A hitchhiker’s story on a busy German motorway fadó fadó

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Last week Frank McNally wrote in his Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times a piece about his hitchhiking days. It reminded me of the many years I spent hitchhiking. Indeed, up until the introduction of the Local Link service across Kerry two years ago I was often to be seen with my thumb out on a number of Kerry roads. 

Hitching is dead and gone and with O’Leary in the grave. I can well believe there are people under 40 who may not know what the word means.

In the 70s, and 80s there was not an exit to a city or town in Ireland where there were not young people sticking out their thumbs hoping someone might stop to give them a lift.

How Ireland has changed; I knew a young German Dominican who came on holidays to Ireland in the late 1960s with a fellow student. They hitched all across the country, wearing their roman collars. Until his death some years ago he was still talking about how they were never standing on the road more than five minutes before a car stopped. 

I had a mix of good and bad experiences, mostly good. It was summer 1972, the Olympics were taking place in Munich and I was hitching from Cologne to Worms, which is about 216 kilometres. 

I took a bus from the city centre to a motorway ramp. The ramp was crowded with hitchhikers; I decided to move up as far as possible, most of them were couples, I had the advantage of being on my own. 

Surrendering was on the horizon when a car pulled up, inside a young woman and her dog. I told her in very poor German I was going to Worms, she said she was going to Munich and that was on her way. 

Off we went; her English was slightly better than my German, I’m not sure how we communicated. Maybe an hour into our journey she told me she had a spare ticket to the Olympics, where she was going, and asked me would I like to go with her. 

I was 23, Irish and maybe shy, and immediately said no. We passed my exit and I explained I’d like to get off at the next possible exit or motorway rest spot. 

She kept driving. I again asked her to stop at the next ramp. At that, she pulled into the hard shoulder and told me to get out. I was relieved, jumped out, she drove off. 

As she did, I realised I had left one of my two  bags on her back seat. I was on a busy German motorway, scared. I walked to the next bridge, where I managed to scramble down on to a road. I had no option but to continue hitching. 

After a few minutes a huge truck pulled up, driver wearing a vest. I still remember he was a big man, for a second or two I did not know what to do. That man went out of his way and brought me to the hall door of our priory in Worms.

I often wonder what might have happened had I gone to the Olympics in Munich that summer in 1972.