- 19 hours ago
The American Hobo-Sd
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Short filmTranscript
00:00The End
00:30As the drover runs the cattle trail, and the sailor follows billowed sail, so the hobo
00:45tames the iron trail and longs for places far.
00:49The open road becomes his home, he can't subdue his urge to roam.
00:54The headlight and the whistle's moan become his guiding star, who works and wanders, also
01:03learns and in his heart he always yearns to see beyond the river's turns, the view from
01:10rolling cars.
01:12All around the water tanks waiting for a train, a thousand miles away from home sleeping
01:33in the rain, I walked up to a brakeman to give him time to talk.
01:44He says, you've got money, I'll see that you don't walk.
01:51You know, when we were kids, we used to walk the railroad tracks to see how far we could
02:18walk, make bets among ourselves, you know, oh boy, look at this, look how far he's gone.
02:24And occasionally you see a train pass by, and you see a hobo up there, and you wave at him.
02:33They'd wave back.
02:36You wonder where these people were going.
02:40It was a fascinating adventure in our little lives, and to look at these fellas and realize
02:50that they were going somewhere, and on a train.
02:55I was a real hobo.
03:01I did not have a stable home, so I was always willing to head out for a new adventure.
03:11I listened to a lot of those old Jimmy Rogers songs, and he talked about riding freight
03:16trains and made it sound so enticing that I just couldn't stay off of them.
03:20I like the lifestyle, I like the people I associate with, and of course it's a free ride.
03:25It's like being on a time machine, where you ride along and you see so many historical elements
03:31of this country.
03:32I've always been intrigued with travel and adventure.
03:38It's like kind of recharging your batteries.
03:41I'm out here seeing things I missed when I was a kid.
03:44It's an experience that, in a lot of ways, just escapes an explanation.
03:49We really have to do it to understand what it's like.
03:52I think it's the adventure, and the thrill, and sometimes just the peace to watch the country
03:57go by, and I always call it National Geographic Life.
04:02Self-survival, you know.
04:05Eat when you want to eat, sleep when you want to sleep.
04:10You don't have to worry about the IRS.
04:12It's in the blood, I guess.
04:14Once you do it, it's in you, you can't quit.
04:19You call your own shots as you see fit for yourself.
04:24I don't own a car right now.
04:26I don't like riding Greyhound buses, man, because I always get lucky, man.
04:30I always draw the wild card.
04:31I get some big old gal sitting next to me who wants to fall asleep with her head in my lap,
04:35and I can't smoke a cigarette or drink a beer, and I can do this in a boxcar.
04:38I rode freight trains all my life because I just love to do it.
04:42Ah, the rhythm of the rails is an enticing song to those who long to be far away.
04:49Like the Pied Piper, wandering souls have followed the tracks, stitched like seams across the
04:56country since the Civil War.
04:59Legend has it that Erie Crip and Philly Pop, two discharged Union soldiers, were the founding
05:05members of the fraternity of freight-hopping hobos.
05:09The two men, accustomed to the open-air military lifestyle, hitched a ride on a passing freight
05:15and rambled over the horizon.
05:19Other Civil War veterans followed suit and hopped on trains to get back home while the
05:23less fortunate soldiers, left homeless by the devastating war, rode the rails in search
05:29of a new beginning.
05:30A great number of these early wanderers sought jobs as migrant farm workers and carried hoes
05:37along with them.
05:38Therefore, it is thought the nickname hobo is derived from being called homeward-bound soldiers
05:46or ho-boys, both shortened to hobo.
05:52As the nation expanded westward, the railroads needed laborers to set ties and lay tracks and
05:58the hobos played a vital role in these activities.
06:01To feed a growing nation, the hobos became the harvesters who reaped the crops in mid-America,
06:06often working a route that took them from the Texas Panhandle to the Canadian border each
06:12season.
06:13During the prime age of dam construction, the hobos formed the nucleus of the hardy traveling
06:19workforces who built these massive structures, often in remote areas whose only real access
06:26was by freight train.
06:27These restless men continued to follow the developing railroads through the Rocky Mountains and became
06:34the lumberjacks of the Northwest woods and merchant seamen of the Pacific Ocean.
06:40The Great Depression of the 30s prompted factories to lay off laborers, businesses to foreclose,
06:57and farms to fall into ruin.
07:00Banks went broke and millions of people lost their life savings.
07:03It was a nightmare and created a new surge of hobos who took to the rails in search of
07:09work.
07:10In 1934, the U.S. Bureau of Transient Affairs estimated there were one and a half million
07:17men and women riding America's freight trains.
07:21You could taste the depression.
07:24These were bad years, you know.
