1/24/2022
On occasion, Todd would pick up hitchhikers and give them short rides towards their destinations and without incidents. Trouble starts with confrontations, and neither party wants to be morally dissected; if it does get out of hand, somebody may get dissected. Todd remembers the unreliability of old cars and has himself needed to travel by thumb. In these cases, state your distress, your destination, and let the driver figure out who’s gonna die first. It’s Murphy’s law that brings you 2 together. Todd pulled over, and Jerry introduced himself, his destination, and after a quick look at everything that told a story in that car, he got in. It seems that Jerry was a Canadian professor of philosophy at a major British Columbian Institute and lived on Vancouver Island. He had the summer off and was doing his yearly trek through these fantastic mountains. His vocabulary and descriptive details revealed himself to as a well-educated man. Todd said that he just finished flying over the Great Bear Lake and was looking for evidence that a large meteorite hit was responsible for the formation of the Great Lakes. He said he got his theory from beer. They both grinned. It seems Jerry needed a ride to another mountain range and Todd was going in that direction. With an hour to describe their most recent events, they were both nonplussed at each other’s interests. That is the beauty of individuality; if we all did the same thing, it would be boring. Todd did not know the intensity of a philosophy major’s training and was amazed at his knowledge. Jerry was now a tree hugger and summarized the giant carbon footprint that Todd was creating with his plane and auto trips. Todd agreed but then pointed out that it was his gas that was driving Jerry to his next hike. Philosophers are hard to trick as Jerry said it was immaterial because Todd was going there anyway. Todd let Jerry off at his spot and gave him a small present for his hike: 4 cans of beer. They laughed.