. Yeah, but we 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.800 should say that hitchhiking is. When you stand on the 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.360 side of a road. You may hold a sign that 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:41.080 says you know, Akron or bust but the traditional and 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.480 we'll talk about the thumb in a minute, but traditional 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.840 ways to hold the old thumb out. Then someone eases 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.440 off and says where your head, and buddy, you say 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.360 I'm heading to Akron. You go on that way and 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.440 he says no, but hop in and then you get killed. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.400 It's pretty much a part for the course. Yeah. 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.040 Yeah, shitching a ride, it's grabbing a ride to figure. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:03.600 Everyone knew that, but you never know. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.240 Yep, there was one flaw in your story, Chuck. No 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:11.160 one's headed to Akron. Everybody's leaving Akron. Oh, if you 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.040 wanted to ride out of Akron, I'm sure it would 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:14.280 be very easy to catch. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.679 One ouch, So then your sign would just say anywhere 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.360 anywhere but here, oh man or Akron. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.320 We should talk about the origin of the term hitchhiking too, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:27.160 because there's a lot of competing stories for where the 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.880 term hitchhiking came from, and I think I found the 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:31.200 real one. 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.040 Yeah, I'm not so sure about that, but go ahead. 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.520 Well, let's start with the first one. There was a 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:41.000 nineteen seventy eight American Motorist magazine article that said, everybody's 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.640 shut up. It all dates back to the Old West, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.240 and hitchhiking was a technique of method for two people 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:52.520 to share one horse. And it went like such, Yeah, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:54.600 I haven't explained it yet. I just set you up 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:55.320 to explain it. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.360 No, No, I mean, I'm happy for you to explain this part. 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.280 Well, I was gonna make it make a horse walking 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.000 sound while you explain it. But okay, So basically, you 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.800 have two people with one horse. One person rides the horse, 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.440 They take it to a predetermined spot and tie it up, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.200 and they start walking, and eventually the other person, who 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.960 started walking from the same spot that the other person 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.080 started riding from, comes upon the horse that's tied up. 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.400 They get on the horse and they start riding to 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.640 the next predetermined spot, probably passing the person walking on 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.880 the way, and then the person walking catches up to 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.039 the horse, and so on and so forth. And what's 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.479 the beauty of it too, is the horse gets to 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.760 rest in between rides as well. It sounds like a great, 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:43.039 great idea, and I guess hitching the horse to a 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.080 tree or something. That's where the term hitchhike came from. 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:47.760 Not convinced by this one, but I think it's a 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:48.360 great story. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.000 Yeah, I'm not either. That sounds like some sort of 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:52.279 demented relay race. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:55.680 All right, you want to move on to the one 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:56.360 I think it is. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.480 I go ahead, because I'm not so sure about this either. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.160 I think it was a nineteen sixty six Sports Illustrated 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.120 long form article on hitchhiking that was written by Janet Graham, 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.080 a veteran season hitchhiker, and she made an offhanded reference 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.200 jokingly about how people look down on hitchhikers so much 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:22.159 so that the definition of hitching is to move with jerks, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.680 making it sound like you're traveling along with other hitchhikers. 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.080 But there's like a kernel of truth in there. The 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.440 word hitch to hitch means to move along in short, 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.120 sudden movements, kind of like how you scoot a chair 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.239 up to a table, right, So you're moving by jerks, 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.200 and jerks are short sudden movements, So that's hitching, And 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.360 it makes sense if you look at the entire ride 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.880 you're hiking. That's the that's the whole walk, but in 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.960 between it's punctuated by short periods in a car that 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.280 kind of get you further along the hitch part. So 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:57.640 you're hitch hiking. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:05:59.600 Another great story. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.920 Well, okay, mister smarty pants, what's the word hitchhiking from? 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:05.080 I'm not really sure. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.359 I just know that I go with the Oxford English 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:13.280 Dictionary because I think they are superior researchers, and they 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.000 have it dated back to the term at least in 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.400 nineteen twenty three, even though obviously people were hitchhiking before 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:19.320 nineteen twenty three. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:20.760 Yeah, but. 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.520 The whole thumb thing in nineteen twenty seven at least, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.239 or at least that far back. They called hitchhikers thumb pointers, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:31.360 which I think is pretty fun. 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.960 But note that it's in parentheses or not parenthes quotes, 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.960 which indicates that the writer did not believe that the 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.279 proven reader would know what they were talking about. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:44.880 Yeah. Probably so. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.520 Yeah, but it's interesting, like the history of hitchhiking, because 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.320 it's the people that hitchhiked and why they did it 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.640 and how it was viewed has really kind of morphed 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.520 a lot over the decades in the United States, and 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.400 in the nineteen twenties when when it kind of first 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.559 got going, it was it was not like hitchhiking today. 