Today I am sharing with you a poem I wrote on my recent trip to California. I see hitchhikers often. I never pick them up, but I wish they could hear what I’m saying and thinking as I whiz by. Do you stop for hitchhikers? Why or why not? Please share in the comments.
DEAR HITCHHIKER
Sitting, standing, squatting
with your backpack, guitar, dog,
I see you. I want to stop.
I’m not a heartless woman.
You can’t hear what I say
as you breathe in my exhaust:
I’m on the freeway, fool,
going 70 miles per hour!
Are you nuts? I can’t stop here
with cars on every side. I’m just
trying to stay alive.
Go stand somewhere else.
Are you too lazy to stand up?
Or too worn out to even try?
I’m only going down the road.
That’s not much help to you.
Besides, my car is full of stuff,
Groceries and clothes and such.
Oh gosh, you look so tired.
And what a darling dog.
You might be fine, you play guitar.
But what if you have a knife?
Or a gun? Or drugs?
I don’t want to die today.
I know you see my big old car,
and then you see old gray-haired me.
You look on down the road.
Old ladies never stop, and yet
you’re someone’s little boy.
Perhaps someday I will.
Copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2017
Unleashed in Oregon 
Maybe about 50 years ago we ran out of gas somewhere south of Fresno, in the middle of the night and our baby daughter in the backseat. Remembering a gas station many miles back from where we had come, my husband crossed highway 99, disappeared through a thick grove of eucalyptus, seeking to find someone who would pick up this reluctant hitchhiker. As it turned out, someone did. He even returned him to our car.
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Hi Adrienne. I think it used to be safer. Now I supposed we’d lock ourselves in our cars and hope to reach someone on our cell phones.
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