West is...

One of the last days I spent in New Mexico, before trekking out East I had the opportunity to help out a hitchhiker.  This was one of two roadside ramblers with whom I have ever been vehicularly enclosed.   The first time, I was a first year Teach For America corps member in Gallup, NM and my roommate, Tim (who seemed to thrive on making bad decisions), decided to pull over for the Nali, an old Navajo man of about 65 or so who was busted flat on the side of road leading to Chinle.  The road seemed to move flatly along the desert forever until it gently sloped up and crested at the top of hill filled with old volcano cores.
The temperature must have been well into the 100's and in the dry heat of Northwest New Mexico, that can seem like the trails of Mercury.  Sensible it was then, that this old-timer would be parched on the ground, just waiting for a kind soul like Tim to stop and let him hop into the back of a conversion van that had only seen, God, and Jebus knows what else.  Myself, Tim, Gavin, and Mark all jumped out and helped the hapless fella into the back of the van.  It didn't take long for us to find out that he wasn't overheated, but over-drinked.  By the time we realize and tried to drop him off in Greecewood Springs, it was too late.  He had yuked and passed out and our only reserve was to drag him out by his ankles and leave him at the gas station like we were the thugs in a Quentin Tarantino flick.
So I wasn't too excited when, on my last drive from Crownpoint to Gallup, my colleague decided to pull over for a similar, gap-toothed (if you count a one-remaining for ever three missing pattern, gapped) old man.  He hopped in and began to say something, I couldn't tell what.  Thankfully my friend was a local and he was able to decipher what I could only imagine was the same code that helped the US win WWII.  Unlike the first hitchhiker, this one actually was quite dehydrated, and not from Steel Reserve.  I handed over my blue Gatorade and he drank nearly half in the few minutes it took to get from the top of the hill outside Smith Lake to Thoreau.  When we pulled over he said, what I think was thank you about 12 times.  Before he slipped away back into his own life he smiled with his 4 teeth and said, "Thanks for the Juuuuuuuuuuuice."  Barry slipped out a Hágoónee' as he wondered toward either the Family Dollar or the remnants of the Saturday Flea Market.  I found that day that in love for others comes charity and kindness, and usually something to smile, if not laugh about on both sides.
Hitchhiking acceptability and safety = West  ≠ East