Small towns aren't bad in the cold

[steuard]

It is cold in Alma today. When I walked in this morning, the temperature was right around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind chill was something like -8F (though the wind chill forecast had been for -17F; maybe we lucked out

Comments

[beth_leonard]

When I was little and people sometimes still hitch-hiked my mom told me never to pick up hitch-hikers and never to hitch-hike. I got it in my head that doing either of these things was a bad-guy type of thing to do. And then one day my mom picked up two young girls hitch-hiking. She explained to me that she did it because she didn't want the girls to get hurt, and this added some nuance to my world view.

When I was a teenager, I was riding with an uncle from a small town without my parents present from one part of a family gathering to the after-party. He told me how he had picked up a hitch-hiker that morning and had done his good deed for the day. My worldview changed yet again. I never thought someone could think picking up random hitchhikers and just helping people out was a "good" thing to do.

Several years ago before I had kids, I was traveling past midnight in the snow and I saw a wrecked car on the side of the road, and a few blocks later saw a hitch-hiker. He smelled of booze and I asked if it was his car back there. He said it wasn't he was just walking home, but I made a judgement call and picked him up anyway and drove him into town. It was freezing and I was concerned for his safety. Parts of me still feel guilty for having done that, it was dangerous and "wrong" from my childhood world-view. But then a few weeks ago, there was a widely publicized story about a missing Lake Tahoe girl, who was later found dead of exposure after leaving a New Year's Eve party at which she had been drinking. I think I did the right thing.

Life isn't the same set of "right" and "wrong" that we teach our kids. There is so much more nuance to it.

--Beth

[nemene]

There is a world of difference between good, and safe - and it is murky grey which one is 'right' in each situation.

[akiko]

I really only ever took away that it was unsafe for me to hitchhike or pick up hitchers from all the instruction not to do it, not that it was Wrong or Evil or Bad. Just that since I'm a girl, I was probably going to get raped and/or murdered if I did.