Letter to the editor

I am a fan of the Canadian magazine The Walrus. While there are certainly some editions that are less interesting to me than others, it is always well written. I look forward to it arriving. when the January/February issue arrived and I saw that it had an article of hitchhiking I was excited.

I should have known better. It was not well done at all. I think it miss the whole point about hitchhiking for pleasure. As it well known to those few who have read my blog - I think hitchhiking is an art form. The task is to leave the driver with more than they had before they let you in. When people who hitchhike don't understand that it is their job to make the driver want to pick up hitchhikers in the future- well it drives me crazy.

So for the first time I wrote a letter to the editor. I don't suspect that it will have any more effect on the magazine than do my letters to Stephen Harper, but it felt good to get my thoughts off my chest on onto someone's else's plate (is that a mix metaphor?).

At any rate, here is what I wrote. Maybe I should do an article for them?

Dear Sir    

As someone who, in the past fifteen or so years, has hitchhiked between Sudbury and Vancouver Island 10-12 times (along with assorted trips on the various west coast islands and one trip to Yellowknife), I found Kaell's short article on hitchhiking unrepresentative of my experiences. For example not once in the hundreds of vehicles that I have been in, have I ever seen the sign "ass or cash, nobody rides for free". Only two drivers in fifteen years have asked for help in paying for gas. Both times it was entirely voluntary on my part if I did. However, numerous truckers and other long distance drivers have told me that it is they who are asked for money from their passengers. It is, they tell me, one of the reasons why they don't pick up folks of the side of the road anymore.

The story misses the excitement one feels as a big rig (or any vehicle for that matter) stops, and the driver waves you in. It didn't capture the sense of intimacy one gets travelling in a vehicle through the wee hours of the morning when it feels as if there are only the two of you on the road, and you share stories of your life; and perhaps most importantly it didn't speak to the extraordinary generosity of those drivers who picked up Kaell, and who continue to stop for me and the hundreds of other folks who on occasion, travel the roads.

Some of those folks do it because it is all they can afford; other like me do it because it is the best way to travel, meet people and see the country.

For what it is worth, if one is ever "stuck" at the Flying J in Calgary for 10 hours, instead of disturbing the truckers who are probably sleeping, try crossing the street and catching a city bus. A bus will get you to just west of the Olympic Park Calgary. A short mile walk and there is a great place to stand with lots of rides