07:2830, 31, 32.
07:32Everything was lean and mean.
07:35No jobs.
07:36You had to start with trying to get everything from a day's work to whatever you can get.
07:43Back then, everybody had a relative, a brother, a son, a father, an uncle who was riding
07:50the trains looking for work.
07:53Ah, that lonesome whistle continues to recruit new visionaries, offering passage to where dreams
08:00are found.
08:01I hopped my first freight train back in 1966 in Athens, Alabama.
08:09A couple of buddies and I wanted to go up to Nashville, and we didn't know how to get
08:14there except take the bus.
08:17So we were sitting down the weeds by the college there, and this freight train came by and
08:23was going real slow.
08:24So we said, let's do it.
08:26Next thing you know, we're on our way to Nashville.
08:28Well, I started riding freight trains as a kind of a recreational boyish adventure when
08:34I was about 15, and I rode pretty hard for several years, finally coming to rest at about 21 or 22.
08:42Well, the first freight train I rode, I was a kid about 15 years old, and I wanted to get
08:47home from Minnesota down into Iowa.
08:50And I didn't want to wait for my father to come up there to get me, so I rode a freight train.
08:55The first true hobo trip I ever took was when my brother Hopalong Chet and I were going back
09:04to our grandfather's 90th reunion, and we rode from Barstow, California to the East Coast
09:10to Boston.
09:11It took us eight days and 13 different train connections, and from that moment on we were
09:16hooked.
09:17I decided to make a documentary film, and it was mostly the film started out as an excuse
09:23for me to figure out how to get on a freight train.
09:26So, when I finally took my first ride, it was everything that I had imagined it might
09:34be, and it was pretty much an immediate addiction.
09:39I've been doing this since the age of 13 years old.
09:42That's, I'm telling you, the real McCoy.
09:45A friend of mine used to work for Canadian National up in Montreal, and he knew I liked trains
09:51a lot.
09:52I'd always like trains going way back to when I was a little kid, and he said, you know,
09:57you might think about jumping on trains to get around.
10:00I mean, you like to travel around a lot, and you like trains, and that was sort of the beginning
10:05of it, and I took it from there.
10:07I think the first time was an old oil spur up there where I used to live in Oildale,
10:12but the first long trip I took was from Bakersfield to Fresno in the old SP.
10:19At the age of 12 or 13, I was living near Philadelphia, and with a partner a year older, we bummed our
10:34way all the way to the Canadian border and all the way south to Florida.
10:47Every year, at a different location alongside a mainline railroad, the National Hobo Association
10:54sponsors the Hobo Poetry and Music Festival.
10:57This year's site is charming Marquette, Iowa, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.
11:05Oh, and music has always been a central component of hobo life.
11:10They'd sing of their old homes, their old loves, their work, and their trains.
11:15They'd play guitars, mandolins, and banjos, and simpler instruments like gin whistles, harmonicas,
11:22and Jews' hearts.
11:40The boss set me a-driving spikes. The sweat was enough to blind me.
11:46The boss, he didn't like my pace, so I left my job behind me.
11:52I climbed aboard an old freight train, round the country traveled.
11:57The mysteries of a hobo's life to me were soon unraveled.
12:02Yes, and the Jungle Telegraph goes out to hobos and hobos at heart in every corner of America.
12:09And they come from all nooks and crannies.
12:11They arrive by various modes of conveyance, many by car, truck, or motorhome, and, of course, the freight train.
12:21Oh, the big rock candy mountain. There's a land so fair and bright,
12:26where the boxcars all are empty and you sleep out every night,
12:30where the handouts grow on bushes and the sun shines every day,
12:34on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees and the lemonade springs,
12:37where the bluebird sings in the big rock candy mountain.
12:41This fun-filled event brings out the free spirit of the hobo that lives within us all.
13:02And everyone is encouraged to partake in the wide variety of family activities.
13:13This retired hobo is being hounded by his alter ego to return to the rails.
13:19We could hop an extra west and head out toward the coast,
13:22or maybe take the valley route with the river as our host.
13:25You always liked the scenery on the Colorado run,
13:28or the smell of hay as the boxcars weighed in the autumn Kansas sun.
13:32He said we never rode the Chesapeake or the seaboard or the Sioux,
13:35and what about the cotton belt? That promise came from you.
13:38You said we'd ride the Lehigh in the Wabash Cannonball,
13:41and you absolutely promised we'd ride New England in the fall.
13:45How long can I resist the call? I really couldn't say.
13:49But the inner hobo's argument gets stronger every day.
13:52Now, I'm not one for idle talk, but I want the world to know
13:55that if I hear that whistle one more time, I just might up and go.
