Here’s a great photo that perfectly captures the restless spirit of the youth in this country during the early 1970s.
The Journal photo is by Dick Hendrickson, and it ran in the paper on April 29, 1971. It shows Vince Gentilly of Los Angeles, lazily thumbing a ride along U. S. Federal Route 20 in Wakeman, near the intersection with Ohio State Route 60.
According to the caption, Gentilly had been on the road about three months, visiting relatives and sleeping wherever he could unroll his sleeping bag. He had dropped out of college because he’d “just had enough.”
As you can see by his thumb, he was heading east (to Cleveland, where he had an uncle).
And here’s a Google Maps view of where young Mr. Gentilly was photographed, fifty years ago.
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You don’t see too many hitchhikers these days.
Over the years, I've given a ride to a few of them. The few people that I picked up were usually from the area, not the down-on-their-luck transcontinental wanderers. I always made them show me some I.D. and prove that they had no weapon, and I did likewise. They were almost always nice, grateful and interesting.
One gal who really needed a ride was still wearing a Halloween costume, trudging along U. S. 6 in the early hours after having crashed in a strange apartment in Lorain the night before. I helped her get to where she wanted to be.
But it’s been years since I did that sort of thing.
I still see the backpack-wearing, bearded types along Liberty Avenue (U. S. 6) in Vermilion pretty regularly, but no one has stuck a thumb out in a long time. Everyone has cell phones now anyway, and there are just more options available to get somewhere, rather than take a chance with a stranger.
