Children are naturally curious and ask some of the most fascinating, probing, obvious, and embarrassing questions.  For parents it’s really a task to answer their queries.  My grandson keeps his parents on the toes with is questions.  Sometimes I am not spared either. Recently my son gave ride to someone while bringing his family here. So after they all came and settled, my grandson Andrew, asked the question, since when did hitch hiking start, and why do people show thumbs as a means to ask for a ride. My son was at a complete loss for this answer.  So we used the information almighty Google to find out the answer.  So this is the information we got. To hitch basically meant hooking horses to a wagon or ‘fastening’, and hiking meant walking fast. The word ‘Hitchhike’ first started to be coming in verbal use around 1880. It was used to describe hooking a sledge to a car.  The thumb is representative of the Hook expressing the wish to be attached to a moving car.  In other regions of the world similar wish has a different hand signal.  Andrew seemed satisfied and bored as we gave him this explanation.