14:04Early in the morning, and it looked like rain.
14:06Around the bend, coming past the train.
14:08Under the camp was Casey Jones,
14:10a good engineer, but a daddy ain't gone.
14:12Daddy ain't gone, a daddy ain't gone.
14:14A good engineer, but a daddy ain't gone.
14:20Well, Casey Jones was a brave engineer.
14:22He told his fireman not to fear.
14:24All he needed was a water and coal.
14:26Put your head out to wind to see the drivers roll.
14:28Hey, yeah, the drivers roll.
14:30Put your head out to wind to see the drivers roll.
14:32All the time being on the track.
14:33You're trying to get inside out.
14:34It ain't been running.
14:36Train's are marvelous contraptions under any circumstance.
14:42They are unreal, shimmering steel creatures that are almost alive.
14:46Fire-breathing monsters with intense, undulating tails.
14:50tails so what is it that lures a hobo to mount these beasts again and again and
14:58being that I like to play music you know it's nothing finer than you sort of like
15:01the rhythm you know you're in tune with the rhythm not only the rails but I get
15:05in tune with the rhythm of waters that the trains go by the speed the power of
15:11the train although it's really they really turn me on the freedom not not
15:17getting away from everything getting away from everything yeah not not feeling
15:22like I've got to be responsible about anything being punctual being somewhere
15:26at an exact time being able to just hang out go with the train get somewhere for
15:30free I'm getting from point A to point B and I don't have to drive I don't have
15:34to deal with inner city traffic or anybody who's not gonna let me get in my lane a
15:41nice day a good ride I like to get into a terminal too that I haven't seen before
15:47and poke around I like to do that
15:53you also go through parts of the country unlike the interstate system that has
15:58virtually no signs of any commercial activity no billboards no exit signs no
16:05neon seeing America from a from a boxcar you see the wild horses you see the
16:10ghost towns you see you know you see everything about America that's that's
16:17wonderful to be out in the open prairie where there's nothing but beautiful land
16:20around me and I have all that solitude and all that time to think things out and
16:24get creative seeing different parts of the country a new new piece of scenery
16:30every day there are places like Idaho and Montana and Wyoming all those western
16:37places I love there those mountains are beautiful sheer excitement of getting to
16:43new places and new experiences just to see what I call priceless wonders those
16:49things that just by when you're riding a train and the adventure doesn't end when
16:55the rides over breathtaking landscapes give way to the colorful characters who
17:01pass through the train yards the friends you meet along the way it's that's what
17:07keeps me going back I think more than anything they're not a nine-to-five office
17:11kind of person and we can sit and tell tall tales and relate to each other I
17:16really enjoy those kind of folks we're not caught up in that hustle-bustle
17:20credit card plastic money car payments concrete highways and going from the
17:25office to the to the club to make the scene in other words I use the hobo as a
17:30medium for my poetry and found that everybody I've met so far has a story
17:35and that helps me tremendously with my with my feelings the friendship of the
17:42young fellow who took me to Canada and to Florida was precious when I started out I
17:50had my own preconceptions about who is out riding freight trains and I thought
17:57that it was a fairly homogenous group and I think what I've one of the things I
18:01really learned is that there are many different personalities that are out
18:05riding the freight and those different personalities rarely devolves their family
18:11names adopting unique aliases instead everybody's road name kind of gives in a
18:20nutshell who they are and what they represent so I can introduce myself as yet said John and
18:24that kind of tells a little bit of the other side of me rather than just being
18:29a hobo some guys that walk along the track they might call him track man you
18:34know and sidecar Sam he was riding sidecar on a tanker with his feet dangling down
18:41alongside the tank that's why I named him sidecar Sam then lowline Larry he
18:48rides from Florida all the way up to Utah and he rides that lowline so I give him the
18:52name a lowline everybody has a road name I was a stranger passing through your town I was a
19:09stranger passing through your town when I ask you a favor good girl you turned me down
19:20most the time I'm alone because I have my own destination and I have my own reason for going
19:34somewhere I love solitude I was lonely before I started riding I never get lonely anywhere I
19:40told my wife was going on an 18-day trip see I hopefully hopefully was sorry to see me go my
19:46sister and everybody they get a kick out of telling her friends what I do my brother has been with me
19:51one time but he wouldn't he doesn't want to do it again but he kind of likes the concept you know
19:56what I mean my mother looks a little bit askance at it you know like it's not the greatest thing but
20:02she understands that I enjoy it and have a good time doing it so my family I I don't really tell
