There are the stories you know. And you *know* you know them. Because you heard them from a reliable source that you... just can't quite remember right now. And then, as it so happens, everyone knows that story.

This soft-shell crab-like appetizer of a podcast highlights what happened when I started researching a local Boyle Heights urban legend, about a Lady who hangs out at bars, asks for a ride home, has the gentleman driver rider her past Evergreen Cemetery and... DISAPPEARS.

This episode I'm looking at the power of oral history, how connected to place it is, and the frustration of being on the fading end of those histories.

*****

Wikipedia Page about The Vanishing Hitchhiker

The Vanishing Hitchhiker by Richard K. Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey - California Folklore Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1942), pp. 303-335

The Vanishing Hitchhiker by Jan Harold Brunvard (Mr. Urban Legend) - 1981