Buddy, can you spare me a ride?

It was a question that reminded me of a bygone era.

I was walking across the interstate ramp recently when a car stopped and a woman asked an unexpected question.

“Do you need a ride?”

I shook my head and continued walking. Then the lady turned onto the street and was across from me when she asked again — “Do you need a ride?”

“No, it’ll mess up my exercise,” I said. 

That’s when she left me to my pedestrian pursuits.

It was a question I hadn’t heard in more than 60 years when I was a college student.

In the late 1960s, I would leave the last class of the week, grab my suitcase and walk to the main intersection of town. Standing on the curb, I stuck out my right hand, thumb extended. Soon a car stopped and the driver asked where I was headed.

“To the interstate,” I said. 

“Jump in.”

When we arrived at the cloverleaf, the car pulled onto the shoulder, I grabbed my suitcase and stepped into an adventure.

Hitchhiking back in the ’60s was North Carolina’s answer to public transport. Besides other college students looking for a ride home for the weekend, I’d sometimes see soldiers and sailors on furlough. 

Even after more than 60 years, I still remember vividly some of the folks kind enough to give me a ride. The faces may have dimmed but the ambience remains sharp.

There was the older, jolly guy who kept a steady, albeit slow pace heading west on Highway 64. As a number of cars passed us on the two-lane road, he said with a toothy grin, “Y’all go on. We’ll be there directly.”

Then there was the time a woman with two teenage girls picked up me and Billy, a fellow student. They were from Polk County in the southwestern part of the state. It was refreshing to see their innocence and trust in two clean-cut college boys.

I remember my introduction to surround-sound. I had hitched a ride with a middle-aged man in a station wagon and he was playing stereophonic classical music on FM radio.

Riding home from college covered a little more than 50 miles. But my great adventure was that time during summer school when I found the courage to thumb across the state to a friend’s home south of Asheville. Gary and I had hitchhiked together a year before but this was my first solo escapade.

My journey hip-hopped along with a handful of drivers. I made it past Burlington and Greensboro before having to get out in Winston-Salem, requiring me to refresh my opposable digit.

After watching cars and trucks speed by on I-40, I was relieved to see one pull over. I was in luck because this guy was going all the way to Asheville.

Our conversation long ago left my memory, but I can remember my excitement mount as the foothills grew into mountains. When we arrived at the Highway 25 interchange at Asheville, I got out and hauled my cloth scotch-plaid suitcase onto the shoulder.

I didn’t have to wait long before a man a few years older than me stopped to give me a ride. We got to Highway 280 and then it was a short hop to Gary’s house.

My trek back to campus was uneventful and I arrived at my dorm after dark. What’s interesting is that the trip, both out and back, took less than five hours each. Not bad for a poor student.

I continued riding my thumb for another semester or two, then left school behind and joined the world of work. I had my own car by then and hitchhiking was a thing of memories.

And there is this one memory that’s hard to beat — well, with the exception of my trip to the mountains.

On this day I’d established myself at a favored thumbing location and soon got a ride with a fellow student. He was driving a bright red convertible muscle car and the top was down.

We didn’t say much because he had his 8-track playing.

I remember listening to the Dave Brubeck Trio playing “Time Out.” The sun was shining, the wind was blowing through my hair and I was heading home.

For  a hitchhiker, it can’t get much better than that.

■ Larry Penkava, is a writer for Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.