20:07him anymore because you get a lot of a lot of shaking heads and shrugged shoulders and they
20:12don't really understand why I do it since I'm a senior citizen it's kind of frowned on a lot of
20:19them think it's really neat but then there's some that just think I'm out totally out of my mind most
20:24of my friends think it's it sounds like fun sounds entertaining they don't do it my friends they're
20:30they're a little more understanding they they they tell me it's happened more than a few times that
20:36they tell me they want to come out on a ride with me and as soon as I pack up my gear and I'm ready
20:40to head out the door they they seem to disappear my mother's been a lot of worrisome years I'm sure
20:46she when I got to Dunsmeyer on that trip there I called her and it just so happened I had a check
20:52coming from a job that I'd worked before I left a couple months before and she sent it to me by
20:57Western Union I got my butt on a goddamn Greyhound quitted quitted that whole boy
21:10outside the rain was falling on the lonely boxcar door but the little form of hobo bill lay dead upon the floor
21:33while the train sped through the darkness with the raging storm outside no one knew that hobo bill was taking his last ride
21:49always always cold and stuff was always blowing in your face and and I think the coldest ride I had was from
22:09Eugene Oregon to Klamath Falls Oregon and I don't own into Dunsmeyer but we rode over the top of the
22:22mountain there in a snowstorm and a couple other bows and myself were in the in the ice compartment back
22:28in those old old 40-foot reefers they if they didn't have any fruit they were carrying they'd leave those
22:36reefer tops open sometime and and it was an excellent place to get if you couldn't get inside
22:40of a boxcar somewhere and that's where we were on that on that mountain and that snowstorm sometimes
22:45it's just too hot you get stuck in the back end of a of a well car there's no way to get out of the
22:51sun and you broil to death the worst part about it would be in the situations where you've run out
22:56of water and you know that's going to be a long time before you can find any finding a place to take a
23:00shower being hungry lonesome towns waiting waiting waiting waiting what you're waiting for is when you
23:05finally catch out again and you start moving you have that ah this is what I was waiting for but when you
23:11wait a long time for that you some I sometimes sit there gonna is this really worth it just
23:16to get on that train this is really a pain but in the end it is always worth it well the worst thing
23:22that I used to think was getting a flat wheel and you're lying there trying to sleep and you're
23:27bouncing off the floor every time that wheel goes around the railroad boat running you out of the yards or the
23:33town clown putting a run on you from his town and telling you to move on I get sick and tired of the
23:44bugs sometimes some of the places by white slapping the bugs all of a sudden in the middle of the night
23:49man they'll break air and leave me out in the middle of nowhere in the desert that's kind of that's kind
23:53of hard the worst thing that could possibly happen for some of us would be if they made it legal I'd like to
24:01make a little disclaimer here just for our our lawyers sake no bail came down make sure we're
24:08all in line by no means does the National Hobo Association encourage anybody to go get on a
24:14freight train illegal and it's dangerous during the depression hundreds of trespassers invaded yards like
24:25this and risked the wrath of the railroad bull today it's a misdemeanor in most places the law's main
24:32concern being vandalism of railroad property but a pesky hobo would surely wind up in jail if the
24:40bull's warning goes unheeded had to run alongside follow the advice the older men hook a ride get in and
24:52the railroad police couldn't stop you from doing that because it was just as risky for them as it
25:01was for us but they could masterfully keep you out of the railroad yards and that's where we
25:12uh tangled with them back in the old days you're gonna go to the chain gang for 30 days you know
25:18not especially down south they were mean and bad well in the old days they used to hit you with them
25:31breakman's club today they're not too bad I guess they didn't stop us from getting aboard the train
25:41and slow moving and we were very agile and we had done it many times uh once we broke through their
25:51lines we were on our way to Peoria they walked the train with the deputy sheriffs pulled us off of
25:59there but it was kind of nice so like aunt bee bringing us dinner and everything you know it's
26:02kind of fun they wrote us a ticket for trespassing on railroad property we had to spend the night in
26:06the jail and told us to get out of town the next morning because the DA wasn't going to prosecute it
26:10the city was too small I was never badly treated by them they saw that I was younger they were in a
26:22sense protective but they did not want me aboard their free trains I got in into a box car with
26:30about eight other hobos and and I was hungry and I went down broke the seal on one of them refrigerator
26:36cars and did the unmancipal and took a whole case of green beans out of there and I threw it up in
