Back in the ‘60s, I had an uncle who was an enormous typically gregarious Irishman and WWII Navy veteran who drove a circuit as a traveling salesman from OK City to Brownsville, to NOLA. I spent two weeks with him one summer. He used to pick up bums and hitchhikers, and especially servicemen and have long conversations with them. For my benefit, he would always get them to tell their life’s story, until I began to see an obvious pattern. Sometimes, he would switch places with them and let them drive while he took a nap. When he dropped them off he would often pass them a ten spot. I’ll never forget those long drives on the flat Texas highways. Some of those he picked up could have been in Avedon’s drifter series. It’s a different world now, with no place for people like my uncle or those types of drifters.
My Dad was a salesman. Told me a story of a hitchhiker he picked up years ago in southwest Virginia. Out of prison, etc. Dad had empathy.
I suspect it was from his childhood during the Great Depression. He related a story of walking along a road back to town, circa mid-1930’s. A guy passed them and stopped a fair piece up the road. They hustled up to that car. The guy asked the kids if they were tired of walking.
“Sure are, mister.” He replied “Try running for awhile ...” and he sped off in the car.
A-holes have always been closer than they appear.