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:09.680 It was a lot of like sometimes affluent young people, 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.360 like college students who would be like, I want to 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.119 go down to Palm Beach and I go to school 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.360 in Syracuse, and so I can just put my thumb 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.840 out and get a ride. And it was it was 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:22.960 a pretty safe thing to do for a long time. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.760 Even though you know it was safe, though, there were 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.920 people from the very beginning that were like, maybe you 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.880 shouldn't do this, and early reasons, you know, were less 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.560 like it's dangerous for you and more like, hey, if 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.280 you pick someone up, you might get sued or something, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.000 or at least be responsible if you, like you get 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:42.720 in a wreck with someone in your car that you 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:43.120 don't know. 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.720 Yeah, And apparently trucking companies eventually by mid century had 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.720 banned their drivers from picking up hitchhikers for that very reason, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.200 because they were on the hook totally. Yeah, but it 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.600 makes sense that hitchhiking really started around the twenties because 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.080 that's the very beginning of the time when people started 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.119 to have cars. So the whole kind of idea behind 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.560 it was like, Hey, I'm being adventurous and young, you 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.600 have a car, give me a ride for a little bit. 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.160 And there was like just the novelty of the whole 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.040 thing of having a car and then also picking up 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.600 just some random person. It kind of went well together 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.200 because the whole thing was fairly new. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.000 Yeah, for sure, the idea of like the original warnings 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.160 be being more about like the the legalities of being 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:29.320 the driver. There was also talk of like, hey, you know, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.520 if you start doing this next thing, you know it's 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.959 that slippery slope thing you're going to be, it'll lead 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.200 to a life of crime or something, or you know, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.319 it's sort of and you'll see that this is a 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.960 big argument from certain people in this country ever since 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.600 hitchhiking started, was like this is just one step away 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.080 from like begging you for money and living on the street. 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.480 Yeah, and smoking marijuana cigarettes and becoming a pop fiend. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.040 Yeah jazz cigarettes. 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:02.120 Right, So that was, like you said, the original version 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.560 was this kind of adventurous and novel and usually kind 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.600 of young, white middle class, typically in the twenties in 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.960 the thirties, hitchhiking, which had already been established as a thing, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:20.079 became like a viable method of transportation for people who 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.360 are down on their luck, and because so many people 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.959 were down on their luck, hitchhiking actually kind of gained 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.440 a measure of respectability during that period because there was 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.640 this whole idea of people who were fortunate enough to 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.560 own a car helping out the less fortunate, because we're 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.400 all going through this together, right. The thing is is 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.240 there were also plenty of people that were considered hobos 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.400 and tramps who were viewed by the public at large 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.280 is not really wanting to work. So if you were 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.040 a hitchhiker and you were trying to move to the 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.240 next town to look for work, you were generally considered 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.080 like an upstanding person trying to do whatever they could 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.040 to make an honest living. But you had to differentiate yourself, 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.240 and oftentimes you would dress as clean cut, maybe wearing 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.679 a suit and a hat, anything you could to basically 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.479 stand out and say like, I'm not like these scumbags. 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:11.679 I actually want a job. 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.600 You know that expression, dressed for the job you want, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.840 not for the job you have. Yes, I think that 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:21.640 was like dress for the ride you want and not 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.320 for the ride you have, which is zero rides exactly. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.080 I think you're one hundred percent right with that. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:27.160 Yeah. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:32.880 So that era the nineteen thirties, like you said, society, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.200 you know, didn't look down upon it so much. There 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.800 was even a pole in nineteen thirty eight by the 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.400 Institute of Public Opinion that said forty three percent of 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:47.000 Americans viewed hitchhiking favorably, and Mike, if you were to 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.839 take that poll today, I can't imagine how low that 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:50.439 number would be. 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.480 The latest I saw was a UK number and it 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.640 was in the twenty tens and it was down to 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:56.320 nine percent. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.440 No, they never liked it over there though, No. 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.920 But it was still it's really popular, even though publicly 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.040 people claimed it to dislike it as a whole, like 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.120 bollocks to that, right, that's what they said. 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.880 So once you got to World War Two, another thing happened, 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.400 which was American serviceman you know that would go on 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.679 leave and you know, people in the army or whatever 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.720 would sometimes hitchhike to where they wanted to go. And 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.559 if you stopped and picked up a service person who 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.040 was hitchhiking, then that means that you were doing your 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.160 patriotic duty by giving you know, a fine young citizen 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:31.800 a ride somewhere. 