26:42that box car and those hobos went to screaming at me and said man we'll get 50 years in jail what are
26:47you doing breaking the seal on that box car said they'll throw us all off this train I said well
26:52at least we'll be hungry won't be hungry and uh one old hobo way back in the corner of the box car
26:59he threw over a can opener and a spoon he said I'll join you young man
27:14hobo camps also known as jungles grew up near the train yards water tanks crew change points anywhere
27:21locomotive stop sooner or later you did fall into one of the camps and very imaginative men ran them
27:34they were congenial places you didn't want to leave you made friends you heard great stories well I
27:44remember going into a hobo jungle one time in in Barstow they had a really a large hobo camp there I
27:54participated in some community stew a couple times in my life fit for a king hobo stew the famous mulligan
28:07that's been made in spike cans and paint buckets under bridges and on the edge of the railroad yard since
28:12the civil war the stew pot cooked gurgled over the fire for days on end they just kept adding
28:18ingredients as the as the level went down those jungles they were clean they had a order they
28:26didn't throw garbage around usually if a guy come in the jungles he came there with is a loaf of bread
28:36bread and his bologna and cheese and maybe he wanted to make a a pot of coffee and wait for a train and catch
28:47out it's the townspeople that complain they complain to the police the police complain to the railroad bulls
28:55and the railroad bulls run them out they keep the place clean you know and pick up all their trash and
29:02stuff I don't think they'd even be bothered the jungles are being wiped out with caterpillar tractors
29:08so that they will be no place for the riders to hide there's very few jungles nowadays oh to sleep you
29:18weary hobo let the town strip slowly by
29:25can't you hear the steel rail humming that's a hobo lullaby though your clothes are torn ragged though your hair is turning gray
29:49though you've spent a lifetime searching though you've spent a lifetime searching
29:56you'll find happiness someday so go to sleep you weary hobo let the town strip slowly by
30:13can't you hear the steel rail humming that's a hobo's lullaby
30:25hobo's communicate through the national hobo association founded in 1987 by santa fe bow who's been a trained
30:39barnacle since the 70s his two goals were uniting others who shared a love of the open road and preserving
30:46the history of the hobo during his travels santa fe came across an old copy of the now defunct hobo news a
30:55publication that dated back to 1908 consequently he created the hobo times america's journal of wanderlust and began
31:05distributing it to kindred spirits in 1990 buzz potter came on board and together they upgraded the times to the
31:14only magazine in america that features a blend of railroad adventure stories poetry nostalgia and the
31:22current news of life on the hobo trail a letter that we got from a 96 year old former hobo who rode back in the
31:31depression and he found out about us he sent us a letter and it said very simply dear national hobo
31:37association please don't let the hobo die it grew slowly over the years and but steadily and today we have
31:46thousands of members nationwide that span the demographic spectrum from lawyers to labor professional
31:54people corporate people they're from all walks of life and they've been where I've got to go yet and
32:00I learned from their experiences it's amazing how many people don't realize they're hobos until they come
32:06and see us and they realize that they're on the same wavelength with us with their kindred spirits they
32:12have the wanderlust the sense of romance and and the sense of nostalgia all of a sudden we understood that
32:19there are other people like ourselves and we found out how to get a hold of them it provides a forum for us to
32:24get together and tell our tales rather than just maybe running into one or two people in the jungle and
32:30telling your individual experiences and to get together occasionally and share the fellowship that
32:35was forged early in early days around campfires and remote places throughout the country now we're a
32:41little more respectable I guess we get together with you know with much better stew and much better clothes
32:46and much warmer fires perhaps but the fellowship hasn't changed we enjoy our brotherhood camaraderie
32:52we sing songs we trade photographs and addresses and we sort of get together this to me is my family
32:58we have younger people now some of the the x-generation people who who are looking for themselves trying to
33:04find themselves I guess and and part of that is seeing America and we're trying to educate our
33:10children and our younger folk who might not know what a steam locomotive is and what a hobo jungle was
33:16and a mulligan stew and a pot and a frisco circle and stuff like that terms that were used back in the
33:2120s and 30s and 40s many NHA members are devoted collectors of hobo memorabilia George Horton has acquired
33:32hobo artifacts such as these antique carvings each whittled from a single piece of wood these whistles and
33:40chains were formed in a similar fashion enterprising hobos even chiseled peach pits into monkey trinkets
