Hitch Hiking To The Future We Didn't Expect

It's hard to believe that three decades back it wasn't all that unusual to see girls hitching rides. It was the age of Equal Rights, women demanding equal pay for equal work. Ever increasing numbers of young women were enrolling in college, and not just planning on a traditional female job like teaching or nursing or becoming a librarian. We had women in the newsroom covering "hard" news and becoming editors. Women going to law school and medical school. The world was being turned upside down.

Shirley, an editor at the Miami News, and I had gone to St. Petersburg, FL to visit her friend Erica who was working at the St. Petersburg Times. I was shooting a lot of stock photos back then and thought that one of girls hitch-hiking might be saleable. This was shot on the causeway to Longboat Key.

Within a few years there were women doctors and lawyers. My ex is a doctor and my daughter is a lawyer. Some things just weren't practical, though. For a few years I did sell some of these images but the reality of sexual asault soon did away with equality by the roadside.