Stories from the road

Alumnus hitchhikes more than 4,000 miles collecting tales from strangers

“Why would anyone go out of their way to help someone else?”

Approximately 4,444 miles later, Ben Eppard now has an answer — or, more precisely, 143 answers — to that question.

After quitting his job as director of communications at the University of Virginia student volunteer center, Eppard, a 2004 graduate of Liberty University and former Liberty Champion editor, set out on an East Coast hitchhiking journey. According to Eppard, a guitar player, his trek began in April of 2014 when he made his way to Lynchburg, Virginia, for the first stop on an album tour.

From April 2014 to June 2014, Eppard completed the southern leg of his adventure, and the northern loop took place from August 2014 to October 2014. The journey extended as far south as Key West, Florida, as far north as Maine and as far west as Nashville, Tennessee. The idea was birthed out of a previous backpacking trip in which Eppard and a friend hitchhiked in order to get home.

This time, however, Eppard wanted something more than a lift from place to place.

According to Eppard, as he went from gig to gig during his album tour, he came up with the idea of writing a book that would be a collection of the drivers’ stories.

“It was mostly a long, dusty wait in the broiling sun, but along the way, I met some interesting people,” Eppard said. “I was fascinated by the stories of each driver that picked me up. Perhaps because they knew they’d never see me again, they told me an unfiltered version of their lives.”

Along the way, Eppard met and heard the stories of a wide variety of people, from a “living statue” to an actor and many others. Eppard listened to the candid story of a woman on her way to a Veterans Affairs hospital for addiction treatment. He also took a detour to go hiking with a man named Dan.

But while sharing unique experiences added interesting stories to his daily log, Eppard quickly realized that the good Samaritans’ motivations for picking him up, rather than their life stories or the fun diversions, offered even more insight into their lives.

According to Eppard, the drivers often questioned why Eppard had chosen the hitchhiking mode of transportation. But Eppard would quickly respond to their question with his own “why”question.

“Usually they would say to me at some point, ‘You seem like such a nice guy. What are you doing out here? It’s dangerous,’” Eppard said. “To which I would say, ‘If it’s dangerous, why did you stop for me?’”

While some drivers could not put into words why they helped Eppard, others offered pronounced answers to the question Eppard posed.

“I’ve done some hitchhiking, and I’ve hypothesized that drivers stop because they see some part of themselves in you on the side of the road,” a good Samaritan said.

“There’s some part of them that thinks, ‘I’ve done that. I’ve thought about doing that. I wish I could do that.’”

Another driver explained that picking Eppard up was a tangible way to show her philosophy on life.

“I can’t live life afraid of other people,” she said.

Still others seem to have helped Eppard because they experienced hardships in the past and wanted to help others who might seem to be going through tough times.

“I grew up without a car,” one man said. “My mom died when I was one, and I was raised by my grandmother and we didn’t have a vehicle. We used to walk everywhere we went. I never really ended up going many places. We always depended on other people for help in that way.”

Another man explained that he learned what it really means to serve when he lost everything.

“Bro, I’ve walked for hours — hours,” he said to Eppard. “I’ve been there. I was homeless before. I went my whole life doing good, always having money, always having everything that I needed, and then, when I was like 40-41 — boom — broke, homeless. And then I really knew what help is.”

Eppard said that in addition to learning some of the reasons people chose to help others, he also gained the virtue of resilience. On top of logging every conversation he had, Eppard also counted the number of cars that passed — more than 19,000 total by the end of the trip — and the amount of time he waited for someone to stop at each leg of the journey — an average of 39 minutes and 28 seconds.

According to his blog about the 4,000-plus-mile journey, “The hitchhike interviews — A ride across America,” Eppard learned that “the alternative to the possibility of rejection is a life without human connection.”

“I think I learned a lot about people, but personally, I learned resilience,” Eppard said in an interview. “When you’re hitchhiking, 100, 200, 300 cars might pass you at a time. That is a lot of rejection. You get a lot of looks. But then the 300th car stops — maybe it’s someone who is incredibly interesting or says, ‘You know, I’m really inspired by what you’re doing.’ And that one person is worth the other 299.”

According to Eppard, after 143 rides across 4,444 miles, he learned to really appreciate those who genuinely wanted to help and cared, and those who were unafraid of being rejected.

“Love is a risky thing,” Eppard wrote on his blog. “Love, and you could be lied to, betrayed and have your heart broken. This is especially true when we talk about those that really need love — the homeless, addicted and mentally ill — anyone on the margins of society. Love someone like this, and it’s only a matter of time until you’ll be burned. And yet, people do it.”

After nearly six months of hitchhiking, Eppard explained that even the simple act of helping out a hitchhiker can make a real difference.

“People go out of their way to help others, even when there’s a risk to it,” Eppard said in an interview. “And I think that’s powerful.”

Research contributed by Danae Samms.

BROWN is the editor-in-chief.