33:48delro mines wrote a book on hobo nickels explaining how bows tooled Indian head coins to match the profiles
33:58of their paying customers they'd even reshape the buffalo image on the reverse side drum and manfields art
34:06reflects earlier days when it was pretty much a man's world out on the road but nowadays women are
34:14prominent members of the hobo community we have a lot of fun together and it becomes like your extended
34:22family your brothers your sisters and you make friends for life so I love them hoboings definitely in
34:30Connecticut shorty's blood her father was a hobo for 40 years and by no means a bum you see real hobos
34:40bristle at the intimation that they shunned work in fact they discreetly marked their own hieroglyphics
34:46around train yards to alert each other about town prospects
34:54an oft-repeated axiom sums up the men on the road a hobo is a traveling worker a tramp is a traveling non-worker
35:04a bum is a non-traveling non-worker you got to do work in order to keep yourself independent traveling money
35:16take any kind of a job whether it's two hours or two days or two months get a road stake the western farmers
35:28the western farmers had a deal with the railroads whereby they would ship their cattle from the ranch to the slaughterhouse in Chicago
35:42they had to have somebody aboard the train so that at every twelve hour interval you stopped unloaded the cattle
35:56exercise them watered them fed them got back aboard the train and went on to Chicago
36:04you got no money for this but you did get transportation
36:10we used to hay that have two cuttings of hay a year and you're good for a week to two weeks of haying
36:21we went and caught a freight out of Denver and went west and we wound up in Yakima Washington
36:29and he had an ant there that had an apple orchard and he thought well we could find that place and maybe we could pick some apples
36:38we never found the place
36:40we had the great state of Washington state that's the real apple knocking country and we were everybody was a hobo back then
36:53Roadhog washed all the windows in my house inside and out side door had scrubbed my kitchen floor immaculate and they raked all the leaves in my yard
37:02it was fall late September and that was to pay me back for the ride and the you know the little bedroom I gave them
37:10so separate from mine of course
37:12well I've done all dug irrigation ditches broke horses hoed watermelon in the fields
37:20I've done just about every kind of work you can think of
37:24I worked in a produce packing house loading lettuce bananas and stuff like that
37:33primarily I play guitar I do a lot I do a lot of folk festivals around the country
37:37I play veterans hospitals I do children's hospitals
37:40I try to bring a few hundred dollars along with me on the freights when I take a trip
37:44and if I run out or if I happen to follow the job I'll take it I do anything from painting carpentry concrete work
37:53trimming trees and when I'm broken between guitar gigs I go to day labor and push a wheelbarrow dig a ditch
37:59just anything I can you know to get by you know
38:02the average hobo isn't gonna last longer than any job
38:08ah today there's a new class of unticketed passengers who vary from the old time hobos
38:16they aren't chasing down jobs they're running from them
38:20and have come to be known as yuppie or recreational hobos
38:25yuppie hobos
38:27they're a pretty good group
38:29a lot of those guys really do more than their share
38:33I approve of them
38:35I'd like to see everybody see America
38:37it's a beautiful country and there's so much that the people don't really see
38:42well you know everybody deserves a vacation
38:45these guys work hard you know they put all the big money together
38:48I mean if I could have a BMW and ride the rails and have the better of two equals
38:51I'd have a great life too
38:52they're not as generous as our old school were and has been
38:58they're a different breed of bulls
39:03I'm out there just like them just riding the rails seeing the country
39:06and that's really what the real hobos are all about
39:09I had somebody send me fifty dollars a month that was the deal
39:12couldn't send me more than fifty dollars a month
39:14unless I came back to Minneapolis and re-signed the papers
39:18because I figured the less I'd spend the more I'd experience
39:21and so I would go that last week you know where I'd burn all my money
39:27and then I wouldn't have any money for a week
39:30I always found that the third week of the month I had more fun
39:34as a professional pilot there is a courtesy among airline pilots
39:39that if you present your ID card they'll let you ride up in the cockpit
39:42and since the name of the game is traveling for free
39:45it's a little faster way of getting somewhere if you don't have quite the time
39:48coming here I rode up in the cockpit of a 747 400
39:53where they offered me their bunk room to sleep
39:55which is just like a Pullman car
39:58so it's really a high class hobo way of traveling
40:02I don't really think I qualify as a yuppie
40:05I mean I'm not really young and I'm not trying to be upwardly mobile
40:09I'm sort of a professional now doing nursing work
40:12but I don't really think anybody that knows me would characterize me as a yuppie
40:16I don't really think I am
40:18I got no complaints about other people having a different approach to it somewhat
