What a nice young man. . .

Dottie, the people I rode with (all but the old man) were wonderful to me, and I can’t see why they should have showed so much interest in me. What is harder to understand is why so many of them went out of their way to help me. I told no hard luck stories, and I tried not to look like a subject of charity. I took extra clothes along and changed in Oklahoma City. It has me puzzled. The man in Oklahoma City requested that I write him as soon as I reached home.

This is probably Lewis's graduation picture.
I'd stop and pick him up too

So Lewis mused toward the end of this first letter. I suspect he knew some of the answers, I certainly do, and Dottie surely did as well.

           

            Imagine the side of the busy highways of 1933 in the teeth of the Depression. Hitchhikers everywhere. Even if a kind-hearted driver wanted to give a ride, how to decide? How about a nicely dressed young man, white shirt, probably no tie, but I’ll bet one was in his pocket, a straw fedora shading his squinting eyes, his suit jacket tucked under one arm, carrying a beat-up suitcase and striding briskly toward his destination. (I’m partly imaging this and partly drawing on family lore.) Compared to the guys sitting on their suitcases and more than a little in need of a bath, whom would you chose to spend a couple of hours with?

Daddy never picked up a hitchhiker when Mother, my sister and I traveled with him. I suspect he did when he drove alone across the state, which was often. He did, however, often remark about them.

            “That fellow ought to get moving, nobody wants to pick up a lazy fellow,” he’d say as we passed a man sitting on his suitcase. Or, “Looks like he’d know he can get a shower at the YMCA.” Not only was he remembering his own journey; he knew what worked.

I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker, and given my ripe years, probably I won’t. My daughter confided (hope I’ve got this right, Katy) that she did once when she was driving back to college. She then spent the entire ride listening to a lecture on why she shouldn’t pick up strangers.

            Although  I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker, I’m convinced that I should return the favor to the “man from Oklahoma City” and the rest of those good souls who helped Lewis get home and start his life (and, of course, mine). It’s not the same, but here’s what I do—partly for Lewis and partly because I’m flat tenderhearted. I keep dollar bills in the outside pocket of my purse and in the console of the Jeep. We live in Houston, where times are hard and lots of folks are down-and-out. If I see, and I often see, a fellow or gal on a corner or perched on the sidewalk by a store looking hungry—don’t lecture me—I give them a couple of bucks.  I don’t need to know why their luck is out, I simply know that even the best of folks can hit hard times and need a helping hand.