It was the 70s. We girls, my cousin and I, sat at the end of a long dock on the river near her house. King County, Washington State. We saw a white van stop on the road near us.
“That’s the Green River Killer,” she said. She wasn’t kidding. She thought it was. We sat in the sun, our hair blowing in the breeze. My heart pounded. She said to stay there. Don’t run. Don’t leave her alone. He wouldn’t do anything to two girls, just one.
The white van sat, idling. Was he watching us? As soon as the van slowly pulled away, we ran back home, screaming and laughing. We were young girls listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival songs like “Sweet Hitchhiker.”
I hitchhiked in the 60s and 70s and never thought twice about it.
In the ’70s, we hitchhiked, girls and boys alike. My brother hitched all the way to Southern California to hang out with an older female cousin for a few weeks. That was 1978. He came back with stories of getting laid by a thirty-year-old woman who picked him up. An innocent eighteen-year-old man with light blue eyes, it was fun for him…