40:24I think most people sort of called me like a recreational rider I guess
40:28so I got into riding freight trains as a out of necessity
40:32but after I eventually got back on my feet and got to working
40:35and got a place to live and all that
40:37then I became somewhat of a recreational rider
40:39because I just couldn't get away from it
40:41I just had that wanderlust in my blood
40:43but we all have one thing in common
40:45we like to steal rides
40:47besides traveling for free
40:51the ever frugal hobo has learned to survive
40:54the mother nature's free lunches
40:57most people think that hobos went to houses for meals
41:01or work and try and pay for them
41:04but a lot of meals were taken from right around here
41:08right along trackside
41:10here we have plantain
41:13which no doubt was definitely part of the hobo diet
41:18I know a lot of stories I've read
41:22hobos and other people
41:24would always just pick up a little bit
41:26chew on it
41:27taste good with other plants
41:29and between plantain
41:32with a little bit of lemon clover flavor
41:35you can eat a great meal
41:37when I finally broke free of money
41:39and realized that I could live off the
41:42I could live off the blackberries
41:44you know that
41:45and I know where they are
41:46and the raspberries are where they are
41:48and the other things that are around the yards
41:49you can eat
41:50right off the land
41:51or the dumpsters
41:53or whatever else
41:55a quick-witted hobo
41:57has traditionally added humor
41:59to his social commentary
42:01put your lobsters in the trash
42:04eat your pheasant while it's under glass
42:06get into your garbage
42:08or have no cash
42:09little dinner out of your gun in a flash
42:11won't you hold them pickles
42:13hold that lettuce
42:15special orders
42:16they don't upset us
42:17just as long as they would let us
42:20dive it our way
42:22yeah we're gonna go dumpster diving
42:26I'm surviving my
42:29kitty cats are thriving today
42:32just open the lid
42:35have a little look
42:36it's all prepared
42:37there's no need to cook
42:39we're going dumpster diving
42:41whoa whoa hooray
42:42I told you can't wait
42:45you cat
42:46I saw you
42:47catching rides on freight trains
42:51is notoriously dangerous
42:53even the most seasoned hobo
42:55will caution against novices
42:57trying to jump on board a moving train
42:59telling horror stories of accidents they've witnessed
43:02resulting in agonizing dismemberments
43:05or gruesome deaths
43:07one wrong move
43:09and you've ended your days
43:11there were extended couplings
43:13probably 10 or 15 feet across
43:15and the trains were moving
43:17and there were the two of us
43:18one guy would stand here
43:20and shine the light at the couplings
43:22and after he safely got across
43:24we'd leave the light on
43:25and this was at night
43:26and train maybe going 50 or 60 miles an hour
43:29we'd toss the flashlight to the other guy
43:31and of course it was up to him
43:32to make sure he caught it
43:33and then in turn
43:34he would shine the light
43:36as the second guy would go across the railings
43:38and we had to do this for about four or five cars
43:40and I think back
43:41it's probably the most foolish thing I ever did
43:44I'd never do it again
43:45I still get goose bumps when I think about it
43:48there's dangers out there
43:49and there's no way you can avoid them
43:51and even the most experienced veterans
43:53cannot avoid the dangers of riding trains
43:55I mean I just really never travel with somebody I don't know
43:59you just
44:00you just
44:01it's just too chancy
44:03it's too chancy
44:04people
44:06who wish you harm
44:09and want to
44:10want to take you and rob you
44:12that's the biggest danger today
44:14it's not from the bulls
44:15and it's not from falling off the trains
44:17back in the old days
44:19there was nothing for
44:2110-15 guys and a side door pullman
44:24which is a boxcar
44:25to ride in the same car
44:27nowadays
44:28you wouldn't dare
44:30to ride with
44:31strange
44:32hobos
44:33or anyone you didn't know
44:35you ride by yourself
44:37I was learning how to fight
44:39from a friend of mine on a boxcar one time
44:41he showed me how to
44:42take a knife away from a guy
44:43and flip him
44:44and all that stuff
44:45he learned it in the Marine Corps I think
44:47we practiced that in a boxcar moving about 80 miles an hour one time
44:51when it comes to train riding
44:53you have to give that train all of your respect
44:56but the train will never give you any
44:58see you can't rely upon the train to get you where you're going
45:02or to be a smooth ride or a safe one
45:04I have a great concern about equipment failure
45:07I have a concern about human error with regard to rail operations
45:11and these kinds of things I have no control over
45:14and you never know whenever you're going to be on a train
45:17that has a crew that's gone to sleep at the throttle
45:20and next thing you know you're in a big pile up at the bottom of a hill
45:23I rode the rods from Iowa to Illinois
45:36and a more hellish experience
45:39no young fellow ever had
45:43it was horrible
45:47you set up a little protection there
45:52keep the soot out of your face
45:55and you bounced along
45:58and you felt the ride would never end
46:01it was a descent into hell
46:05and how these men could do it
46:08again and again and again bewildered me
