AP Features, March 26th, 2007
"Going to Rochester ... Would like if you could split gas and tolls with me." "Looking for a ride back to Iowa or surrounding states for spring break." "Offering ride from Shenandoah Valley, Va."
Those are some of the messages on an online ride board for college students at my alma mater. The ride board was a big deal when I was a student back in the late '70s, but of course we didn't have the Internet, or computers, to connect with each other; the ride board was a wall in the student union with dozens of little pieces of paper tacked on it.
In those days, there was so much competition for rides that when you needed one, you tried to come up with inventive ways to stand out. Offering to bring cookies, sandwiches or even cassettes of popular bands was a biggie, but you also hoped you didn't get stuck with a driver who wouldn't shut up. Fortunately there was no such thing as cell phones, so while there was always the risk that you'd get suckered into talking to someone for four hours that you didn't have much in common with, at least you wouldn't have to listen to one side of their conversation with someone else.
If you weren't driving and there was daylight to read by, getting a leg up on your assigned reading of "The Canterbury Tales" was always a good way to pass the time - unless of course you were trying to catch up on your sleep. But sometimes there were magical connections with strangers. I remember a long, interesting discussion among five of us crammed into someone's little car en route from upstate New York to Boston, about a book we all happened to have read, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Other times, driving back late on a Sunday night so we'd all be home in time for class Monday morning, the person flipping the radio dial might pick up a station broadcasting faintly from hundreds of miles away, and we'd all listen eagerly to see if the call letters were perhaps from one of our hometowns.
The ride board was also an inexpensive lifeline from campus to the outside world. We didn't have e-mail to stay in touch with friends from high school and our families, so I tried to visit once a semester or so, spending Thanksgiving with a friend at Oberlin and spring break with a pal at Boston University. It was how I got home to see my sister and my parents once in awhile for a fraction of the cost of the Greyhound bus.
The ride board also, apparently, symbolized the existence of a certain level of trust within our community. I was pleased to see that it's still available, albeit in virtual form, for students from my old school. But a friend whose son attends another university told me that the ride board there was no longer a viable option for kids to get home. "Until about five years ago, the ride board was a fairly active thing," one posting explained to a parent who e-mailed the school to ask about it. "It still exists ... but it is rarely used. Students of this generation are very uncomfortable taking rides with strangers for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the messages about personal safety that they have received all their lives."
As a parent myself now, I can certainly understand that. But as a former avid ride board user, I can't help but think it's also just a little bit sad.