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.400 Yeah, so in like twenty years, hitchhiking went from a fun, thrilling, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.320 relatively safe thing for college kids to do to a 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.680 necessity for people who were moving from town to town 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.400 looking for work, to a patriotic duty to stop and 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.560 pick up a serviceman hitchhiking on their way maybe back 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.000 to base or out on leave away from. 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:53.680 Base, away from Akron. 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.959 If you were a fat like a right exactly, If 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:02.280 you were a factory worker and a woman, you also were, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.440 people were expected to pick you up as well, to 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.319 give you a lift to the factory. You were just 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.679 supposed to like hold out your credentials for you know, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.960 whatever defense factory or whatever you worked in, just to 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.240 make sure no one got the wrong idea. 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:18.360 Yeah, and you had to have on that Rosie the 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.000 riveter bandana right tied in the front. That was your 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:22.720 credential right now. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.960 That definitely gave it away for sure. And then there 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.640 was there's something else to mention about hitchhikers during this time, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.760 and it actually is, It's true. Throughout the entire time 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.840 of people picking up hitchhikers. But it started at this time, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.040 which was it wasn't that the hitchhikers were just mooching. 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.840 They actually provide and provided back then a service as well. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:46.520 Like a lot of times people would pick up a 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.240 hitchhiker at night because they were getting sleepy and they 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.040 needed somebody awaken alert to be like, hey, hey, wake up, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.000 don't fall asleep at the wheel. Other people just were 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.960 looking for interesting conversation to distract them from a boring 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.520 road trip. And then I saw a poem from very 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.640 early days of hitchhiking where the guy references that he's 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.840 essentially a counterweight to the driver in the car so 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.040 that the car doesn't tip over, because that's how flimsy 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:10.520 of the original cars were. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:12.199 Interesting. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.559 I thought so too. So it's not like anyone was 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.520 viewing these people as just completely mooching. That came later on. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.600 Yeah, and back to World War Two. If you were 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:28.360 a hitchhiking army army person that's what they call him, sure, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.640 a soldier, you could It depends on where you are, 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.720 but you could reasonably wait in a shelter. There were 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.040 certain towns who would say, like, hitchhiking is such a 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.839 thing that we're gonna build shelters like this was in 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.160 the nineteen sort of early nineteen forties, and a couple 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.280 of examples in California where they would build, you know, 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:49.560 and I get the feeling it's sort of like a 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.520 bus stop kind of thing where you could just sort 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.679 of get out of the rain or wind while you 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.320 thunder ride, which is pretty cool. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:01.040 Yes, And hitchhiking. I guess it's spread overseas Europe in particular, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.760 I guess by the nineteen thirties, but it definitely wasn't widespread. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:10.760 It became widespread through American servicemen who did the same 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.360 thing over in Europe that they did in America, and 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.880 the practice started to catch on after World War Two, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.680 where it was kind of like a introduced widely during 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:21.400 World War Two. 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:24.360 You think that's a good place for a break. 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.160 Sure, I wouldn't call it a cliffhanger, but do they 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:27.920 all have to be? 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.040 I mean, we said the war was over, right exactly. 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.080 I think everyone knows what happened next. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.480 No cliffhanger, right, Okay, so we'll take a break then starting. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:52.560 Now stop shut. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:02.160 All right. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.880 Now we're in the nineteen fifties and this was sort 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.360 of the first real push. Well that's not true actually, 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.640 because I read in the book there were sort of 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.120 anti hitchhiking pushes from the very beginning, but it was 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.480 sort of here and there, depending on what town you're 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.520 in or what state you were in. But the first 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.320 kind of national push came thanks to Jay Edgar Hoover, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.720 of course, who basically was one of the first guys 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.200 to put out the idea that this could be really 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.920 dangerous for you, like the next, you know, the next 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.760 murderer that you hear about on the news could be 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.280 the person that's getting in your car right now. And 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.640 of course there were government I mean, I guess propaganda 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.360 or at least warning posters that sort of indicated that. 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.560 One of them said death and disguise, and you know, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.600 it had like an all American family basically stopping to 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.320 pick up what looks like a clean cut hitchhiker death 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:56.920 and disguise. 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.160 Is he a happy vacationer or an escaping krima. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.760 Yeah, a pleasant companion or a sex maniac? That's what 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:05.280 else it said, Thank. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:06.040 You Jaugar Hoover. 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:10.080 Yeah, Jaegar Hoover considered hitchhiking a menace. I think that 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.360 guy considered everything he didn't like a menace to America, right, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.920 But it's really revealing what the social attitudes were toward hitchhiking. 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.440 In this nineteen fifty seven FBI bulletin that included a 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.520 letter that he personally wrote about how terrible hitchhiking was 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.120 and we needed to stamp it out. He was pointed 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.960 out that what law enforcement was up against was changing 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.800 the minds of the public. That against the idea that 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.200 the courtesy of the road demands that a driver give 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.120 a hitchhiker a lift if they're able to so. At 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.800 that time, by the mid fifties, that's what people thought 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:46.840 like if you saw some guy walking down the road 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.680 or gal and they had their thumb out, you were 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:53.600 basically obligated to stop. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.320 Yeah, there were a couple of high profile murders in 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.160 the nineteen fifties dealing with hitchhikers though, and that of 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:02.920 course is going to. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:04.640 Help ssuade the public opinion. 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.840 Yes, And of course is something that Hoover is going 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.040 to jump on and sort of highlight, as you know, 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.760 one of the big dangers the crime rate and like 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.000 the United States was, you know, at one of the 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.280 all time lows in American history and hitch hiking certainly 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.160 didn't like ramp it up or anything. But it's not 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:26.080 like it was a big like statistical analysis that was presented. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.000 It was just like, hey, this big murder happened, and 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.440 you know, it's one of those alarmist things where if 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.080 it can happen one time, then is it really worth 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.720 the risk for you to pick up that hitchhiker. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:41.760 Yeah, that became the premise in non Hitchhiking America. And 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.479 it was just the same thing as like stranger danger. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.720 It was a moral panic, right, Like, yeah, for sure, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:53.000 something so vile happened a handful of times, statistical anomaly essentially, 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.919 but was well publicized and so horrific, like murders of 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.720 entire families. There was a guy named Billy Guy Cook 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.720 who killed a family of five, including the three kids 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.919 ages seven, five, and three, and the family dog because 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.240 they just made the mistake of kindly picking him up 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:14.080 while he was hitchhiking. Like, news like that spread And yes, 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.720 I watched that for research last night. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:17.440 Did you really? 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:17.840 Yeah? 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:19.679 I actually saw it a couple of years ago, and 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:20.960 I think it holds up pretty good. 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.479 Yeah, It definitely had like a modernish feel to it. 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.320 It didn't feel like stuck in the mid eighties, and 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.879 I feel like it really captured the spirit of like 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.080 the average hitchhiking interaction. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:37.119 Yeah, where you ate fingers as French fries. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.000 Yeah, it was nuts, but yeah, I liked it. I 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.560 thought it was very long, overly long, but yeah, it 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:44.400 was a good Yeah. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:45.480 I know that's so funny. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.680 I don't remember why I watched it, other than it 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.720 might I doubt if it was on a plane. That 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.320 feels like something I would do on a plane. 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.320 Yeah, I don't know. It's enough of a classic that 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.280 I could see it being on like a hip airline. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:18:59.639 Was it Virgin? Were you flying Virgin that you saw it? 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.400 No? No, no, no, I don't. I only fly one airline. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:07.000 So there were like those. I think that Billy Cockye 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.639 Cook killing Spree came in nineteen fifty one, just in 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.080 time for people to start freaking out. As we'll see, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.919 movies are made about these kind of things. The FBI's 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.600 beating the drum against this kind of stuff, and so 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.119 it gets kind of a bad rap, and that's a 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.840 trajectory that it's followed over the decades. Every decade or so, 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.639 they'll be like a handful of highly publicized, really horrific 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.560 murders that took place because somebody hitchhiked. But if you 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.920 look at it statistically, it just it's like a blip 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:39.639 on the radar. 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:40.280 Yeah. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.119 Sure, but it scared everybody enough that, like parents were like, 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.920 you do not hitchhike. Like I would never ever hitchhike 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.920 because my mom scared me so thoroughly as a kid 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:53.040 that it's just not gonna I'm just not gonna do it. Sorry. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.760 Oh, interesting, So the danger that was drilled into you 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:03.119 is more hiking than picking up a hitchhiker either one. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.480 No, either one for sure? Okay for sure? Like, yes, 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:11.320 I was in grave danger, almost one hundred percent guaranteed 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.880 to be murdered horribly if I did either one. That's 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:15.520 basically what got drummed into my head. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.480 I guess technically I did hitchhike one time, now that 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.240 I think about it, I got lost one time camping 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:24.760 with some friends. I like kind of went off to 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:26.840 hike on my own, Like we had set up camp 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.280