46:12no matter how long it may take us
46:16life-threatening challenges took our new dimensions
46:19on December the 7th 1941
46:22the day many believed the hobo died
46:24will win through to absolute victory
46:28no longer did Bose jungle up in Frisco
46:32Spookolo or many hopeless
46:35now it was Anzio, Normandy and Iwo Jima
46:38and when they were welcomed back home
46:42there were jobs for everyone
46:44new automobiles and even diesel locomotives
46:47life on the hobo trail would indeed
46:50never be the same
46:52what will become of the hobo
46:57whenever his time comes to die
47:03I wouldn't trade my experiences out here on the road
47:07for anybody's college education
47:10and though I never really accomplished anything
47:14by all this travel
47:16it satisfied something in me
47:20I don't know whether I was born with it
47:25but it started very young
47:28and I never stopped
47:31I got stopped
47:34but I would
47:38look right now to be in one of those hobo camps
47:43will they tell us that we cannot ride
47:50will the hobo come with the rich man
47:56will the hobo survive
47:58or will he go the way of the steam train
48:01we wonder
48:03if you think about how many lifestyles
48:10or how many businesses
48:13or whatever have lasted 150 years
48:16there's not very damn many of them
48:18and yet hobo continues to be with us
48:20the day is coming when we won't be able to ride freight trains
48:23this is not the 30s or the 40s anymore
48:26but that doesn't mean that it still isn't an alluring prospect
48:29for people of adventurous souls
48:31as long as there's trains there's going to be people riding them
48:33I can guarantee you that
48:34with a strong railroad industry
48:36you're going to have plenty of trains
48:38and you're going to have more people riding them
48:39I had a dream about a train that was completely hobo proof
48:43there was no possible way you could jump on it
48:46in fact it was just so slick
48:48there was no grab irons
48:49there was nothing
48:50I don't know if the rail industry is going to go that far
48:52and design cars exclusively to keep people off of them
48:56it's really getting a lot tougher
48:57a lot of railroad corporations are merging together
49:00security is tightening up a lot
49:02because there's a lot of
49:03there's a few idiots out there derailing trains
49:05it might get harder again to hop freights
49:07it might get easier
49:09but it will always be here
49:11there's not going to be too much of it in the future I'm afraid
49:14because well they're seeming to get pretty tough on hobos now
49:20there's just more and more poor people
49:22I'm sorry to say I think there's going to be more and more poor people
49:26they may be back on the trains again going around looking for odd jobs
49:30I think maybe the hobo is pretty much gone in the east
49:35but in the west he will live
49:37the old hobos now are too old to travel
49:41they're becoming homeboys now
49:43they just stay in one location they don't travel no more
49:46I think we'll always have heavy duty rail riders
49:49people that want to ride freights and go for the adventure
49:52but the old Bridger steam train hobo
49:55they're pretty much gone
49:56we're losing a few more every year
49:58and my era of hobos
50:02they're vastly dying out
50:08the real hobo is a dying breed
50:11a guy out there who's trying to get by
50:13going from town to town looking for work
50:15the real gentleman honest fellow is a hobo
50:18I have a sinking feeling in my heart
50:21that the day of the hobo is about over
50:24I think it's a fading game
50:27there's a legacy that will always live on
50:29and it will change with the different groups who are out there
50:32but as long as there's a rail to ride
50:35I think someone will be riding it
50:36the future could be pretty bright actually
50:39if a young man should want a hobo in this country
50:43it might be the way to go
50:45I think there will always be
50:48young men like me
50:52who are a little bit
50:56a thwart civilization
51:00I've been a loner
51:03I've been my own man
51:06fiercely so
51:09hey
51:11now come alive
51:12all you rampers
51:14all you travelers on the road
51:18well the time has come
51:21to remember what you're going
51:24like where do you come from
51:29come from and where do you think you're going
51:32I don't know how any of the bows ride the trains these days
51:49for the simple reason they got all the letters cut off
51:52and uh
51:54you say to yourself
51:55well how do they get up there
51:56you know
51:58but they do
51:59and they make their way
52:00and they're still hobo
52:02and all around the country
52:03god bless them
52:05see you down the road
52:09all around the water tanks
52:16waiting for a train
52:20a thousand miles away from home
52:24sleeping in the rain
52:27i walked up to a brakeman
52:32to give him my talk
52:35he says
52:37if you've got money
52:39i'll see that you don't walk
52:43i haven't got a nickel
52:47not a penny can i show
52:51get off
52:52get off
52:53get off
52:54you railroad bum
52:55and he slammed that boxcar door
52:58though my pocketbook is empty
53:08and my heart is full of pain
53:12i'm a thousand miles away from home
53:16waiting for a train
53:19the train
53:21you bleep
53:23leep
53:24leep
53:26we
53:30we
53:31we
53:33we
53:35have
53:39we
53:41hear
53:42the
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