Recently, I saw a creature that I thought had long since become extinct to this Island. I was driving eastwards out of Bandon in Co Cork and, in the distance, I saw it ..at first I couldn’t quite make out what it was .. and it was only when I had driven by, it dawned on me. I had just seen a hitchhiker. A proper hitch-hiker in all it’s glory. Don’t confuse a hitchhiker with a common thumber.. Common thumbers have never gone away and tend to be messy types on their way to getting off of their heads on drink or coming back from getting off of their heads on drink. The common thumber is distinguished by the absence of a ruck or knap sack, has a directionless dishevelled look and if the thumbing action is un-co ordinated is best given a wide berth.

The hitchhiker is a different species altogether.

There was a time in Ireland when most car owners had garages beside their houses, in which the car was parked in every night. Cars were expensive items that had to be cared for and not every one could afford one. If one was lucky enough to own a car it was looked after. I, and countless others while in college, didn’t have cars. CIE fares were seen as an unnecessary indulgence. Why spend money on getting from Clare to Dublin that could be better spent on a few pints? The logic was simple. If you walked in to a pub with a bit of cardboard with "Beer" scrawled on it, the chances of getting a pint was zero… If you got the bus to Newland’s Cross with a bit of cardboard with "Clare" scrawled on it, the chances of getting a lift were quite high and you still had the few bob for pints.

On Friday evenings or Sunday evenings at the perimeters of most towns and cities in the country, hitchhikers would line up like swallows on telephone wires in late autumn. My starting point used to be Newlands Cross in Dublin or the Limerick road out of Ennis. As Newlands Cross was quite a distance from the city centre, the best bet was a bus. On getting to Newlands Cross you got into the queue of hitchhikers that formed from the traffic lights out for some distance. To be honest it wasn’t a nice place, a windswept convergence of roads and what made it worse were the lovely girls.. I have nothing against the lovely girls but often the ego could be crushed when a pair of the lovely girls (they travelled in pairs) positioned themselves on the road. I may have been in place for an hour or so. They were all smiles and fresh faced and you could be guaranteed in a few minutes some tosser with a beer belly in a Mercedes 190 would blankly look through you as he pulled over for the lovely girls. Giggles, laughs, closing of doors and they were gone but you would console yourself with the opinion that prats like him were never going to give you a lift any way.

Bit too much personal info I think and I have lost track of where I wanted to go with this story. The point is this… imperceptibly over the years
hitchhikers disappeared from our roads.. like men who carried pocket combs, it was a human activity that stopped. The reason for this are many fold but are the same reason that people no longer garage their cars at night. The garages are full of stuff (stuff is what we bought with disposable income) so no room for cars. . and there are many more cars than before. It is a curious coincidence that when it appears that economically things are beginning to get hairy, I spotted my first hitchhiker in years. With the price of diesel and petrol heading for two Euro a litre I get a feeling that hitchhikers will make a comeback.. not so sure about the men who carry pocket combs though.