At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist

25 Hitchhiking

25 Hitchhiking I stood on the shoulder of the highway with my thumb out, half frightened of and half excited about what promised to be a great adventure . I lugged a large plaid suitcase, the only one I owned, which was much too large for a 5,000-mile trek. I had ¤lled it with everything I could think of that I might need—buttons, camera, ¤lm, and clothes. It weighed about ¤fty pounds. I also carried a large purse and a coat. I had thought long and hard about what to wear, one of the very few times in my life that clothing concerned me at all. Personally I preferred pants. But the dress code of the day required respectable middle-class girls to wear skirts in public. In all my years at Berkeley, I never saw a girl go to class in pants or shorts; they were prohibited at dinner in the dorms. I knew girls got rides quicker than boys. Despite my long hair, from a distance a driver might think a hitchhiker in trousers was male and pass me by. On the other hand, I didn’t want drivers to get the wrong idea. I had heard that girls who dressed provocatively invited assault. And while I did not personally know anyone who had been sexually assaulted (it wasn’t something good girls talked about), I believed the conventional wisdom that you ask for what you get. I ¤nally settled on a blue pleated skirt hanging a few inches below my knees and a plain blue striped blouse as the best compromise between attracting a ride and deterring assault. I had not yet thought about who would stop to pick me up and who I should refuse. I soon found out. Men. When I hitched with Toni and the other girls, the drivers who stopped for us varied. Most were men, but there were also families and even single women, and the guys were often young like us. Ninety percent of the cars which stopped for me when I hitched alone were occupied by single males, mostly middle aged. Initially I turned them down. Soon I realized that if I kept refusing rides from men, I’d never get anywhere. I changed my rules to include cars with only one man, but never more than that. Offers from men were not in short supply. Neither were problems. For a young California woman of the early sixties, I was relatively naïve and innocent. I knew little of the animal side of men from direct experience; most of what I knew I had learned from Toni. The ¤rst truck that stopped to pick me up had two men in the cab. When one eagerly leaned out his window to invite me in I could see lust contorting his face. It scared the shit out of me. It was a long time before I would accept a ride from a trucker, though they were the most likely long-distance drivers. I was wiser when I returned a month later. I calculated that roughly 90 percent of my rides were with single males, and about 90 percent of those propositioned me. Initially I tried to ¤gure out which men were safe, based on the few seconds I had to size them up before deciding whether to get into a car. I avoided those who seemed too happy to see me, any car with more than one male in it (most of the time), and anyone not going a long distance. I also refused anyone who wanted to make a short stop, anyplace, or take a short detour. “Just let me out,” I would say, “and I’ll ¤nd another ride.” I quickly ¤gured out that a good story was crucial. The ¤rst ride I accepted took me onto Highway 40 past Vallejo. He asked my age, and I truthfully said 18. He then asked why I was hitching, and once again I was too truthful—no money, I replied. “How would you like to earn a couple dollars?” he asked. I didn’t need to ask how. I just said NO de¤nitively , and that ended that. This taught me my ¤rst two mistakes: I admitted to being of legal age and implied I might need money. After that I lowered my age to 17, sometimes to 16, and talked about a need to go see my boyfriend or my brother who had suddenly become ill, was conveniently located...