BOOK REVIEWS
Hitching: Tales from the byways and superhighways
Published by Wakefield Press 1995
"Hitch-hiking comes down to a bald truth — the taking by someone of something without payment... it can lead to a weakening of moral values and conscience… Hitch-hiking has become an accepted part of modern life, indulged in by all strata of society… like many accepted facts of modern living, it can be distorted and used to excess and for the wrong purposes. On the other hand, used wisely and well, it can enrich experience."
The Souvenir, by Patricia Carlon
"If ON THE ROAD were written today, it would be a very different story: muggings, fights, killings, paranoia."
Graham Oliver, Beat Scene
"Hitchhiking is a risk. There is always some chance that it may get you hurt or killed or god knows what, but the real omnipresent, overwhelming danger, which is inherent in hitching, the thing that will always happen to you and that you can count on, is that it gets you seriously involved with reality — and that's the part that scares people the most.
"In the world of actual reality, there is a lot more happening than just stray bits of violence — there's ongoing encounters with real people and real situations, there's constant communication and learning that comes not from newspapers and books and movies and TV and all other third-hand pabulum but from direct experience with life across a gamut of situations and a mapful of places, there's the constant challenge and exhilaration of facing the unknown and finding that it's rewarding and spiritual as well as gritty and shitty, there's incredible self-integration and exploration going on every minute."
Ed Buryn