Sticking out my thumb at one of the entrances to a freeway that was heading southeast out of Los Angeles, I did not have to wait too long before a car driven by a young white guy who looked like he was in his late 20's stopped and invited me to "hop in."
"How far are you going?" he asked in a curious way.
"To New York City," I replied.
The driver laughed and said: "Well, I'm going to San Diego, so my ride won't help that much. But at least I can get you out of Los Angeles and into Orange County, where you can catch one of the freeways that meets up with I-40 going east."
"That sounds like it would help me a lot."
The driver had apparently done a lot of hitchhiking during the years of his early 20's, when he had served in the U.S. military and had, himself, been given rides by many U.S. drivers when he needed to save money by traveling on the road. So, lucky for me, he apparently felt morally obligated, himself, now, to offer a ride and pick-up any hitchhiker in his 20's that he, himself, passed while driving; as a kind of repayment for the free rides other drivers had given him, whenever he had been on the road during his younger years coming home from leave when in the U.S. military.
In addition, from the conversation I had with him in his car, before he dropped me off near one of the beaches in Orange County in the early evening before the sun had set, the driver--now approaching 30 and no longer having the free time to travel around much, himself--seemed to feel some nostalgia for his more youthful days when he had hitchhiked, which seeing me with my thumb out reminded him of.
"You can probably stay around the beach here for the night and then go to one of the freeway entrances and hitch a ride up towards San Bernardino that gets you near to I-40 east," the first driver who picked me up advised, before I thanked him with a smile, we both wished each other "good luck," I got out of the car with my large knapsack and his car returned to the highway that would take him to San Diego.
