Commuting by Wits, Thumb

Stafford Hitchhiker Finds a Political Cause on His Way to Work

It's 4:15 a.m. on a workday, and John Schindel is in his kitchen in a rural part of Stafford County, running through his commuting checklist before he heads out into the dark, drizzly, pre-dawn.

Got the blue lunchbox. Got the fluorescent vest. A quick spritz of Febreze fabric freshener on his flannel jacket and he's out the door.

The 40-year-old construction site foreman is like many people who commute from Washington's outer fringes, but with a hitch, so to speak: He's a hitchhiker. Since a drunken-driving conviction a decade ago that left him unable to drive to sites around Washington, he has relied on the kindness of strangers and neighbors who see the vest and working man's lunchbox and feel moved to share their nice, warm cars with a musty-smelling stranger (the Febreze).

Once Schindel, who looks like the long-haired heavy-metalhead he is and sounds like the smoker he is, gets into the car, the calculations begin.

In the 10 years since he was declared a habitual offender, Schindel has memorized every one of the foot-wide mass of bus, train and subway schedules he keeps next to the kitchen sink. So depending on where his job site is and where the driver is headed, Schindel quickly decides whether to stick with the ride or to try to connect with some other patch on his quilt of transportation methods.

Schindel is frank about the fact that his situation is due to his own failing and his decision to move from downtown Manassas shortly after he lost his license in 1995. But this is not exactly a guy who has taken his shame off into a corner to hide. Instead, Schindel has chosen to become an unelected statesman for carless, struggling exurban workers, lobbying for bus service everywhere from the Stafford County supervisors' meetings and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's recent Fairfax transportation forum to the Pentagon slug line.

Being known to police officers and to local commuter Web sites -- where, he proudly notes, he is called "Hitchhike" -- has given Schindel a new sense of purpose, not to mention a look into the Darwinian effect of the open road.

He's been chauffeured by the likes of assistant Redskins head coach Joe Bugel as well as by three men who were about to rob him before he bailed out into a snowbank at 35 mph. He has been spat at, yelled at, swerved around -- deliberately, he believes -- and been the target of flying bottles. He has become more grateful for what he has but also more ruthless, confronting people at neighborhood picnics who don't pick him up. His internal journey has been as unpredictable as his daily commute.

Waiting for a Break

On this January day, Schindel's final destination is a Hermes store under construction at Tysons Corner, where he oversees workers installing heating and air conditioning for a business where dog collars will sell for $550.

"Some people will pay that -- not me," he says as he walks in the drizzle along an unpaved road across a dam, the way lighted only by the moon.

After about a mile, Schindel hits another, slightly larger country road, where he puts on his fluorescent vest. Cars start passing, and Schindel sticks out his thumb while making sure his blue lunchbox is visible.

"I don't leave without it," he says as four pairs of headlights come and go. "I guess you'd call it a trademark thing."