Seeing a hitchhiker standing on the side of a roadway is now about as rare as winning a big prize in the Minnesota Lottery.

Yet, as I will explain in more detail, hitchhiking was once an important way to travel from place to place in the nation.

The ever-handy dictionary says the word hitchhike is defined as &uot;to travel by securing free rides from passing vehicles.&uot;

However, with this endeavor there were some interesting laws and common sense rules to be followed by those folks who once used this form of free transportation.

For example, some states had laws against hitchhiking. My original home state of Oregon supposedly had such a law which was rather loosely enforced.

Several states, counties, and even cities, had a regulation that said a person could stand on the shoulder of the roadway, but couldn’t put the arm out with the thumb extended.

Then there were the more practical aspects of hitchhiking.

For a starter, one just never got into a vehicle with a driver who appeared to have been consuming alcoholic beverages.

Also, one did not try to solicit a ride from the downtown portion of a larger city. The logical gimmick was to ride on a streetcar or municipal bus to the furthest possible point at the edge of the city on the desired highway to somewhere else. An excellent way to get advice in this regard was from the bus or streetcar driver.

Hey, I might be indicating the hitchhiking recollections are from another era. Just keep this in mind as I continue on with this narrative.

An excellent place to solicit a ride was near a corner with a stop sign or traffic signal.

Many of the drivers were going slow enough or even stopped and could look over the hitchhiker as a possible passenger for a few, and hopefully even more, miles.

What may have been my very best gimmick was to have a suitcase with a pennant on the side which said Mankato State.

This clearly indicated I was a college student. Having this was a lot more logical than holding up a sign indicating my destination.

This decorated suitcase with the cloth pennant also resulted in some interesting encounters with drivers. Several non-Minnesota folks would actually stop and ask what or where this Mankato was.

The name of this city was always mispronounced. Then some drivers would say they didn’t pick up hitchhikers and drive away. Anyway, having that suitcase resulted in some excellent mileage in someone else’s vehicle.

One thing to avoid if possible was a pickup with a farm couple and maybe a couple of kids sitting in the cab. The only place left to ride would be in the box.

Besides, the couple would be going on the highway for just

a few more miles and turning off for the home place. In a situation like this the best option was to decline this

ride.

I might add here that some of the rides I recall were with friendly couples who let me ride in the back seat.

Now right about here is the logical place to start explaining why hitchhiking was once a rather important part of American life.

In the era during and just after World War II, thousands upon thousands of members of the armed forces were stationed at military posts a long way from their homes.

They had no vehicles and the buses and trains just couldn’t handle the weekend traffic. This is when hitchhiking solved a major transportation problem..

I might add right here that during this same era all members of the armed forces

had to be in uniform 24/7, on or off post.

In reality, this was an advantage because in those days civilian drivers were encouraged to pick up people in uniform and give them a ride to somewhere else. It was implied this action was just another way to show a person’s patriotic feelings.

We’ll continue this hitchhiking topic

in the next column with details about several unforgettable memories of travels with an extended thumb.

Meanwhile, here’s an added bit of information for the article about the places where ALHS students ate noon lunches years ago, which was in the Sept. 4, 2005, edition. The place I mentioned as a private residence at 110 N. St. Mary Ave., was actually the local Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) building.

(Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears each Friday.)